by Stan Meyer |March 28 2018
There are approximately 6.7 million Jewish people in the United States 1 out of about 14 million worldwide. 2 It’s fair to say that most of these do not embrace Christian belief, nor believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Radio talk show host, Dennis Prager, explains, “Judaism does not believe that Jesus was the Messiah.” 3 Furthermore, when a Jewish person embraces Jesus, most Jews feel he or she is no longer Jewish. Why do most Jews reject Jesus? Furthermore, why do many Jewish people take exception to those who do embrace Jesus? People arrive at their religious beliefs for many reasons: family upbringing, moral values, history and traditions. Many reasons for not embracing Jesus can be grouped into three categories: cultural, historical, and religious. Cultural reasons most Jews do not believe in Jesus Many Jewish people will explain that they do not believe in Jesus simply because they are Jewish. They were raised being taught that Jews do not accept Jesus, while Christians do. As a minority in a society considered at one time as Christian, this one belief has come to define the most significant difference between Jews and Christians in the West. Moreover, if a Jew embraces Jesus, they have converted to Christianity and are no longer Jewish. “Jews should call themselves by the name of the faith whose religious doctrines they now embrace.” 4 At one point in history, such converts were considered lost to the Jewish community, even apostates. For a Jewish person to consider faith in Jesus, he or she must consider the social stigma they face from friends, family and the larger Jewish community. Would a rabbi ever agree to marry them? Would they ever be allowed to make Aliyah? Would they be prohibited from joining a synagogue? These are the implications many Jewish people face on considering Jesus.