December 22, 1999
Messianic Jews won't back down
___WASHINGTON (BP)--Two Messianic Jewish organizations criticized in a letter directed to the Southern Baptist Convention say they will not be pressured by criticism, threats or violence into shunning their Jewish heritage just because they believe Jesus is the Messiah.
___In a Dec. 3 letter to SBC President Paige Patterson, Gedale Horowitz, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council, charged that the SBC's "endorsement of the use in Christian worship and conversion of symbols and rituals sacred only to Judaism" by Messianic Jews is offensive to "the entire Jewish community" and should be halted.
___The Horowitz letter was written to Patterson the day after seven young men identifying themselves as members of New Jewish Order, a Jewish extremist group, forcibly entered the Paris office of Jews for Jesus, beat a staff member, painted anti-Christian slogans on the walls and trashed the office's equipment.
___The Paris incident is the latest of an escalating series of attacks on Messianic organizations and churches around the world by Jewish extremist groups, including the violent disruption of services last September at a Messianic church in New York City. Officiating at that service was the president of Chosen People Ministries--one of the three groups Horowitz complained about in his letter.
___"If somehow we don't get together very soon and find common ground, this is going to continue to escalate and someone is going to be badly hurt or killed," said Gus Elowitz, pastor of a Houston Messianic congregation also taken to task by Horowitz in the Jewish Community Relations Council's letter to Patterson.
___Elowitz serves as vice president of the North American Messianic Association within the SBC.
___"We must have a break in the hostilities," Elowitz said. "Messianic Jews are getting chopped up by friendly fire from people who should be on our side on so many issues, but who have a problem with us because being Jews, we refuse to turn our backs on our Jewishness after becoming Christians. We can't do that, and we won't do that."
___Unless Jewish extremists teach their members to provide basic human respect for Messianic Jews and respond to them as fellow human beings, instead of something to be cursed and hated, there will only be more terror unleashed against Messianic Jews, said Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People Ministries.
___"There is no way that I am going to turn my back on my heritage because my use of the symbols of my heritage offends Horowitz. We don't stop being Jews when we become Christians," Glaser said.
___Horowitz's Nov. 8 letter was signed by five other Jewish leaders, including the top administrators of four Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish rabbinical schools. The mainstream Jewish council Horowitz leads encompasses 60-plus member organizations, including B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Community and the American Jewish Congress and is not associated with Jewish extremist groups.
___In his letter, Horowitz complained that Elowitz deceives Jews by listing his Messianic church in the Houston Yellow Pages under synagogues and by using the title rabbi.
___"We are a synagogue, and I am a rabbi," Elowitz responded. "I am sorry if Horowitz doesn't think a full-blooded Jew like me can go to seminary and become a rabbi if he follows Christ, but I am and I do."
___Glaser agreed that Messianic Jews have the right to call their meeting places synagogues and have done so since the time of Christ.
___"The Greek word used for the gathering of believers in the Bible is synagogue. The early churches met in synagogues. They did not go around talking about church. It was synagogue, where Jesus was worshiped and taught as Messiah. What else would they have called it?" Glaser asked.
___"As Messianic Jews, we don't tell Jewish rabbis how to conduct their services, nor do we protest when Jewish community groups use symbols from our shared heritage," Elowitz said. "Why must we be the targets of such attacks by fellow Jews because we follow the Jewish Messiah?"
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