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Messianic groups fly under Valley's Radar

BETH SHAPIRO

Staff Writer, Jewish News of Greater Phoenix

http://www.jewishaz.com/issues...

While driving along Valley streets, you might do a double take when you notice a sidewalk sign advertising Shabbat services on Saturday mornings at congregations called Beth Simchat Hamashiach, Baruch HaShem or Beth Yachad. The names may sound authentically Jewish, but if you listen closely, you will hear a different tune. They are members of the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues, in which worshippers observe Jewish ritual and practice while following the Gospel of Jesus.

A goal of the movement is to "provoke our Jewish brothers and sisters to jealousy," so they will accept Jesus as the messiah, according to a passage from the New Testament paraphrased on jewishvoice.org, the Web site of Phoenix-based Jewish Voice Ministries International (JVMI). A messianic outreach organization, JVMI broadcasts its message to millions of people worldwide, including in Israel, through high definition digital cameras from inside its new International Messianic Media Center.

Sometimes, though, these congregations garner unexpected results.

"The unanticipated consequence of the Messianic movement is that some convert to Judaism," says Patricia Power, undergraduate academic adviser in the religious studies department at Arizona State University. "It's not a one-way street."

Power knows this firsthand because, four years ago, she converted to Judaism at Temple Chai in Phoenix, after years of intensive self-study of Torah and biblical Hebrew while a member of a local Messianic group that eventually disbanded. She grew up as a Catholic and later joined a Bible church after marrying. Friends invited her to join their Messianic group.

"Judaism spoke to me academically, intellectually and spiritually," she says. "This was not anticipated by the evangelical movement."

Power, a member of Temple Chai and The New Shul, in Scottsdale, is working toward her doctorate in religious studies and anticipates that her dissertation will focus on "identity formation in marginal Jewish groups, predominantly American Messianic groups, but I am also looking at the Lubavitchers, too, as marginalized because of their messianic beliefs. Messianic Jews are so fascinating because they want to maintain those connections in both worlds, but it's not possible to do that long term."

Sarah Weiner, editor of JVMI's Jewish Voice magazine, has a different story. She tells Jewish News that "Jesus revealed himself" to her when she was 31 years old during an encounter several years ago, while asleep. Weiner, a Valley resident, says she identifies as being Jewish but strongly believes that Jesus is the messiah.

"I heard a voice say, 'Here am I.' His presence was next to me and I heard his voice. It was undeniable. Somehow, it was Yeshua."

Weiner, who began school in Cleveland and later moved to Phoenix when she was 10, was raised by Jewish parents with Conservative backgrounds. Her family had ties to Temple Beth Israel (now Congregation Beth Israel) and she married a Jewish man. Before her mystical experience, she researched Jewish history, including the history of the Jews who followed Jesus.

"I didn't know about Jews who believed this way," says Weiner. She sought out programs and contacted a local rabbi for guidance. Without any leads, she says she considered going to a church, but she thought, "What would I do there? I'm a Jew."

Weiner found some answers in a JVMI television program. "I saw three Jewish women ... with their husbands who were leaders in something called a Messianic congregation. I didn't know what it was, (but) I pursued it."

She later attended a JVMI group prayer session with her husband, who agreed to join her as long as crosses were not displayed. "There were no crosses," she says. "I also met other Jews who felt the same way and who also had supernatural experiences."

As far as the impact of Messianic groups in the Valley, Power says, "It's virtually nil. I don't think it's taken off here as it did in other major cities, on the East Coast."

Local rabbis have had little contact with people claiming to be Messianic Jews.

"Jews for Jesus imports a whole bunch of people once or twice a year to bring them to the ASU campus," says Rabbi Barton Lee, director of the Hillel Jewish Student Center at ASU in Tempe. "For a few days they pass out a lot of stuff and leave. It's like a traveling road show."

"We try and reach out to students and address missionaries. Jews tend to be seventh-day absentists. If you really care about missionary stuff you'll go to shul more regularly, be a Torah student and celebrate the Jewish holidays in your home. That's the only remedy."

Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel, director of the Chabad at ASU, had a recent encounter with a kippah-wearing man. Tiechtel says during their discussion he noticed the man was wearing a cross under his shirt. He says the conversation didn't go any further.

"Many students know what they don't believe in, but they don't know what they do believe in," he says. "That's what I'm trying to do more and more. After a missionary approaches them, they want to find out more about Judaism and become more involved in Jewish life."

"We're as concerned as anybody, but it's not priority one for our local program," says Rabbi Maynard Bell, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee. "Metropolitan Phoenix has about 100,000 Jews. I would be surprised if you could count the Messianic Jews in more than three digits. I think it's more of an annoyance. Statistically, the number of Jews that get lost to Messianic Judaism is a tiny fraction of the Jews who are lost to us through intermarriage, assimilation and apathy."

Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz is the founder and executive director of the Los Angeles office of Jews for Judaism International, a counter-missionary organization (jewsforjudism.org), which expects to expand its program to train high school and college students to act as liaisons on campus to mobilize against proselytizing in schools.

"People could say there's not really a missionary problem anymore," he confides. "Evangelicals are the best friends of Israel and Jews for Jesus are not on the street corners like they used to be. But what they don't realize is ... that they're getting into our house by the Internet, facebook.com, youtube.com or through peer-to-peer proselytizing. You don't think it's a problem, but it really is.