Reboot

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Hello world! After starting this blog nearly seven years ago—and hardly contributing any posts—I'm trying again! I had originally limited myself to topics related to being a Messianic Jew, so in this reboot, I'm going to permit myself to write a bit more broadly—though from the same Messianic Jewish perspective. When appropriate, I'll repost articles to ...

Jews, Choose! (An Exhortation in Honor of Chanukah)

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  “A blogger writes about how one of Judaism’s holiest days ended, for her, in a strip club, while elsewhere a guy strolls into a tattoo parlor requesting a Star of David. Two women exchange wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony, and hipsters toss back bottles of HE’BREW, The Chosen Beer…. couldn’t have seen these ...

The Real Story of Chanukah

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With “the holiday season” now upon us, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few thoughts with you about Chanukah, the Jewish Feast of Dedication. Personally, I’m not a big fan of typical Chanukah observances for one simple reason—we tend to let them steal God’s thunder, so to speak. How do we do this? ...

Jewish-flavored Church

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I recently witnessed a Jewish believer in Yeshua trying to concisely describe Messianic Judaism to a roomful of Christians.  Now, I completely understand and can relate to the challenges a speaker faces when he needs to close the frame of reference gap and establish rapport with his audience. So I empathize with this man and ...

Deviants Wanted, Messianics Need Not Apply

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Our local Jewish newspaper here in Phoenix lists thirteen local Reform synagogues or congregations—a little more than a quarter of the congregational listings.  Add to that the six listings for Conservative congregations, and the Reform-Conservative majority rockets past a third of all organizations listed.  The Metropolitan Phoenix and surrounding areas' Orthodox--the expected preservers of Torah, tradition and ...

“Re-Judaizing Jesus”

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Time Magazine recently published an article which implies that a rising number of Christian teachers regard " sources like the Mishnah and Rabbi Akiva as vital to understanding" Yeshua.  Surely, reference to this literature among the Hebrew Roots community is common, but according to the aforementioned article, it is also true of at least two Christian ...

The Brightest Star?

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Lindsey Miller laments about Pesach in Spain in her recent article, "The Brightest Star."  While schooling in Sevilla, she was unable to find a Passover celebration amidst the overwhemingly Catholic city, and instead found herself ogling the magnificent display of Domingo de la Resurreccion—the local celebration of Easter.  One of the things she noted about the people of Sevilla ...

Hagee: “Defending” Israel to Death

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The CUFI website (Christians United for Israel, John Hagee's Christian lobbying organization on behalf of the state of Israel) boldly displays Isaiah 62:1, emblazoned across its masthead, "For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet."  But given the content of Hagee's new book, "In Defense of Israel," I ...

The Great American Jewish Placebo

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In a recent article, George D. Hanus writes, "The United States... is a country of immigrants.  For centuries, wave after wave arrived on these shores, fleeing persecution, hoping to better their economic condition and merge into the mainstream of American society.... Immigrant Jews rapidly learned English, adopted American dress styles and sent their children to colleges ...

Do We Believe?

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This was the question that the World Jewish Digest asked this past high holiday season in light of a 2006 Harris Poll "showing that just 30 percent of Jews in a nationwide survey said they were 'absolutely certain' there was a God."1  According the issue's cover story, 76% of Protestants, 64% of Catholics, and 93% ...