Who Is a Jew?

In Israel, a Jew can believe in almost anything—except Jesus—and still be considered a Jew.

Messianic Jews—people of Jewish heritage who believe Jesus (or Yeshua) is the Messiah—got an unwanted Christmas present. On December 25, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Jews who believe in Jesus are not entitled to automatic citizenship in Israel (CT, Feb. 5, 1990, p. 57).

The “who is a Jew” question has vexed Israeli politicians and Jewish scholars for years. When the modern State of Israel was established in 1948 as a distinctly Jewish homeland, its leaders had to come up with a law that would give Jews dispersed around the world a clear path to Israeli citizenship. In 1950, the Israeli Parliament passed the Law of Return, which, in essence, defined a Jew as a person born to a Jewish mother or who converts to Judaism and professes no other faith. Anyone in the world who fit this description could automatically become a citizen of Israel.

But what about a person born to a Jewish mother who accepts Yeshua as the Messiah? A small but growing number of such persons exists both within Israel and throughout the world. When a South African couple who are Messianic Jews applied for Israeli citizenship, the issue went to the Supreme Court, which resulted in last year’s landmark decision. “Those who believe in Jesus are, in fact, Christians,” wrote Justice Menachem Elon.

To evangelicals who hold the modern State of Israel close to their hearts, this decision is difficult to ignore. It perpetuates the long-standing rejection of Jesus by organized Judaism by making Messianic Jews seek citizenship through the routine channels, thus treating them as Gentiles.

That Messianic Jews are singled out by law is further noteworthy, when one considers the various brands of Judaism that Israel does accept automatically as citizens. Nonbelieving atheist Jews not only may have automatic citizenship, but they make up a good share of Israeli political leadership. And, says Chosen People Ministries executive director Sam Nadler, Jews who have bought into New Age religions are also granted the special privilege of automatic citizenship.

But according to many observers, including Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of the Holyland Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a potent factor behind the decision is political. “The who-is-a-Jew issue is at the crux of Israeli politics,” Eckstein explains. “The ability of the government to build and maintain a coalition rests on agreement on this issue.” In other words, the Court decided it could risk alienating Messianic Jews in order to placate the ultraorthodox Jews who want a purely religious state. Ironically, in an earlier case involving a Jewish person who became a Roman Catholic brother, the Supreme Court ruled that he had forfeited his right to automatic citizenship, because by becoming a Catholic priest he had ceased to be a Jew. But the rabbinic courts differed, maintaining that even the “sin” of apostasy does not erase one’s Jewishness. In the Israeli legal system, the Law of Return is the only law that gives preferential treatment to Jews over Arabs or other people groups. For now, at least, the secular court’s decision prevents Jews who worship Yeshua from being fully and legally considered Jews.

No doubt Messianic Jews view this decision as a setback. They shouldn’t, nor should those of us who have accepted the Messiah without having to swim against the tide of family lineage. If anything, this law is yet further verification of our Lord’s words when he warned us of the cost of following him.

By Lyn Cryderman

To laugh well is to live well. That is the message of Norman Cousins’s latest book, Head First: The Biology of Hope.

This is not the first time Cousins, former editor of Saturday Review, has extolled the medical benefits of laughter. His 1976 book, Anatomy of an Illness, tells how he used laughter as one part of a treatment program for his life-threatening illness. In the ten years since then, medical researchers have added experimental evidence to Cousins’s anecdotal claim. As a result, many hospitals have added “laughter therapy” to their treatment repertoire. Laughter heals.

But Cousins goes beyond the physiological reasons why laughter heals and asks the question, What makes us laugh? As a bridge to this deeper thought, Cousins remembers Dostoevski’s bold claim: “If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you’ll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man.”

Talk of souls and goodness moves us from the biological and scientific to the spiritual. And although we don’t often think of spiritual matters in humorous terms, it probably would be wise if we more often looked for the humorous side. Humor comes in handy when dealing with the Tammy Fayes, Reverend Ikes, and other odd ducks of our world.

The Bible agrees that “a cheerful heart is good medicine.” But the Bible doesn’t single out laughter as the magic healing pill. The Bible seems to cite laughter as merely the signal of an overall attitude that both embraces life and wryly accepts our creaturely status before the Creator.

This attitude says that life is a good thing, a gift from God to be used as creatively and positively as possible. Hard times may come, but God gives strength to cope. That may not bring belly laughs; but it should leave us with a deep sense of joy and hope.

This life-embracing attitude also prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously. Who are we, after all, to question the mind of our all-knowing Creator? Some things are simply beyond us. And when we see our simple silliness in the face of events that are obviously far bigger than we are, laughter is often the best response.

By Terry C. Muck

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