Messianic Judaism in 1910

The following are excerpts from the first issue of a journal published in 1910 in Johannesburg, entitled The Messianic Jew. The authors (5 Jewish, 2 Gentile) laid out a program for living with Jewish identity, lifestyle, and purpose within the community of Israel, as opposed to assimilation into the Gentile Christian world. Their ideas were judged "heretical" and roundly condemned by other contemporary "Hebrew Christians." (For part of that story, see Messianic Judaism vs. Hebrew Christianity in 1917.)

Has anything much changed since then, except that Hebrew Christians -- after viciously maligning and condemning Messianic Jews for a century -- now call themselves "Messianic Jews"?

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     It is truly deplorable that Jewish Christians, who should constitute the "True Israel of God," have allowed themselves to become detached from their own people and have, by complacently accommodating themselves within the sphere of Gentile Christendom, neglected and ignored the very things which should have been most precious to them. [p. 1]

     Criticising others is always a delicate matter, and especially will this be an unpleasant task when those concerned may bear honoured names, but things have reached a stage when, we feel, true and good service can only be rendered by speaking the unvarnished truth, no matter how unpalatable it may be. [p. 2]

     That is to say, we Gentiles are the "proselytes," if any there be, while those of Israel are the original heirs. Thus Gentile pride has completely overturned the Divine order, and has perverted the Hebrew Christian's consciousness from the very start. And Hebrew Christians have submitted, and are still submitting, to this perversion. Incalculable harm has thus been done.... The error being fundamental, the whole superstructure is hopelessly out of line. This grievous wrong on the part of Gentile Christianity needs confession and, as far as possible, correction and redress. [p. 4]

     You owe this testimony to your nation.... Follow Paul's example. It is sound and safe.... His final testimony to the elders of the Synagogue at Rome was: "Men and brethren, I have committed nothing against the people, or customs of our fathers." (Acts 26:17). Would to God that every Hebrew Christian could speak thus. [p. 7]

     I cannot help but feel that only a Jewish Christianity which does not seek to deck itself with foreign plumage, but takes its nourishment from the depths of Jewish national life and custom and awakens Jewish memories and hopes, only such a Christianity is capable of transforming the Jewish people from being the greatest opponents of the Gospel, into the greatest messengers of God's saving grace to mankind. But alas! the attitude of most Hebrew Christians upon this question is one of carelessness and, in some instances, of hostility. Permit me further to emphasise the fact that to millions of good and orthodox Jews, Hebrew Christianity as it stands to-day does not convey the idea of a thorough moral change, but rather the idea of the abandonment of Jewish distinctiveness and a general contempt for all that is dear to the Jewish heart. [pp. 8-9]

     Allow me to say that I fully endorse what may be termed the "Minimum-programme"...: That Hebrew Christians should observe Circumcision, the Sabbath, the Jewish Festivals, and that every effort should be made to revive the Hebrew language.... We should show to our unconverted brethren that we are not "Meshumadim" (renegades [or converts]), but, on the contrary, genuine, patriotic Jews, true sons and daughters of Israel. [p. 9]

     ...by way of a Manifesto...: (1) That the policy of complete assimilation, which Hebrew Christians are now pursuing, is having an injurious effect upon themselves, their children and their people. It has become one of the greatest obstacles in the way of Jews seriously considering the true claim of Jesus as Israel's Messiah.... (4) ...our children will grow up with a living consciousness that ours is Messianic (Biblical) Judaism, in contradistinction to Rabinnic.... [p. 11]

     As long as the Grecian calendar was in vogue, agreeing as it does to a great extent with the Jewish calendar, the Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus, as well as the rest of the Jewish people, celebrated the Feast of Chanucah at one and the same time. As, however, the church became more and more Gentilised, until the Gentile branch dominated the Jewish root from whence it had sprung, culminating in the adoption of the solar calendar as opposed to the lunar calendar of the Jews, not only was the month changed, but the origin of Christmas was almost entirely lost sight of. [p. 16]

     Apart from the fact that anything which tends to efface the distinctiveness of the Jew must be directly contrary to God's will, it will be apparent that a Gospel which couples with itself denationalisation and absorption, must be distasteful and meet with violent opposition.... The Japanese are a patriotic and loyal people.... How would such a message as this be received, and how many Japanese would accept Jesus under such conditions? And the heritage of the Japanese is not the heritage of the Jew, who looks back upon a past with which God Himself is intimately bound up, and who can look into a future such as can no other nation, and if the Japanese looks askance upon a teaching which would stifle every national feeling, how much more the Jew? And what is the remedy? The answer is not far to seek. Jesus must be stripped of the "Gentile" garb which the Jew sees around Him, and must be revealed in His true form, as an Israelite, as one who, in the truest sense, was a Hebrew, as one who came not to destroy, not to change, not to "Gentilise," but to fulfil. And Jesus cannot be stripped of His "Gentile" garb and stand revealed to the Jew as a Jew until the believing Israelite himself comes to a true understanding of his position, and until the attitude of the Gentile Christian world toward the believing Jew is also altered. [p. 19]

     [Biblical] Jewish customs and institutions can never be put down as idolatrous and sinful. They were instituted by God Himself, and were ordained as part of His Divine service. [p. 22]