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When Orthodox Jews Oppose Followers of Jesus
By Dr. Michael Brown - June 9, 2019

For several decades, I have drawn attention to the Church’s historic persecution of the Jews in Jesus’ name. It is one of the ugliest and longest chapters in Church history, and it cannot be downplayed, forgotten, or ignored. With God’s help, I will continue to call out “Christian” anti-Semitism wherever I see it today. But I will not ignore Jewish persecution of Christians. It too must be called out.

In the Gospels, Jesus and His followers, all of them Jews, were persecuted by hypocritical Jewish leaders, ultimately leading to the Lord’s death on the cross. And that pattern continued in the Book of Acts, where the Jewish leadership stood in opposition to the message of Jesus the Messiah, sometimes persecuting His Jewish followers to the death (see Acts 7).

Some even stirred up trouble wherever these Messianic Jewish emissaries went to share the good news (see Acts 17), and this continued in the centuries that followed, with some documented cases of Jewish leaders siding with local efforts to persecute Christians.

Of course, no amount of Jewish persecution of Christians can justify the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people by professing Christians, including torture, exile, being forced into ghettos, being burned at the stake, being offered baptism or death, and much more.

And it is an open secret that the Nazis drew on Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic writings to help enflame German hatred against the Jews.

None of this can be denied, nor should it be denied. To the contrary, we must be ever mindful of this tragic history lest we repeat it in our day.

But, to say it again, when there is Jewish persecution of followers of Jesus, that must be called out as well, especially when it takes place in Israel.

It was a radical Jew who delivered a bomb, disguised as a holiday gift, to the house of Ami Ortiz, the son of Jewish Christian parents. He miraculously survived the bomb blast, which took place in 2008.

But this act, extreme as it was, was not in isolation.

As reported by Time Magazine in 2008:

“Messianic Jews, as these Jews who believe in Jesus are called, number just a few in Israel — anywhere between 6,000 and 15,000 — but they provoke hatred all out of proportion to their meager numbers. Many orthodox Jews view them as traitors for joining the Christian faith, which for centuries has persecuted Jews. One Messianic Jew, Tzvi Sadan, a teacher and editor, recalls telling his father, a Holocaust survivor, that he had accepted Jesus as his savior. ‘My dad flipped out. He said that the SS guards in the camp had ‘God Is With Us’ written on their belts. He told me, “You’ve joined the enemy.” But he calmed down a bit when he saw my prayer shawl.’” (What Sadan means is that he didn’t stop being a Jew by following Jesus.)
Over the years, Messianic Jews have suffered different levels of persecution within Israel, although none so violent as the bomb attack on Ami Ortiz.

But there have been protests and even vandalism at Messianic Jewish meeting places, attempts to get some believers deported, and various threats and harassments.

Virtually all these acts are carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who view “missionary” activity as diabolical, destructive, and dishonest. As some of these protestors once chanted outside of a large Messianic Jewish gathering I was attending in Israel:

“Hitler wanted our bodies. You want our souls!”
Today, as the number of Messianic Jews in Israel has risen to about 30,000 and as the society at large is much more open to these Jewish believers in Jesus, opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews continues to rise. (For my little run-in with some ultra-Orthodox protesters last year, see here and here.)

As my friend and colleague Ron Cantor reports from Israel (with a video link worth watching):

“Believers attending a Messianic concert last week in Jerusalem were accosted by dozens of Orthodox Jewish protestors, who held a violent and chaotic riot for hours, calling the people ‘missionaries’ and ‘Nazis,’ and telling them to get out of Israel. They held up several signs saying, ‘Beware, Missionaries!’ in Hebrew. In Hebrew the world Missionary is a slur. Of course, we are not missionaries, but citizens of Israel.”
Again, I understand how these protesters view us. As a rabbi said to me decades ago:

“Our ancestors died rather than believe what you believe. Yet, without coercion or pressure, you not only believe in Jesus, but you try to proselytize as well.”
But, to say this yet again, none of this justifies the actions of these protesters, who were held back by police.

Ron writes that:

“Jenya Lempert and his teenage daughter were accosted by swarms of young men blowing whistles at excruciating pitches and linking arms to block the entrance into the concert hall.”

As Lampert told KNI News:

“It was a pure act of hatred. They hate us, they were standing against us, they brought their minors as human shields.”
Indeed, Ron explains:

“Orthodox protesters have been known to bring teens, who have more liberties than adults to break the law.”
But his response to all this is right on:

“It is important to not get angry but pray. At the same time, understand that this is pure fanaticism and brainwashing of children. However, it only represents a tiny minority of Israelis.”
And how should Christians around the world respond to these harassing acts?

First, they should pray for the believers being persecuted, sending them a message that they are not alone.

Second, they should pray for the repentance of the persecutors, believing that there are many Sauls of Tarsus among them.

Third, as friends of Israel who appreciate the liberties that the nation affords its citizens, they should encourage the government to stand with those who are being persecuted to send a message the government will not tolerate this kind of behavior.

All that being said, my personal expectation is that the final generation – whenever that will be – will look a lot like the Gospels and Acts, except that in the end, there will be mass acceptance of Jesus by His own people, rather than mass rejection.

May the Lord turn the hearts of His people Israel!

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

Isaiah 19:25 speaks of a co-habitation of the world..Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, "blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.

Israel and Egypt have kept their respective national identities..basically, but one has to search the identity of Assyria in modern times.

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Egypt has kept its national identity

How so?

And Israel has only recently been reestablished after millennia...

Interesting article though

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

Egypt was known as Egypt 4,000 years ago, and still is known as Egypt.

You answer your own question by saying that Israel is "reestablished" as to their former.

Many peoples cannot say their current identity is their ancient namesake.

The Israelites have drank out of more foreign streams than any other ancient people, and still retain their old name.

The Assyrians can be traced forward to modern Germany.

The common denominator is the Lord of Hosts has used Assyria to punish his chosen many times.

He calls Assyria "the rod of his anger".

Canuckus Deploracus Loc: North of the wall

Egypt retains only its name...

Its culture has changed so radically over the millenia that it is hardly the same nation...

I was unaware that Germans trace their ancestry to Assyria... That is fascinating...

Michael Rich Loc: Lapine Oregon

Yes Egypt hasn't needed lavish accommodations for dead pharaohs, for a long time.

Peewee Loc: San Antonio, TX

Sad sounds like what the Palestinians are teaching their children, hate.

Zemirah Loc: Sojourner En Route...

Here is an excerpt from Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol. 9, p. 38, (1959), "Germany: Racial Origin":

The German's racial origin, like that of other Europeans, is very complex. They cannot be regarded, as the Nazis and some German anthropologists have maintained, as a "pure race" with dominant Nordic characteristics. It is sufficient to say that the Germans are largely a mixture of Nordic, who would predominate in the north, and Alpine, who would predominate in the south, with further blends of the Dinaric in the southeast and Baltic in the northeast, and with a substratum of remnant prehistoric types.

While there is great uniformity of language and considerable ethnographic similarity, there are still many differences of stature, head shape, hair color, customs, traditions, and philosophy, all showing diversity of background. During the Volkerwanderung, from the first to the fifth centuries, the Germanic peoples migrated in tribal units from the Nordic center around the western Baltic--southern Sweden, Denmark, and the mainland between the lower Elbe and Oder rivers. In the process of settling central Europe they mixed with other groups who were previous settlers, or who later moved into or through the area.

From this article we can derive that the racial origin of the modern Germans is largely Nordic, from around the western Baltic. Notice the countries of Sweden and Denmark are named as descendants of the Germans. The Germans are also descended from the many other racial blends, so to believe that there is a "pure" Germanic race is quite erroneous. It also appears that in settling into central Europe, they have intermarried and mixed with other groups that were already settled there. What can also be derived from this is the total silence of the Germans descending from Assyrians. Even if the "substratum of remnant prehistoric types" refers to any Assyrian descent, they are a negligible minority.

Here is the history of the Assyrians according to what the encyclopedia has to say with extracted paragraphs from the encyclopedia that apply from the article on Babylonia and Assyria:

Assyria lay north of Babylon along the upper Tigris and the waters of the Great and Little Zab rivers; its modern boundaries would be Iran in the east, Turkey in the north, and Syria in the west. In general, modern Iraq, north of the Euphrates, includes most of the ancient territory of Babylonia and Assyria.

Then near the end of the seventh century B.C. the region's balance of power began to shift. Determined to seize the opportunity, the Medes, a little-known people of the Iranian plateau, joined forces with the Chaldeans of Babylonia to topple an already weakened Assyria. They destroyed the magnificent Assyrian cities of Nineveh and Assur, as well as other important Assyrian centers. Unlike it had done in the past, Assyria never recovered.

A combined force of Medes, Babylonians, and Scythians captured the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 B.C. and thus brought the independence of Assyria to an end.

After 539 B.C., Babylonia and Assyria ceased to be independent and passed successively under the rule of the Persians, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, the Parthians, and the other later conquerors of the Near East. (Collier's Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, pp. 635-638, 1959)
In the centuries that followed, the area that had been Assyria was invaded by a number of foreign powers, including the Greeks, Arabs, and Turks. When Britain defeated Turkey in WWI, the land fell into British hands. They renamed the region Iraq and established an Arab government that operated under British control…Britain finally granted Iraq its independence in 1932.

A visitor to modern-day Iraq would never know that Assyria once existed in the country's north. All that is left of this once great military power are the recovered ruins that reveal its dramatic story.

We see absolutely no historical references of the Assyrians migrating north to Europe and being the ancient descendents of the Germans. Notice that it does say that the ancient Assyrians are the modern-day Iraqis!

It is interesting to note that the Assyrians were Semitic.

MESOPOTAMIA, the "land between the rivers," the name often applied to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley…In ancient times it included the territory of Babylonia and Assyria; today it is the kingdom of Iraq.

Sumerian-Akkadian (4000-1850 B.C.)—In the Sumerian-Akkadian Era, while Neolithic tribes of a different linguistic stock dwelt in the highlands, the mysterious Sumerians from the northeast and Semites from the desert moved onto the plain…famous Sumerian city names include Ur, Eridu, Umma, Erech, and Nippur. While these states traded and fought with one another, to the north in the vicinity of what was later to be Babylon the Semitic tribes were gradually assimilating the Sumerian culture and becoming civilized.

Old Babylonian (1850-1600 B.C.) – A new Semitic invasion, principally from the west, resulted in the establishment of the Old Babylonian Kingdom…The sixth king of the new Semitic dynasty was the noted lawgiver, Hammurabi (c. 1700 B.C.). Old Babylonian civilization was founded on the Sumerian, but the ancient Sumerian language gave way to the Semitic tongue of the rulers…As in Babylonia, so in Assyria the Semitic element became the predominant one.

Mitannian and Kassite (1600-1200 B.C.) – In the succeeding age, however, Semites suffered a temporary eclipse. About 1600 B.C. in Babylonia and at least a century earlier in Assyria new groups came into prominence. Out of the northern mountains came the Hurrians, who spoke a language quite different from the Sumerian or the Semitic tongues. These people overran Assyria and formed…the Mittanian Kingdom…But the Hurrians were not the only invaders of Mesoptamia in this period…The Kassites overthrew the Old Babylonian Dynasty about 1600 B.C. and remained in control until about 1200….

Both the Mitannian and Kassite kingdoms ultimately fell before the resurgent Semites. In the 14th century a Semitic kingdom was established in Assyria, which pushed the Mitannians westward to the region of the upper Euphrates.

By the above articles, we observe that not only are the Assyrians Semitic, they are also the descendants of modern Iraq. We do not see any information concerning a north-westward migration, nor that they descended into the modern Germans. In fact, the peoples of the Assyria and Babylon were so intermeshed that they are both descended from the same Semitic origin, and both of them comprise the peoples of modern-day Iraq.