Israel needs to stop denying citizenship to Messianic Jews
I just returned home from my 23rd trip to Israel, but this trip was unique. A few of my fellow Evangelical pastors from Southern California and I traveled to Israel to demonstrate solidarity with Israel in the context of Oct. 7, and to draw attention to the fact that Israel’s existence today presents both a moral and theological test for every Christian.
The moral test is that Israel is on the frontlines against evil ideologies that seek to destroy Western civilization and replace it with an Islamic extremist new world order.
Hitler believed in a superior race.
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The Iranian leadership believes in a superior faith.
It is a demonic ideology that is the enemy of humanity. To remain silent in the face of evil is to be complicit because evil by nature is like a cancer that works silently to destroy.
Every Christian should have the courage to expose evil and confront it — to be a kind of Churchill and Bonhoeffer in our day.
In addition, every Christian should pass the theological test, which is that God’s unfolding plan from eternity past to eternity future runs through Israel, in particular the central figure of God’s unfolding plan, the Messiah of Israel: Yeshua, the Davidic King, the Savior of the world, who is the Lord.
This is the One who at His second coming will sit on the throne of David in Jerusalem and will establish the kingdom of God while restoring planet Earth to wholeness, with Israel at the center.
Standing with Israel today means standing with the unfolding plan of God for Israel’s existence.
Those who try to destroy Israel are in opposition to the very purposes of God.
Growing antisemitism but rejected by Israel
But it was on this trip, in the unique context of the times in which we now live after the tragic and evil massacre on Oct. 7, that my eyes began to see something more clearly than I ever had before.
Jews who embrace Jesus as the Jewish Messiah are now no longer considered Jewish enough to become Israeli citizens.
Despite this dangerous time of growing antisemitism throughout the world, the door to their ancient Jewish homeland and this safe haven is closed to them.
The following stories are real and ongoing (the names have been changed for legal privacy).
Dan Blumfeld came to Israel almost 10 years ago with the dream of immigrating to his ancestral homeland.
Although both his parents had already obtained Israeli citizenship as Jews years before, Dan had the misfortune of falling upon a clerk who decided to send his application to a committee to further investigate his ethnic background.
Once the investigation revealed that his parents were Messianic Jews, he was denied citizenship. It didn’t matter what he personally believed — he was tainted by the beliefs of his family.
The Interior Ministry no longer considers Dan’s parents Jews because of their faith, but his grandparents were not believers and traditional Jews.
According to the Law of Return, that makes Dan eligible for citizenship regardless of his own beliefs.
Nonetheless, a judge has ruled against him in district court, and now his only option is to take it to the highest court.
After hiring a lawyer and fighting a case that has cost him over $50,000 and still left him without status, his only recourse is to spend an additional $30,000 to take it to the Supreme Court.
If he succeeds, he will have used close to $100,000, money that could have gone toward buying a home but was instead used to secure citizenship that rightly belonged to him under Israeli law.
In another case, Phil Goldman and his wife, Sharon, are both in their 80s. They came to Israel some 15 years ago and also ran into difficulty once it was discovered that they believed in the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus).
Due to their advanced age, no one has tried to deport them.
But they have lived with virtually no rights, benefits, or even the ability to drive since they have no way of presenting any documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles that would issue them a license.
This has made life extremely difficult for the elderly couple who just wanted to live out their golden years in the land they love and ethnically belong.
Ironically, their Jewish nonbelieving granddaughter immigrated with no problem whatsoever.
Similarly, Marvin Friedman and his wife, Sarah, are the Jewish parents of Isaac, who has lived in the country for over 20 years and is married to Mira, an Israeli-born woman.
Isaac’s parents, also in their 80s, would like to live out their final years close to their grandchildren but have also run into the bureaucratic nightmare of delays and roadblocks.
These cases involve families who are being prevented from reuniting with their loved ones already in Israel.
In each of these circumstances, children, parents, or grandchildren already have citizenship as Jews, but these disenfranchised family members are unable to be recognized as equally Jewish.
There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
Such moves by Israeli authorities smack of blatant religious discrimination based on one’s personal faith convictions, which do not nullify ethnicity.
They are also putting Jewish lives in danger.
Because of the very perilous times in which we live, every Jewish person should be free to make Aliyah and become a citizen of Israel, regardless of their personal religious views.
Americans live in a country where many cities are now embracing a wave of antisemitism. Since most of the U.S. Jewish population live in major cities, they now have to adapt to a new reality that threatens to harm them even if they have no ties to the Jewish homeland.
We’ve seen it happen on campuses to Jewish students, and we’ve seen it almost daily as anti-Israel protests foment hatred and call for Jewish genocide.
This has caused many American Jews to wonder where or to whom they can turn for help. This is also happening to Jews around the world, where often the danger is much worse.
At no time in recent history have these kinds of anti-Jewish sentiments been more serious than since the harrowing days of the Holocaust, which snuffed out the lives of six million Jews.
Many Jews disagree with each other theologically
Most Israeli citizens would have no qualms in granting citizenship to American Jews of other faiths or no faith at all.
They respect any American who has left their comfortable culture, with all the perks it offers, knowing the hardships they will have to face in learning a whole new language and culture.
But Messianic Jews are facing discrimination for believing the biblical accounts of the Messiah’s identity rather than adopting the rabbinic positions, which widely differ depending upon the particular stream of Judaism.
Some Chabad Jews, for example, believe that the late Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was the promised Messiah.
Other Orthodox Jews disagree.
Yet neither group faces opposition — both are warmly welcomed as Israeli citizens despite the obvious discrepancy.
How to help Messianic Jews
What can we do?
Quite a bit.
First, let us pray for Israel and the leadership of Israel, which are under the heavy burden of confronting the evil of our time. Let us stand with Israel in support and love.
Second, let us also pray that Israel afresh recaptures the vision of Ben Gurion’s Declaration of Independence speech of May 14, 1948, which said,
“By reestablishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew …The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the ingathering of the exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice, and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race, or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the holy places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the charter of the United Nations.”
Third, followers of Jesus can turn the spotlight on this blind spot of blatant injustice to help Israel’s leadership bring about a much-needed course correction. Israel must not turn anyone born Jewish away from entrance into their ancestral homeland.
Fourth, let us be a voice in public and private to say that “all Jewish lives matter” and deserve the right to return to their ancestral home of Israel.
A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — period.
As the lyric of Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem reads, “As long as in the heart, within, The Jewish soul yearns, and towards the ends of the east, an eye gazes toward Zion, Our hope is not yet lost, The hope of two thousand years, To be a free nation in our own land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
Fifth, if you are burdened by this, you can take a moment to write to leaders in Israel to explain the problem and express that you stand with “all Jewish lives.” Ask leaders to follow the Law of Return for all grandchildren of Jews, without being required to declare their personal religious beliefs. Request that considering the dangerous times in which we live, the government of Israel adopt a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy regarding a Jewish Aliyah applicant’s personal religious beliefs given growing antisemitism around the world.
Perhaps at such a time as this, the Lord could use you to help facilitate the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
“Then they will live on their own soil” (Jeremiah 23:8).
In these dangerous times, may every follower of Jesus the Messiah throughout the world commit to praying for and protecting all Jews and fight against the insanity and demonic delusion of antisemitism.
And may we lovingly, prayerfully, and firmly press Israel to welcome all Jews as new and loyal and faithful citizens, regardless of their personal religious beliefs.
For the Lord Himself is watching.
Email addresses to contact: [email protected], [email protected].
Greg Denham is the Senior Pastor of Rise Church in San Marcos, Ca. He is the founder of “The Context Movement” and spearheads yearly “Friends of Israel Weekends” to fight anti-Semitism and champion friendships between Christians and Jews. He is the author of the new book, Rediscovering the Original Jesus Movement (How 1st Century Context Clarifies God’s Will & Course-Corrects the Church Today!).
