Hebrew Voices #159 – Messianic Jews in Israel

Hebrew Voices #159 – Messianic Jews in Israel

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

David: First of all, it’s important that I do not claim to know how many Jewish believers in Jesus exist in Israel, and we will get to that in a moment.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Because there are secret believers, and I talked with a few of these, that are not part of a congregation and that sit at home alone. And we can talk about that in a moment.

Nehemia: Shalom and welcome to Hebrew Voices! I’m here today with Reverend David Serner. He’s the author of a book called Jesus-Believing Israelis. He’s also the Director of the International Studies at the Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, and he’s a Pastor of the Danish congregation of the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem. Shalom, David.

David: Shalom, shalom!

Nehemia: I feel like, in a sense, that we’ve switched places, because normally I talk to guests from Jerusalem, and now I’m in Texas and you’re in Jerusalem. Am I right?

David: You are right!

Nehemia: Okay. So David, I actually heard you give a lecture at the World Congress of Jewish Studies, which is probably the most important international conference of Jewish studies in the world. It takes place every four or five years; this year was only the 18th ever, in Jerusalem. And the title of your lecture was the name of your book, Jesus-Believing Israelis, and you did something really fascinating that I want you to share with the audience, which is, you actually went out and got statistics and did surveys and found out what actually is the state of… and here I’m going to stumble around and fumble around for the correct terminology. So, the state of Messianic Jews in Israel or Jesus-believing Israelis, are those the same thing? Are those different things? Talk to me about that.

David: So, as you said, you can fumble around with these terms because everybody uses them differently. Some people use Messianic to be everybody, all believing Gentiles that are interested in Hebraic Roots and things like that, they could use the term Messianic. Other people use the Messianic term as those Jews who follow Halakhah, and again others use the term as a Jew that believes in Jesus. So, it can mean many things, and that’s why we have put Jesus-Believing Israelis in our title, as it does not necessarily mean all Jewish-believers in Jesus, but they could also include Gentile believers.

Nehemia: Okay. So that’s really interesting. This is really complicated, because a lot of the people I’ve met over the years would describe themselves exactly like you said. They’re Messianic but they don’t claim to be Jews; they’re not Jewish but they love… I don’t know how to even put it. I don’t want to put words in their mouth. They look to Yeshua as a Jew, they call him Yeshua, or Yashua, or Yehusha, some of them. They look to him as a Jew, and they say, “He was a Jew,” or, “He followed the Torah.” There’re many different formulations.

And then you have people on the other end of the spectrum… and I look at it as a spectrum. People talk about spectrums today, certainly in the United States and the Western world, how certain things are this never-ending beautiful spectrum. But there really is a spectrum of people on the one end who have no connection to Judaism by birth or culture, but they’ll go to what they call a congregation, or a synagogue, and they’ll put on a tallit, and they’ll recite the Amidah, the Standing Rabbinical Prayer, the Shemoneh Esreh, the eighteen benedictions, and they’ll keep Shabbat and different things in different ways.

And way on the other end you’ll have Jews who believe in Jesus and are part of mainstream Sunday congregations, and some of those people will call themselves Messianic Jews. So, it gets very confusing. And you were looking specifically at Israel, so I want to start with the question of Israelis. Does “Israelis” in the title of your book and your survey indicate Israeli citizens per se? What is the definition there?

David: Yes. We actually deal with it a little bit in the book. So, our focus you could say is citizens of Israel, but excluding the Arab sector.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So “Israelis” today could include the Arab sector that are Arab-Israeli, but in our term we used it not including the Arab-Israelis, but the other citizens of Israel. Now, the problem is… and that’s the subtitle, Exploring Messianic Fellowships, and here we used the term “Messianic” because no matter how you define it, this is the broadest term we could come up with that includes both Gentiles and non-Gentiles and people following Orthodox Halakhah, or praying the Shemoneh Esreh, or whatever they do, and people who are completely secular in their lifestyle but have faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. So, the fellowship is more broad you could say.

Nehemia: Is fellowship a strategic term to include churches and congregations and synagogues? Or does fellowship mean something more?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Or does fellowship mean something more informal? What do you mean by it?

David: With fellowship, we’re trying to cover, as you said, both regular churches but also congregations that don’t like the term “church.” They like kehillah or kehillot, but we’re also trying to explore the smaller house groups or home groups that exist, so it’s a way of trying to include everything.

Nehemia: Tell the audience what kehillah and kehillot are and how that is different from a church. What does that mean?

David: So, kehillah means “fellowship”, or kehillot, “fellowships”, or “community” you could say. That’s the preferred term for the Messianic congregations here, they call them “congregations” kehillah.

Nehemia: So, they don’t use the word beit knesset, for example? I have no idea, do they?

David: A few would use the word. Those that are leaning towards synagogue life and a synagogue lifestyle could use the term beit knesset.

Nehemia: And beit knesset, for those who don’t know, is “house of gathering.” That’s the Hebrew for “synagogue.” Actually the Greek, synagogus is “to gather”, and so it really is a translation of knesset. And it’s interesting why we have that term in Judaism. It probably comes from the idea that the Temple in Jerusalem was referred to as beit tefillah, “the house of prayer for all nations;” for example, in Isaiah. So, there was this resistance to call a place where you gathered to pray, beit tefillah, because that’s the Temple.

David: Yeah.

Nehemia: So, I presume that’s the reason it was called beit knesset in ancient Judaism, or synagogus in Greek.

So, you’re the Pastor of the Danish congregation of the Lutheran Church in Jerusalem. Is that included in the survey?

David: It is. So, we’re trying to look mostly at the evangelical world within Israel, and so now you said it was a Lutheran Church. It’s a Lutheran Evangelical church, our congregation.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: We’re trying to look at the Protestant world, you could say, but not only. We do include seven Catholic Messianic fellowships.

Nehemia: What is a Catholic Messianic fellowship? I’ve never heard of that.

David: There are seven congregations in Israel that are Catholics and adhere to Catholic theology and everything like that, but they have a Jewish or Jewish-Israeli expression. Their service would be in Hebrew, for example, and the prayers would be in Hebrew and would take in a few of the Hebrew traditions. They used to be, not any longer, but they used to be led by a South African Jesuit Messianic believer. He’s Jewish Halakhically speaking, and his parents fled the Holocaust.

Nehemia: Okay. So, you’re saying by Jewish law, his mother is Jewish, and her mother was Jewish.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And so, wait a minute, I have to wrap my head around this. So, he was born in South Africa… he’s an Israeli citizen, I presume.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: He’s a Jesuit, which is a Catholic, I want to say monastic order, but I might not be using the terms correctly, I don’t know. I think the current Pope Francis is a Jesuit. Am I wrong about that? I think that’s the case.

So, help me understand - are most of the people in this congregation Jewish and they were raised Catholic? Or are they Jews who somehow felt drawn to the Catholic faith? Do you know the answer to that?

David: So, it’s both.

Nehemia: Both, okay.

David: Yeah. Some of them have Jewish parents who are born in Israel and were raised as Catholics. And others have been raised as secular Jews and then have come to join the Catholic faith. Now, we did survey them, but we kind of keep them outside of all our… when we talk about Messianic movement, we separate these seven congregations from the rest because they’re not the same. And the other Messianic movements do not want to identify themselves with the Catholic Church at all.

Nehemia: That’s really interesting! I have these friends who had spent a year in Israel, and they’re not of Jewish heritage, and they were… I guess you could describe them as non-Jews who believed in Yeshua and wanted to keep the Torah. And they were living up in Poriya, which is a place that has a lot of Messianics, and they explained to their landlord that they believed in Yeshua, and he said, “Ah, Catolim,” “Catholics.” And they were like, “What? No! Catholics aren't even Christians! We have nothing to do with them!” But in the mind of most Israelis or of most Jews, I think, most Jews look at Christianity as Catholicism. And yeah, there’s this little rebellious daughter, the Protestants… My mother-in-law, for example, who is a lifelong Protestant, doesn't consider Catholics to be Christians. And they have nothing to do with Christianity, according to her. So, you kept them separate. Okay.

David: Yeah. Because you'll find the same notion within the Messianic body. Now, we didn’t ask them about Catholicism because that’s outside the scope of the survey, but you will find the same notion in most of the Messianic congregations, that they do not consider the Catholics to be Christians.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Or to be believers.

Nehemia: Okay. Well, that’s interesting. So now you corrected yourself. Do they consider themselves to be Christians, most of the Messianics?

David: That’s also a very good question. About now, just rounding up the numbers for the sake of clarity…

Nehemia: And this doesn’t include the seven Catholic congregations that you were talking about?

David: No.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: But 95 percent of the Messianic movement in Israel will not use the term, Christian. Only about 5 percent are comfortable with calling themselves Christians. The rest do not like the term because in Israel it’s like going over to the enemy, maybe. The worst thing you can do as a Jew is become a Christian, that’s the view for many people.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: There are also a few theological differences for some of them that make it difficult to say they are Christian in a traditional sense, at least.

Nehemia: Okay. I want you to save that, because I want to ask you about… you used the word “believers.” I think you said Christians and then you said believers, I don’t remember exactly what you said. But it’s really interesting, you said 95 percent don’t call themselves Christians. You said they don’t use the word Christians… or they would actually reject the term, Christian?

David: So, we did a survey where we asked the congregants what terms they are comfortable expressing themselves with, and 95 percent were not comfortable with the term Christian.

Nehemia: They were not comfortable with the term Christian, okay. So, you used the term “believer.” And I lived in Israel for 20 years, and the word ma'amin is thrown around in Israeli culture. Usually, in my experience, and I’m guessing your experience might be a bit different, but in my experience ma’amin is somebody who believes in God but isn’t Orthodox. They’ll say “lo dati”.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And it would never occur to most Israelis that ma’amin, “believer”, has anything to do with Jesus, or Yeshua, or Christianity. Whereas in the Christian world, believer is, you believe in Jesus, or Yeshua.

David: So, in Israel, if they speak Hebrew, they will say, “Ani ma’amin b’Yeshua.”

Nehemia: Ah, so they have to add, “b’Yeshua”, “in Yeshua”.

David: Yeah, yeah.

Nehemia: Oh, that’s so interesting! Okay. Wow, that’s really interesting. So, you said 95 percent are not comfortable calling themselves Christians. So, what do they call themselves in Hebrew? And how does that translate, let's say, into English?

David: So, they will have different terms that they’re comfortable with. They will say "Jewish believers”, or “a Messianic believer”, or “Messianic believer in Jesus”, all these kinds of different terms, or “follower of Jesus”, “talmidim b’Yeshua”, things like this.

Nehemia: So talmidim b’yeshua is “disciples in Yeshua” or “of Yeshua.”

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And they have a lot of different terms that they can use, that they’re comfortable with, whereas none of them is using the word Christian.

Nehemia: Well, not of the 95 percent. Wow, that’s really interesting. So, talk to us a little bit about these demographics, because there’s a lot of rumors that go around about the number of… again, I don’t even know what the term is… “Jesus-believing Israelis” that exist. And you actually did statistics. Actually, before you give us the numbers, tell us, how did you get these numbers?

David: First of all, it is important that I do not claim to know how many Jewish believers in Jesus exist in Israel. We will get to that in a moment.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Because there are secret believers, and I talked with a few of these, that are not part of a congregation and that sit home alone. And we can talk about that in a moment. But what we did was we tracked down all fellowships, Messianic fellowships, and Protestant fellowships, in Israel that we possibly could. So, all known fellowships we tracked down, and we talked with them, and we interviewed the pastor or an elder. If there was one congregation that did not want to participate… 5 percent of the congregations did not want to participate in the survey.

Nehemia: Oh, wow.

David: Which is not many, but still some. We would visit the congregation, or we would get some information in other ways, but then we would try and keep them anonymous so that they wouldn’t be able to be tracked down, unless they were public entities anyway.

Nehemia: So, what do you mean, “they didn’t want to participate”? Do you mean the pastor didn’t?

David: Yes, the pastor… there could be different reasons, but most of the time they said they didn’t see the value in such a survey, or in statistics, or in things like this, and they didn’t want to spend the time on it.

Nehemia: Okay, fair enough.

David: For those 5 percent that was the most… Yeah, that’s fair enough.

Nehemia: So, you went and visited those congregations to try to collect some data. Is what you’re saying?

David: Yes, exactly.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And if they were public, we would look at their websites and we would look at their statements of faith and things like that to find out...

Nehemia: And how many congregations, or kehillot, or whatever the term is, fellowships… how many were there?

David: We found 280…

Nehemia: Wow, okay.

David: … across all Israel. Seven of them we know exist, they have been verified to us. But we didn’t get the name of the pastor or their location. So, seven congregations were verifiably in existence, but we couldn’t get hold of them, they were very…

Nehemia: Is that because they’re trying to avoid being exposed? Like you talked about secret believers…

David: Yeah.

Nehemia: Or is it because, like you said, maybe the guy has a full-time job and he does this on the weekend, so he doesn’t have time for you? What was the case?

David: No, most of these cases would be because they want to keep a very low profile.

Nehemia: Okay. So, for those who are listening to this or watching this and don’t know, why would they want to keep a low profile? We’ll talk about that when we get to the secret believers, but tell us, why would they want to keep a low profile? Let’s assume somebody knows nothing.

David: So, as I’ve said before, one of the worst things you can do, for many Jewish people in their minds, is to become a believer that Jesus is the Messiah. Therefore, there is also a lot of opposition, and we have different… they’re called anti-missionary organizations, that try to convince Jews not to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, and they can be very aggressive. We did ask about this, and some of the congregations have had terrible experiences with attacks and bombs and knife attacks.

Nehemia: Okay, so you said two way different things that I’ve got to break down. You said there’s anti-missionaries who try to convince people not to believe in Yeshua, and then you talk about bombs and knives. That sounds like something qualitatively different. Am I wrong? Or is that the same thing?

David: Sometimes it’s difficult to know exactly who’s behind some of these attacks, but it is clear that it’s one thing convincing people not to believe in Jesus, in Yeshua, and it’s another side is trying to destroy those congregations or Jewish believers that already exist.

Nehemia: You mean physically destroy? What do you mean by destroy?

David: Yeah. In any way possible. Like say, about ten years ago, I think it was, there was a rally back in Ashdod where one of the rabbis there said that Hitler and Haman wanted to destroy the Jews physically, but the Messianic Jews want to destroy our soul.

Nehemia: I actually was doing an interview with a man from China, and I was sitting in a park. We didn’t have anywhere to do it so we were literally sitting in a park in Jerusalem. This is on video somewhere on the internet. And he says, “Do you believe that Yeshua was a rabbi?” And I started to give my answer and my perspective on it, and there was this person standing there, and he creeps closer and closer. And I’m not a Messianic, I’m not a Christian, I’m a Karaite Jew, but I’m talking as a philologist about what I understand from the New Testament. And then he’s in the camera and he starts to yell, pointing at me. He says, “This man is worse than Hitler. Hitler wanted to destroy our bodies; this man wants to destroy our souls.” And I don’t think that this man was at the rally in Ashdod. This is something that’s out there in the culture that’s floating around. And I said, “You don’t even know anything about me. You’re making a lot of assumptions.”

So, let’s break that down, and I don’t know if you can because you’re actually Danish, right?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: So, you’re a Danish Evangelical Lutheran pastor, but help me try to break it down. What is going through the mind of someone who said, because he assumed I was a Messianic Jew, why do they think that a Messianic Jew is worse than Hitler and wants to destroy the soul of the Jewish nation? What’s the thought behind that?

David: So that's a lot to unpack there. I don’t think we have time to really dive into it, but in my understanding, there has been what we can call “the push and the pull” from the very beginning, since the 1st century. A push out of the synagogues and from the Jewish believers, and a pull from the Gentile believers to pull out the Jewish believers from the synagogues. So that’s something that’s a trend throughout church history, and church history has not been nice to the Jewish people.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Already in the 2nd century and the 3rd century there began to be anti-Semitism within the church, and there began to be ideas of a Jew as a “wandering Jew” and things like that. And then this escalated to burning their synagogues and killing them off and blood libels and all kinds of crazy stuff. So then of course that creates a very bad attitude towards what it means to be Christian.

Now, for many Christians the cross is a symbol of mercy and is a symbol of God's faithfulness, but for many Jews the cross is a symbol of persecution and death, and a loss, you could say, of Jewish identity. Because throughout church history, a lot of the things that were required for a Jew, if they became believers… because there have always been Jewish believers in Jesus… one of the things that were required for many of them was that they renounce their Jewish identity. It was a sin to be a Jew, so they had to renounce their Jewish identity and everything Jewish. They had to have their holiday on Sunday and not on Shabbat and all these things which tried to suffocate, you could say, the Jewishness within the Christian faith.

So, I think this is some of the background for what’s going on here. For centuries and centuries this has been cultivated both within the Christian societies and also within the Jewish societies, that the Christians want to kill us off.

Now we’re in a different situation, we have a Hebraic roots movement and all kinds of other things, Christians who want to be more Jewish, Gentiles who want to be more Jewish because of Jesus. But I think that this collective awareness in the Jewish society still persists.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: I don’t know if that answered your questions at all.

Nehemia: No, I think that was a very good… I think there’s two aspects to it, and I want to hear what you have to say, so I’m going to keep my opinions to myself as much as possible here. But I would say there’s two aspects here. One is exactly what you said, there’s this visceral reaction to Jews, and the clearest image of this is… I grew up in Chicago. At the Art Institute of Chicago, at least when I was a kid, I don’t know if it’s still there, there was this Chagall, and the Chagall shows the pogroms. And it shows a Jew with a tallit on a cross, and the message of the Chagall is that what was done to Jesus two thousand years ago was done to the Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it was done in the name of the cross, or through the people who believe in the cross. That’s what Chagall, I think, was trying to express. I saw that probably 40 years ago and I still remember it. It had a very powerful impact on me.

And so, I think there’s this visceral response. So, if a Jew becomes a Buddhist, nobody really cares. And if a Jew becomes a Christian, I don’t know if they care that much either. But if they become a Messianic, it’s kind of seen as this fifth column. I mean, you know as well as I do, but I’m explaining to the audience, it’s seen as… well, I’ll tell you the way my father’s rabbi once said, and he wasn’t talking about Messianics, he was talking in general. He said, “Your worst enemy is the one who wears your uniform, because you can’t identify him.”

It’s interesting, it raises all kinds of thoughts for me about some of the issues we have in American culture right now, related to gender, for example. Which I won’t go into, but I think there’s some of the same issues going on there.

So, let’s go back to rallies. You mention how there’s these rallies, and I’ve seen videos, I think in Arad in southern Israel, where they’re protesting. But still, would you agree that that’s qualitatively different than planting bombs? I mean, harassing people is one thing, through a rally, but planting bombs? That’s terrorism.

David: Yes. So, of course, there’s only one congregation that experienced a bomb being planted that almost killed the pastor’s son, but there have been several knife attacks. Of course, there’s a difference between what you say and the actions that you do. There is a difference. But inciting to violence is what… many Messianics are afraid that it could happen.

Nehemia: Let’s talk about the bomb incident.

David: Okay.

Nehemia: Is that the one where it was on Purim or something?

David: Correct.

Nehemia: That guy was a mentally ill terrorist who also shot a bunch of Arabs, and I think he planted a bomb at a gay nightclub or something like this, if I’m remembering correctly.

David: Many things.

Nehemia: So, this guy was a legitimately mentally ill terrorist who had smuggled weapons in from Florida when he made aliyah. I don’t think that represents… I don’t know if it’s fair to say… but I understand the fear that’s created there. But in some respects, it’s not fair to compare that to the guy who’s having a rally saying, “they're destroying our souls.” That’s kind of obnoxious, but it’s really different than planting a bomb, which is big.

David: As I said before also, it’s difficult to say who’s behind what, so I didn’t want to say that it’s the guys from the rallies or the anti-missionary organizations that planted the bomb, but it’s all part of the same collective experiences of the Messianic body here.

Nehemia: Right. So, if you’re sitting in the pews, all you know is a bomb was planted and the guy who’s out there who’s protesting, and, from your perspective, harassing your congregation, that you don’t know if he is the guy who planted the bomb or not. So, it’s kind of this uncertainty.

David: And also, we have this combined with the knife attacks.

Nehemia: Tell us about the knife attacks. I literally don’t know about that. What’s that?

David: It happens quite a lot, I mean comparatively quite a lot. Compared to Christians in Denmark at least, we are not attacked by knives at all. But you’ll have… for example, in 2017 there was a release of a new Messianic CD from one of the congregations, with songs, and for that there was an Orthodox organization that showed up, a bunch of people with knives that made the police flee the scene and call in a SWAT team to protect the congregation.

Nehemia: Wow.

David: That’s just one example.

Nehemia: So, there are definitely incidents of violence, and I want to acknowledge that. There was one case in Mea Shearim a number of years back, it must have been over ten years ago I think, where there were these two nuns or something who were living in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, and I guess the belief was that they were there for missionary purposes. And what I read in the newspaper, at least, is that a mob descended on their apartment and burned it, and they had to be removed from the apartment by the police. They barely saved their lives. Do you know about this incident?

David: No, not so much. I may have heard of it, but they were nuns, so they were outside of the scope...

Nehemia: So, there is a legitimate reason for fear there, and so I understand what you’re saying about not wanting to be identified, some of the congregations.

David: Exactly. But I have to say that in most of the congregations we asked, there’s a difference in the language spoken, and also the severity of the harassment that they experienced. But of the Hebrew speaking congregations, 40 percent have experienced in the past fifteen years some sort of severe harassment. Borderline illegal or like the bomb, but most of the congregations, that would be 60 percent, have either had or no experience of harassment, they live freely, expressing their faith as they want to with no problems whatsoever.

Nehemia: It probably depends where they’re located as well. I would imagine if they were in Tel Aviv nobody would bother them. Apparently in Arad they harass people. I don’t know why in Arad, and it sounds like Ashdod has some problems too.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: I would guess, and here I want to be really careful, but if I had to guess from what you’ve said and what I’ve heard, it has to do with the proximity to maybe ultra-Orthodox communities. Is that correct? Or you don’t know?

David: I will put it this way, it is absolutely correct that it also happens within close proximity to ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Nehemia: But not only?

David: But not only.

Nehemia: Okay. I didn’t know that. Alright, so tell us about some of these statistics before we get to the juicy part, which is the secret believers! That’s what we want to get to, but first… because that’s almost like the seven Catholic congregations in a sense. I’m getting the impression that it’s not the most common phenomenon, it’s not the most common thing. Is that right? Well, I guess you don’t know if they’re secret.

David: Are you asking about the secret believers?

Nehemia: Yeah.

David: Yeah, that’s difficult to count. There are other organizations that have a lot of contact with people sitting behind their computers and Googling about Yeshua in Hebrew and they’re interacting with them. But it’s difficult to know what counts as a believer. Do you need to be baptized to be a believer? Or do you need to be part of a congregation? Or can you sit at home and have some thoughts about “Okay, maybe Jesus is the Messiah, but it won’t change my life.”

Nehemia: Let’s save that for the secret believer discussion, which I want to get to. Tell me about the more, let’s say open phenomenon, that you were able to document. I want you to share the screen if you can and share some of the statistics that you shared at the World Congress of Jewish Studies, because I’d heard for decades about all these Messianic congregations in Israel. But what do we really know? And you actually know stuff! It’s incredible!

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And that’s the book people can get, is that available on Amazon?

David: It’s available on Amazon as a Kindle, and then it’s available on the website.

Nehemia: Okay. What’s the website?

David: caspari.com

Nehemia: Okay, beautiful.

David: It will take a lot of time to go through all the nitty gritty of the scope and things like this, but one thing that’s important for me to say is some of our limitations.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And it’s that we did not survey what we can call “immigrant churches”. We quickly found out there are about at least 35 African immigrant churches in Tel Aviv only.

Nehemia: What does that mean, immigrant churches? What do you mean?

David: By this I mean people that are in Israel because they’re working, or they have sought asylum. There are many Nigerian fellowships or fellowships from Uganda.

Nehemia: Really?

David: All kinds of fellowships; many African fellowships, yeah. But we quickly found out that there are no Jewish believers in them. There are no Jews in these churches; they are all connected to the country they come from.

Nehemia: And they don’t self-identify, I’m assuming, as Messianic or Hebrew in any way.

David: No, no. They identify with the churches back in their home country.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And we didn’t include Arab Churches and we did not survey Messianic ministries, so we focused on the congregations. Our assumption is if you’re a Messianic ministry and a CEO of one of these, you will still be part of a congregation.

Nehemia: I see. What would be an example of a Messianic ministry that wouldn’t be included? Just so I can understand. You don’t have to name it, just what would it look like?

David: It could be a ministry, for example, working in tourism.

Nehemia: Okay, I see. Or let’s say, you’ve got that group, and I won’t name them, but there’s the group that targets Israelis, and they say, “We’re the native Israelis believing in Yeshua.” So, your assumption is that those people are part of a congregation somewhere and so you don’t look at that ministry.

David: Yes, yes.

Nehemia: Okay, got you. That helps to understand. Alright.

David: Okay?

Nehemia: Yeah.

David: So, the different things we did. What we did was we found all these pastors first. We went around asking some of the local pastors and leaders, “Are you at all interested in this kind of survey?” And most of the pastors we asked before we began said, “Yes, please do this survey for us.”

Nehemia: Oh, wow. That’s interesting.

David: So, we got help from some of the local pastors. And then we went out and asked the pastors, “How many congregations are in your city? And what are the names of the congregations and of the pastors and of the elders?” And that question we asked all pastors, and that way we came out more and more to all the congregations. There are also some official directories of congregations that we used to check if the pastors were still there, all these kinds of things.

When all that was done, we interviewed every pastor for about an hour or an hour-and-a-half with different questions. So, these are the questions in the area of what we asked: the fellowships history, the number of individuals, including how many are Jews and non-Jews; that’s the demographic breakdown. Under 18, over 18, family status, country of birth, all these kinds of things.

Nehemia: Oh wow. That’s interesting.

David: We asked about theology, ministry, main service and life. All this we looked into. So, you talked about the spectrum, right? So, we would ask them, “Where are you on the Judaism-Christianity spectrum?”

Nehemia: Okay. That’s really interesting.

David: And we asked about the views about the state of Israel and army service, if they had any denominational affiliation, views on the charismatic gifts, if they are charismatic or not, their theology on Communion, what they thought Jesus was, if they practiced Halakhah, their view of women, if they’re harassed, finances, connectedness, statement of faith, main language, all these kinds of things.

So, these are the questions we surveyed for the Pastors. When we did that, after that we sent out an online survey to all the pastors to send around to their congregants to see if the congregants had the same ideas as the pastors of their own congregations. So that was very interesting to see.

Nehemia: Wow, that is interesting! Would the pastors see the results? Or would that go directly to you?

David: No, that would go directly to us.

Nehemia: It’s almost like a secret ballot. So, I don’t want to jump ahead but I want to know the answers! Do you want to jump ahead? How different were the views? And let’s just say this as a thought; were they substantially different, the views of the congregants versus the pastor?

David: No.

Nehemia: No, they weren’t. Okay. Alright, so I guess that’s the answer, “no, they weren’t”. That’s interesting.

David: Yeah.

Nehemia: Were they substantially different from one another?

David: Yes, there could be very big differences, yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, well we’ll talk about some of those. Alright, so what do we have here? Congregation versus house groups; what is that?

David: So, we interviewed representatives of 273 congregations; that would be excluding the seven congregations that we know exist, the fellowships we know exist but we couldn’t get hold of.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And then people were asking us, “How big are the congregations?” “Are they a house group or a congregation?” Things like this. So, this is just a breakdown, you can see, of the sizes. If they are more than 20 people, we considered it a congregation.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And if they were less than 20 people, we considered it a house group. So that’s the breakdown of that. So, we found 197 congregations above 20 people inside the congregation and 76 fellowships that were less than 20.

Nehemia: And this is all over Israel?

David: This is all over Israel. One interesting thing, we’ll see if we have time to go to that, is that they are spread out almost equally in all six districts of Israel.

Nehemia: Hmm, okay.

David: So, there are as many in the south as there are in Tel Aviv.

Nehemia: Wow. That's interesting, even though there’s a lot more people in Tel Aviv.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: That is interesting. Okay, alright.

David: So that’s what that is. We also found, and this might surprise a lot of people, because when we think about a Messianic congregation in Israel, we tend to believe that the main language is Hebrew, and we found here that actually a 136 of these 273 congregations were Russian speaking.

Nehemia: Wow. Romanian? Thirty were Romanian.

David: No. Two were Romanian.

Nehemia: Oh, oh, okay. So, what was that? Amharic!

David: Amharic, yeah.

Nehemia: Amharic is the Ethiopian language.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay, wow! And only 16 were English. That surprises me, I would have thought more. But I guess I’m wrong. That’s really interesting. So, tell me how this comes about, if you know, that you have 136 that are Russian speaking. That I think I know the answer to. I don’t know the answer to the Romanian or the Spanish, that’s a bit surprising to me.

David: It might not be as surprising as you think, but of course the Russian speakers, that has to do with the influx of Russian speakers in the 80’s and 90’s and early 2000’s. There were different time periods where there was a great influx of Russians with a Jewish heritage moving to Israel.

Nehemia: Let's put that in context. So, the current population of Israel, I want to say, in 2022, is something like nine million. Is it? Including Arabs…

David: About 9.5, I think. In 2020 it was 9.2.

Nehemia: Okay. And over one million people immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union just in the 90’s, just in the early 90’s if I’m not mistaken. So, over ten percent of the population was born in the Soviet Union.

David: One point three million are Russian speakers from the former Soviet Union, yeah. About 1.3 million.

Nehemia: One point three million?

David: Yeah.

Nehemia: So that’s more than ten percent today were born in the Soviet Union, and their native language was presumably Russian.

David: They speak Russian at least.

Nehemia: Right. Maybe there’s Ukrainian, Bukharan, or something, but they also speak Russian.

David: Yeah, their services will not be in Ukrainian, for example, even though they would be Ukrainian.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

David: It would be in Russian.

Nehemia: Okay, alright, interesting. Wow, okay.

David: And for the Spanish speakers, they are mostly from South America, and that has to do with the Second World War, where many Jews fled from Europe, and they fled to South America. So, their children grew up with the Spanish language.

Nehemia: And what about the Amharic? Let me ask this question, what percentage of the Israeli population is of Ethiopian descent? And are they disproportionately represented here?

David: I am uncertain, actually. Off the top of my head, I cannot say how many are Ethiopian in the total population. So, these are, you could say, are a part of what is called Beta Israel.

Nehemia: Yeah.

David: Some might know them as the Falasha Jews.

Nehemia: Yeah, we don’t use that term anymore. The Ethiopian Jews.

David: Exactly. They see that as a derogatory term, so they like to call themselves Beta Israel.

Nehemia: Right.

David: So, these 30 congregations, they are all part of the Beta Israel.

Nehemia: Right, okay.

David: This might also surprise you, but they are the congregational sub-group with the highest percentage of Halakhic Jews within them.

Nehemia: I want you to say that again, because that opens up a lot of cans of worms. So, say that again.

David: The Ethiopian congregations are the sub-group where within you have the most Halakhically Jewish members.

Nehemia: So, what you’re saying is, if I’m understanding correctly, not everyone in these congregations is considered Jewish Halakhically. Meaning by Rabbinical Law, which might mean they have a father who’s Jewish, or their father’s father was Jewish, and the Orthodox Rabbis wouldn’t consider them Jewish. Would there be people in these congregations who have no Jewish ancestry?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. And so, the Ethiopians segment here has the largest percentage of Halakhic Jews. That’s really interesting. So, I just looked it up, and according to Google, take that with a grain of salt, there’s about 160,000 Ethiopian Jews in Israel, and you said the population is 9.5 million, so that would put them at around, let’s call it two percent, 1.7 percent of the Israeli population, that also includes Arabs. And then here we have them at… what is the percentage here? At least of the congregations. And I guess this might be a bit misleading, because maybe the congregation has 20 people.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: I’m doing the math here, so 30 divided by two 273 – so 11 percent are Ethiopian, or Amharic speaking, at least, even though they only represent two percent of the Israeli population. That’s really interesting. How do you explain that?

David: I think, without knowing it specifically, I think it’s the same dynamic that goes on with the Russian speakers. So, you have these large groups of immigrants coming in, making aliyah, both from Russia, and also you have especially Operation Moses and Operation Solomon…

Nehemia: Right, from Ethiopia.

David: … bringing in the Beta Israel, where you had large groups coming in at the same time.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: They come to a new country, they might not know anybody, and they are either fleeing from something or pursuing a better life in Israel, and they are trying to find out what it means to live in Israel. So, while they are here, they meet the stories of Jesus in a new way, and then they are more prone, I guess, to think, “Okay, maybe Jesus can be a Jewish Messiah as well.” And then they look into that possibility. Whereas if you are born in the country, that’s a much larger step to take. I think.

Nehemia: It’s interesting, because in Ethiopia the Jews were persecuted by Christians.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And not like in some ancient time, in the 20th century!

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And maybe there are still some there that are persecuted now, I don’t know.

David: I think it has to do with the uprooting. That when you are uprooted, your whole life is up in the air anyway.

Nehemia: Do you have any information about how these Messianic Ethiopian Jews view the Ethiopian Christian Church? What is it called, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, or something?

David: Yes, there is an Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but there are also Pentecostal churches in Ethiopia.

Nehemia: Oh really? Okay.

David: There’s a strong Pentecostal Church in Ethiopia.

Nehemia: Really? Okay.

David: And none of these Ethiopian congregations in Israel have any connection with the Orthodox Church.

Nehemia: Wow. Do they have connections with the Pentecostal Church?

David: Yes, they are all charismatic. Now there doesn’t have to be a formal relationship. Some do but most don’t, with the churches in Ethiopia, but they are all charismatic.

Nehemia: Wow! So, I want to save that question about “charismatic”, because I want you to share some of the other stuff, but I already wrote that down. I wrote down three questions that I want to get to, and that’s from your survey: charismatic gifts, holy communion, and deity of Jesus, Yeshua. Those were three of your questions. I hope we’ll have time to get to that. But I want you to continue, because this is fascinating, this is amazing. This is so fascinating to me, because I’ve been hearing rumors for decades, and nobody really knows anything, and here you actually have data, which is pretty cool.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And you did this as a scientific study. Am I right about that?

David: Yes, that is what we had tried to adhere to, to be very strict in our approaches and always giving sources for where we have them, and I’ve been reading a lot, also.

Nehemia: I want to emphasize that, because I think a lot of people I’ve heard personally, who are talking about how many Messianic Jews are in Israel, it’s part of a fundraising strategy. And here you’re doing this scientifically. You’re not saying, “Oh, we need a lot of money here for the Messianics in Israel because there’s so many of them and they need support,” or something, which is what I’ve heard. You’re actually doing this as science, that’s pretty cool, as objective research, which is why it was at the World Congress of Jewish Studies.

David: Yeah. That’s why I presented it there, of course. But also, you could say, the numbers are not only being used by the Messianic ministries, they're also being used for the anti-missionary organizations.

Nehemia: Uh-oh! So, is this backfiring?

David: No, I don’t think so, but it’s just to say that they also have been used inflating numbers…

Nehemia: Oh, they have?

David: Yeah, to see how big their threat is.

Nehemia: Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. I see. So, this hurts them in a way, you’re saying?

David: I don’t know. I don’t think it hurts them.

Nehemia: Or helps them?

David: Maybe. But I think most of the information we provide here they already know. For each congregation, maybe they don’t have the statistics, but they will know most of the congregations anyway.

Nehemia: I see. So, they’re keeping track of who these congregations are for their own purposes.

David: They do.

Nehemia: And they probably have their own database or something. Okay, got you. Alright, let's see what else you’ve got. So, a typical Kehila.

David: A typical Kehila. I think people might be interested in what that means. So, you see, most of the congregations are an amuta, which means that they are registered non-profit organizations in Israel.

Nehemia: That’s the equivalent in the United States of what we call a 501c3, or in the United Kingdom they call that a charity.

David: Yes, so they are a kind of a charity in that sense. So, most of the congregations would be an amuta and registered in some way or another. They do not own their building.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So, this is just general, of course some congregations are not an amuta and other congregations do own their buildings, but the typical congregations do not.

Nehemia: Wow.

David: They are non-liturgical, which means they don’t pray from the Siddur, and they don’t use typical Christian liturgies in the way they do their service. But sometimes they will cite the Shma Israel, or the Priestly Blessing, things like that.

Nehemia: What’s the “+2?” We’ve got Shma, the Priestly Blessing, what’s the third one?

David: Some might say the Lord's Prayer, but that’s very few. Most of them will read the Shma…

Nehemia: This is interesting because… and I just had a conversation with someone else for a podcast, and we were talking about different Jewish denominations. And I made the remark that every Jewish denomination is in Christian terms, “high church”. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Karaite, every one of them has, “This is the liturgy, this is what you say on Shabbat. You’ve got to get through these pages.”

David: Yes.

Nehemia: And then what they call in Christianity “low church”, and maybe I’m misusing these terms, but it’s not liturgical in the sense that you don’t have a set formula that you recite when you go into the congregation each week. And you’re saying that most of them are non-liturgical. So, I know that this may be related to the charismatic question, what do they do in the kehila? What do they do in the congregation?

David: It differs a little bit based on whether or not they meet on a Friday or they meet on a Saturday.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So that’s the plus two, the last one there would be that some of them also would light the Shabbat candles.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: It’s a Jewish tradition, so that is, typically, if they meet on a Friday, they will typically have some sort of Kiddush.

Nehemia: Because that’s when Jews do the candle lighting service, on Friday night or Friday afternoon.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Typically, they will have a time of songs where they sing together. And then after that there will be a message of some kind, and after the message, either they will have another song or the meeting will end.

Nehemia: So, if you had to compare this to a type of church that my audience would be familiar with and I am probably not familiar with, but a type of church, let’s say in the United States, what would this be closest to? I like putting things in boxes because it makes me feel more comfortable.

David: Yeah, I like to be careful with putting things in boxes! But I guess it might be relatable to an Evangelical congregation in the United States.

Nehemia: Okay. Would that be what they call a non-denominational congregation?

David: It doesn’t have to…

Nehemia: Or not necessarily?

David: Not necessarily. But it could be non-denominational, but I think it doesn’t need to be.

Nehemia: And is that because they were influenced by these congregations from the West? Or did this happen organically? Or do we have no idea?

David: Now I have to be careful.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So, one thing is, we did ask the congregations if they had any denominational or any connectedness with denominations or streams of faith outside of Israel or within Israel.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So, I want to be careful in just saying they are definitely influenced by the Americans. Definitely some are influenced by the Evangelical Churches within America.

Nehemia: You’re saying they are?

David: Some are, not all. Some are.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: This is not a typical kehila because they can vary, and some are influenced by Reformed theology. There are seven fellowships that will say out loud that they are Reformed. Not Reformed Judaism, but Reformed.

Nehemia: That was my question. So Reformed, does that mean Calvinism?

David: Yes, they will look back to the Westminster meeting in 1910 in Edinburgh and things like this.

Nehemia: Okay. Alright, so seven of them actually self-identify that way, interesting, okay.

David: Yeah. And some are influenced by the Baptists, and some are not influenced directly by anyone, but the pastor has connections to all kinds of different denominations and fellowships outside.

Now we are talking mainly about the Hebrew speaking congregations, because the Russian speaking congregations will either be influenced in an anti-Orthodox Christian approach; they don’t want to be Orthodox Christians so that’s kind of like the opposite way round.

Nehemia: And by Orthodox, you mean Russian Orthodox?

David: Yes, Christian Orthodox, yeah…

Nehemia: Okay.

David: … in all its shapes and forms. So, the Russian Orthodox Church, there’s lots of anti-Semitism throughout it, especially in the former Soviet Union and with the pogroms, and you mentioned Chagall, so they have a tendency to not want to do that. And others have connections to Pentecostal or Baptist Churches back in Ukraine or Russia. They are influenced, but it’s difficult to say how much.

Nehemia: Okay. So, you said there’s no denomination marker, and this surprises me. There’s no structured proselytizing. You’ve got to talk about that. And the reason that’s important, I think, to share with the audience, and it surprises me, I think the reason that this rabbi in Ashdod said, “Hitler wanted to destroy our bodies, they want to destroy our souls,” is that the assumption is that the whole purpose is that “This is a fifth column. They’re just pretending to be Jews just to convert us. This whole thing is a proselytizing endeavor and it’s not an authentic expression of Judaism.” But you’re saying the typical kehila doesn’t have any structured proselytizing. Tell us what that means.

David: So first of all, of course they would disagree with what the Jewish Orthodox community is saying, that they are not authentically Jewish. They would say “We are authentically Jewish. My mother or my father was killed in the Holocaust,” or “my grandparents fled,” all these kinds of things.

The second thing is, they do believe that Jesus is the true Messiah and they do want to share that message, you could say, with their fellow Jew. But most congregations do not have structured strategies of, “How are we proselytizing our neighbors?” They mostly just keep to themselves, and then if people ask them one-on-one, they will share their faith and they will invite them to the kehila. But they will be more on a friendship-based style rather than a structured one. Some congregations do have a structured evangelization approach, but most of them don’t.

Nehemia: So, I think a lot of people in the U.S are familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons who literally go knocking door to door. Is there anything like that in the Messianic Jewish movement? And I could be mischaracterizing it, but I think for Jehovah’s Witnesses they have a mitzvah, they actually have some religious requirement to go and evangelize, or to spread their faith. Basically, you’re saying there isn’t something like that, in a formal way at least. Is that right?

David: That’s correct. All pastors will say, “Share your faith with your friends.” All pastors will say, “Be open about your faith and share it and preach that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah,” and all these kinds of terms.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: But from that to a structured, strategic plan on how to reach your neighbor and tell them that Jesus is the true Messiah, as a congregation that’s a long way.

Nehemia: How does that compare to churches, let’s say, in the United States, or Evangelical Churches? Do they typically have some structured strategy or approach to, I don’t know what the term is, proselytizing? And I think they generally target non-Jews, right?

David: Right.

Nehemia: But I have met people who have street ministries, who go out and do different things. I met one guy who goes out and goes to parks and fixes bikes of little kids, and then while he’s fixing the bikes he shares about Jesus. I don’t know if that’s typical or not, I have no idea. Is this typical of Evangelical churches in Denmark or the U.S, where they don’t have a structured proselytizing, or would that be atypical?

David: First of all, I think I just have to say, to be very clear, that the Messianic congregations in Israel are very clear on not doing any kind of proselytizing of children.

Nehemia: Okay. Well, this wasn’t in Israel, this was in Pennsylvania.

David: Yes, yes. I just want to be clear that…

Nehemia: And he wasn’t Messianic, he was just a regular Christian. And that’s actually because there is an Israeli law that it’s illegal to proselytize to children, to minors.

David: Yes. So, they do have children's camps just for their own children, but if you’re an outsider, even their own children, have to sign documentation that they know that this is a Messianic children’s camp. They’re very particular about not proselytizing to children at all.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: On any level. Now, I don’t know if it’s atypical for congregations in the States to not have a strategy for proselytizing, but most fellowships, especially Evangelical fellowships, will have built-in mission trips of some kind regularly.

Nehemia: Okay. So that’s the mishbetzet, the slot that’s missing, in a sense; the mission trips. Okay, so they don’t have something like that. I see.

David: No, they don’t.

Nehemia: That’s fascinating! Wow.

David: In general, some might have, but in general the picture does not show that.

Nehemia: So, another way that might be expressed is a soup-kitchen, I guess. Am I right? That’s how they do it in the Western world.

David: So, in Israel, the congregation will have relief work, you could say. They will give out food distribution and clothes and things like this, but they will not talk about Yeshua while they do it.

Nehemia: Okay, wow.

David: It is disconnected.

Nehemia: Wow, that’s fascinating. So now I have to ask the question, what is the reason for that? I want to say, is that davka? In other words, that’s a Hebrew word, or really, it’s an Aramaic word. Is that because they’re specifically trying to avoid what they’re accused by the Orthodox of doing? Or is it because they’re afraid to do it? Or because they just want to be left alone to do their own thing? Or maybe it’s all the above. What do you think the reason is for this?

David: There’s definitely a reason for not being accused of buying people.

Nehemia: No, I mean in general. Why do they have no structured proselytizing?

David: Oh, I thought you meant the relief work. Still, I think it is both due to their relatively small numbers within the country and all their fears and the ideas that go on in Israel targeting Messianic Jews as a problematic entity.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Therefore, I think they are careful in how they share their faith.

Nehemia: Can you jump ahead? I want to talk about the rest of these things, but I have the list of questions. Those were some of the questions I was interested in. Jump ahead, what are the statistics? Are we talking about 500,000? Are we talking about 5,000? I know the answer because I heard your lecture.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: So, what have we got?

David: So here we have the screen here, where we’ve divided these groups into three different groups, you could say. We have Groups 1 through 7, that’s the six districts plus all those who want to be anonymous, and those are the fellowships that we call Messianic fellowships.

And then you have the international groups. That would be the Danish Church, or the Lutheran Church or the Presbyterian churches, or the Baptist Church in Israel for example will also be part of Group 8, where there are also Messianic Jews within them. And in the end, we have a bit of Catholics and people who have sectarian tendencies without being a sect, but they are closed fellowships; you cannot be an outsider and enter into the society. They have no connection to the Messianic fellowships at all. They are just by themselves or have very little connection to other congregations, and they can have a variety of different theologies.

Nehemia: That’s Group 10 you’re talking about?

David: Yeah, that’s Group 10.

Nehemia: So, what would be an example of that? Is that like anything I would have heard of? I don’t know what that would be.

David: There is one group that will be known to you, I guess.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: And that would be the Seventh-day Adventists.

Nehemia: Okay, so they’re not Messianic… So, Group 8, where’s 9? Oh, 9 is the Catholics. Is that right? Group 9 is the Catholics.

David: Yes, the Catholics and the Orthodox Church.

Nehemia: So, Group 8 is the international churches that are Evangelical.

David: Protestant.

Nehemia: Or Protestant. And Group 10 would be like people like Seventh-day Adventists. Are they considered Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, by mainstream Christians?

David: Yes, with a little question mark.

Nehemia: Isn’t there something about Binitarianism, or something like that?

David: There are issues with them, and that’s why they’re in Group 10.

Nehemia: Okay, fair enough. So, you said sectarian. I want to understand that more.

David: Okay, so it’s not that interesting because we want to focus on Groups 1 through 7.

Nehemia: Right. Let’s go back to Groups 1 through 7, because it’s 3,000 including the Catholics. What are we talking about, a few hundred people?

David: Yes, exactly. I’ll just say that in Group 10, there are some that are very closed and have very strange ideas of what it means to be a believer in Jesus. They are not Jewish, but there will be Jewish members, so they will not be Messianic…

Nehemia: Would that include Jehovah’s Witnesses? Would they be included in there?

David: No. Jehovah’s Witnesses at the moment we decided not to survey because they are, by mainstream Christianity, already not considered Orthodox in their beliefs.

Nehemia: Okay. Alright, even though some of 1 through 7 might not be Orthodox!

David: Yes, you could say that.

Nehemia: But let’s talk about 1 through 7, because that really is what interests me in this context, and the audience, I think.

David: So, in these 273 congregations that we surveyed, we found that their members are 15,323 individuals.

Nehemia: Wait, so Groups 1 through 7 are the 273.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: So, Group 8 is beyond the 273 that we talked about before.

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Oh, okay. Alright. I’m not sure it’s clear here in the image, but you have a dot there that in the U.S would be considered a comma, is that right? 15,323?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Yes, exactly.

Nehemia: Alright.

David: There is not 15.7, yeah.

Nehemia: Right! That’s very specific, that extra three. So, this is actual data that we’re looking at here.

David: Yes, this is what the pastors have told us.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: We asked, “How many are in your congregation?” They say, “We are 27 members,” or “We are 205 members.”

Nehemia: Okay, I see.

David: And then that’s what we have collected. And then we just added them up into congregations. From the 273 congregations that are here, there are 15,323 within them - children and adults, and Jews and Gentiles, everything together.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: So, this is not the number of Jewish people, this is the number that worships in a Messianic fellowship rather than in a traditional Christian church.

Nehemia: Okay. Do you break this down into how many are Jews and how many are non-Halakhic Jews?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Oh, you’ve got it there, okay!

David: So first of all, before I go into that, we also asked how many are Sabras. One thing is how many are Jewish, but also how many are born in the country. And they could not really answer, so it’s difficult to extrapolate this data because so few knew it. But from what we could see here…

Nehemia: Tell us what a Sabra is.

David: A native-born Israeli.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: A native-born Israel.

Nehemia: And I love the word Sabra, because it actually refers to the fruit of a certain type of cactus. And the reason native-born Israelis are called that is because it’s prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside, and so they say that’s the symbol of the native-born Israeli, that they’re tough and prickly but on the inside they’re sweet. Okay, tzabarim, or Sabras are… so what am I looking at here in the numbers? What’s the 180?

David: Yes, so here you have in the different language groups how many Sabras are in the congregations; that’s in the first line. The second line is the percentage of fellowships that could actually answer that question.

Nehemia: So, it doesn’t mean that’s the real number; that’s just how many that could answer.

David: No. For example, let’s look at the Amharic speaking congregations. You have 180 Sabras within those congregations, and that is 16 percent of those fellowships that they are members of. It’s 16 percent of those fellowships have Sabras within them.

Nehemia: Okay. Let’s look at the Russian, because the Russian were 50 percent of the fellowships, and you’re saying only three percent of the members, or the congregants, are native-born.

David: That’s answered, yes, exactly.

Nehemia: That’s answered, okay.

David: So this, of course, relates to the big influx of immigrants that came from the former Soviet Union that came. So, we have 1.3 million Russian speakers in the land that have immigrated here, or their parents have immigrated here, and of course most of them were not born in the country. Again, second or third generation Russian speakers, they become Hebrew speakers.

Nehemia: Right. So, you’re saying three percent of the people in the Russian congregations answered they were Sabras?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Which would mean there’s something like 1,130 Russian speaking congregants. That’s really interesting, because 50 percent of the congregations are Russian, but you said the total was 15,000. So how is that number adding up?

David: Thank you for that question; this will make it clear. So, in the Russian congregations there are 50 percent. Of those 136 congregations, in them three percent of these 136 congregations are Sabras.

Nehemia: Right. So, if I say that three percent are sabras, that means there’s 1,133 people approximately.

David: You don’t have the number here to exactly make that kind of calculation I think, because you’re taking the number from 15,000, and you have to take the number from about 7,000 here.

Nehemia: Oh, so you have more specific numbers.

David: Yeah.

Nehemia: Okay, here we go.

David: Here we go.

Nehemia: Alright.

David: So, you have to take the number from the 6,113 that are Russian speaking in the Russian speaking...

Nehemia: Okay, I see. Okay, this is a really important graph here! So, what it tells me is that the Hebrew speaking congregations have many more members than the Russian speaking congregations, because they have more people even though there’s a smaller number of fellowships.

David: But you also have to remember here that this is correct within the fellowships. But if we compare it with the Russian speakers, 100 percent or 99.9 percent of the Russian speaking congregations are from the former Soviet Union and speak Russian. In the Hebrew speaking congregations, that’s not the case.

Nehemia: Right. They could be native Spanish speakers or English speakers or Amharic speakers.

David: They could be from all over the world, and they are.

Nehemia: Okay.

David: Yes. So, you will actually have a lot of Russian speakers within the Hebrew speaking congregations.

Nehemia: What percentage of the Hebrew speaking congregations are Sabras? That’s an interesting question.

David: So that’s about 28 percent.

Nehemia: Wow! That’s really interesting, wow. I would expect it to be the highest percentage.

David: Which it is.

Nehemia: That’s really interesting, really, really interesting. These are fascinating statistics, what do we have here?

David: So, I just wanted to compare that, because you asked earlier, “Do members reflect what the pastors think?” And this might be the clearest of the Halakhically speaking Jewish ethnicity. So, this is not where they are born, but this is whether or not they are Halakhically Jewish. And from our online survey, you can see that most of those who took the survey are Halakhically Jewish.

Nehemia: The majority at least, 54-plus percent.

David: The majority, right. Yes, exactly are Halakhically Jewish.

Nehemia: What is “other”?

David: They will have converted at some point to Judaism, quite simply.

Nehemia: Oh, I see.

David: Different options like that, yes.

Nehemia: This is absolutely fascinating. Do you have a little bit more time to talk to me about some of these theological questions that you had asked in the survey?

David: Yes.

Nehemia: Alright. Any final words you want to share with the audience, David? Thank you so much for joining us, this has been absolutely fascinating.

David: I want to say, of course, to your listeners, buy the book.

Nehemia: Absolutely.

David: And be amazed of the world that lies in front of you.

Nehemia: Wonderful, thank you so much.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

We hope the above transcript has proven to be a helpful resource in your study. While much effort has been taken to provide you with this transcript, it should be noted that the text has not been reviewed by the speakers and its accuracy cannot be guaranteed. If you would like to support our efforts to transcribe the teachings on NehemiasWall.com, please visit our support page. All donations are tax-deductible (501c3) and help us empower people around the world with the Hebrew sources of their faith!