Choose an important event in Jewish history and discuss how this event influenced jewish identity. is this influence still today?
I choose for you to do your own homework.
If Christians don’t have to become Jews but can still keep the torah and be God’s people why do so many in Messianic judaism change their names and act like they are jewish? Even Boaz Michael and Tikva from First Fruits of Zion changed their names and seem to take on a jewish identity. Why do they do it when they teach or say otherwise?
Respect for their heritage
hope this helps
EDIT
Marcuss: ***You still have an Irish heritage but you are now an American. To claim you are Irish is a lie.***
Obviously, you don’t know what it is like to be Irish either.
I know that Karaite Jews (a tiny minority) say that "if your father is a Jew, then you are a Jew" because the Tanakh records descent in a patrilineal manner.
Why do the Rabbinic Jews recognize matrilineal descent?
Mary’s answer is plausible.
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One approah is that the reason is Historical. "Judaism introduced matrilineal descent somewhere in the period of the Second Temple and the Roman occupation according to Prof. Shaye Cohen, now at Harvard…"
"I recall that it was less the issue of being certain of the father’s identity than it was to bring Jewish law into somewhat coherence with Roman law regarding "citizenship" and "nationality" and rights and privileges within society…"
( http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_c/bl_matri_descent.htm and see also http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ask_the_expert/at/AsktheExpert–Matrilineal_descent.shtml )
"This practice may have originated in the period of Ezra (Ezra 10 3; Neh. 13.23 ff) and may parallel that of Pericles of Athens who sought to limit citizenship to descendants of Athenian mothers. It may also have represented temporary, emergency legislation of that period."
( http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=38&year=carr )
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There are also those who proclaim that Jewish ID was always passed through the mother, even in Biblical periods. They say that there are allusions to matrilineal descent in Tanakh. ("This began with the giving of the Torah and is rooted in the law in Deuteronomy." – http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/174,2063982/Why-is-a-childs-Judaism-determined-by-the-mother.html )
"Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as being "among the community of Israel" (i.e., a Jew).
On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews."
( http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/whojew1.html and http://www.jewfaq.org/whoisjew.htm#Matrilineal )
"The Mishnah (Kiddushin 3:12) states that, to be a Jew, one must be either the child of a Jewish mother or a convert to Judaism. The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b) derives this law from the Torah. The relevant Torah passage (Deut. 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." "
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality#judaism )
See also http://www.faqs.org/faqs/judaism/FAQ/05-Worship/section-35.html and
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"Matrilineal descent, although generally accepted for the union of a Jew and a non-Jew, has rested on an uncertain basis. Some have deduced it from Deuteronomy 7.4, others from Ezra 9 and 10. Still others feel that the dominant influence of the mother during the formative years accounted for this principle. A few modern scholars felt that the rabbinic statement followed the Roman Paulus (Digest 2.4 f), who stated that the maternity was always known while paternity was doubtful; this, however, could be extended to the offspring of any parents. Shaye Cohen has also suggested that the rabbis may have abhorred this type of mixture of people as they felt negatively toward mixtures of animals and materials. A full discussion of this and other material may be found in Aptowtizer’s "Spuren des Matriarchats im jüdischen Schriftum," Hebrew Union College Annual, Vols. 4 and 5 and Shaye J. D. Cohen’s "The Origin of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law," Judaism, Winter, 1984."
( http://data.ccarnet.org/cgi-bin/respdisp.pl?file=38&year=carr )
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There are some who give "spiritual" reasons for this law. For example, see http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/9005 and http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/601092/jewish/Why-is-Jewishness-matrilineal.htm But I don’t think that’s what you were looking for.
(See also http://lhaim.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-is-being-jewish-determined-by.html )
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See http://www.oztorah.com/2009/07/matrilineality-is-still-best-for-jewish-identity/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrilineality_in_Judaism for a discussion of this issue.
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There are two academic works that touch on this topic:
"Who Was a Jew?: Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish Christian Schism" by Lawrence H. Schiffman
"The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties" by Shaye Cohen
Deuteronomy 32:26
26I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
None of the 11 other tribes know who they are. How did they pass their heritage from generation to generation if they and their seed were separated and sold as slaves?
Tonto – That is the realest answer yet!
its not their home, Palestine belongs to the palestinians
I am doing a paper that deals with, " American Jewish people trying to maintain their jewish identity and/or level of observance in the U.S. ( which is pred-ominantly christian society) I would love some examples of small issues or big u deal with.
One example I have is 1.) Intermarriage ( btw jew and non-jew when either non-jew does not want to convert or maybe jew wants to convert)
another minor example I thought of is 2.) Lack of choice in choosing what college to go to if u keep kosher. ( restrictions on what school to go to based on your observance level) I would love some more ideas.. or if anyone here intermarried or went through the college thing, it would be nice to hear ur experience dealing with that. 
Thank you
I am Jewish and my husband is not. We raised our children to be Jewish. The biggest obstacle that we have seen is the size of our community in our area. There are not a lot of other Jewish people, we are spread across a large county and the synagogue, though central, is quite a drive for many people. Because of this I have always felt a lack of connection even though I was very active in synagogue. There were very few Jewish children in the schools that my children were in. The synagogue never had an active youth group (not for lack of trying), which made it difficult for us to connect with other jewish kids in the region.
I will never give up my identity as a Jew, I am not as active as I want to be or could be under the circumstances.
creation6daysdotcomhttp://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/creation6daysdotcomPeopleJevrejski, identitet, drugo, predavanje, Jewish, identity, lecture, Jews, Media, Gaza, Israel, Jerusalim, serbia, serbs, jasenovac, NHD, Ustase, Sajmiste, rtvb92, b92, b92rtv, stanje, nacije, parada, dveri, srpske, obraz, 1389, pavle, crkva, artemijeJevrejski identitet drugo predavanje – jewish identity lecture 2 – Serbia’s Rabbi Isaac Asiel part 6
Duration : 0:10:0
Jews are very conservative from the beginning. They do not accept change in their faith so easily. But the scientific changes like in Hinduism influence their beliefs.
I posted a question a few days ago about jewish identity and what constitutes Messianic criteria in your religion.
Now I was under the impression that someone Jewish would know, but when the Christians lifted their voices in supplication, the Lord God Yahoowah heard report of this and deleted my post.
The Christians actually tried to portray me as an anti-semite!
Now, once and for all, can a Christian twistlation from the original Hebrew into several other languages be considered accurate?
And please feel free to cite examples where they have substituted a word or it’s meaning to alter a context.
Thank you Giv Perf, glad you like the humour!
Thank you Giv Perf, glad you like the humour!
Plushy Bear:
I’m glad people are appreciating the humour, the Christians do tend to take an In Median Res approach to their reading and writing though!
Siva and Ambivalent Bittern JPA:
Thanks, I’m claimin’ the word so use it and tell Websters and the Oxford English Dictionary that it is mine!
Lol!
It’s bizarre, frankly. Xianity took the Jewish Torah, then totally REorganised it, MIStranslated and REinterpreted it and has spent the past 2000 yrs telling US as Jews that WE ‘don’t quite understand’ our own scriptures……!
It would be funny, if Xianity hadn’t done so many terrible things to Jews down through the ages.
The Xian ‘old testament’ is a translation OF a translation OF the Jewish Tanakh.
Accurate? Well….. Some versions have been revised to bring them into line with the original Hebrew in the Tanakh. But many other OTs are woefully INaccurate.
Here are some other examples of Xian MIStranslations etc:
Psalm 2:11-12. This passage is cited often by Christians seeking to prove the Trinity. In the King James Bible, it reads:
"Serve the L-rd with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."
But the verse is mistranslated. The word rendered "the Son" is "bar". In Hebrew, the word means "pure" and is correctly translated in Psalm 24 ("clean hands and a pure heart"). The Hebrew word for "son" is "ben".
Confusion results from the fact that the word does mean "son" in Aramaic; but there is no Aramaic in any of the Psalms. In fact, verse 2:7, just a few verses before this passage, reads, "I will declare the decree: the L-rd hath said unto me, Thou art my Son [beni]; this day have I begotten thee", proving that the word "ben" was known and used by the composer of Psalm 2. Verses 11 and 12 should read, "Serve the L-rd with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Desire what is pure, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."
This rendering makes it clear that the pronouns in verse 12 all refer to the L-rd, with no hint of a Trinity.
Even if we assume that "bar" means "son" here, that still doesn’t give us a Trinity. G-d has many sons. Israel is G-d’s firstborn son (Exodus 4:22; see also Hosea 11:1). The sons of G-d took wives from among the daughters of men (Genesis 6:1-2). The sons of G-d appeared before His throne, and Satan was among them (Job 1:6; 2:1).
Even Jesus says, "Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of G-d" (Matthew 5:9). There is nothing in Psalm 2 which makes the "bar" any more G-d’s son than the sons mentioned above.
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Isaiah 53:8 in the Christian bible reads "…for the transgression of my people he was stricken."
Is this the correct translation from the Hebrew bible?
No. The correct translation of Isaiah 53:8 (from the Hebrew bible) is: "as a result of the transgression of my people, they were afflicted."
The correct translation is THEY, not He! This Hebrew word for "they" appears over 40 times in the Hebrew bible – always translated as "they"!
ISAIAH 53
As all of my fellow Jews will no doubt agree, if there is one part of the Tanakh that many Christians use to ‘prove’ to us that Jesus is mentioned/referenced, it is this!
The problem is, they are not only mistranslating but also misinterpreting it.
Isaiah 53 actually starts with Chapter 52:13. In Hebrew, the scripture portions are divided by “stumas.” A space of several letters can be found at the closing of a passage before the next passage begins.
This can ***only*** be found in a Hebrew Bible. A Torah scribe has to strictly follow these rules. By reading the passage in its entirety, you learn that God is speaking to his servant and that the servant shall prosper and be exalted and be very high (Isaiah 52:13).
And who is the ’suffering servant’?
Christianity claims it is Jesus.
But in fact, it is Israel, as clearly shown in Isaiah 41:8 & 44:1-2 & 45:4. These verses continue to describe the amazement of the world when they see the Jewish people redeemed. In particular, they are written in an exclamatory fashion to describe how the nations "despised" the Jewish people and gave "no regard" for them. The reason it is written in the singular is because the Jews are regarded as one body, called "Israel." There are many instances of the Jewish people being referred to with a singular pronoun throughout the Torah.
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It’s also interesting to compare what is said in the Christian bible, *about* the Tanakh, to what is actually written in the Tanakh.
We find things that contradict the Tanakh:
Matthew 1:2-15 – His list of generations does not agree with Torah l Chronicles Ch. 1-3
Matthew 1:16 – he forgot Jewish law. The Jewish Scriptures state that a person’s genealogy and tribal membership is transmitted exclusively through the **biological** father (Numbers 1:18 Jeremiah 33:17)
Matthew 5:43 – Jesus says: “thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy which You have heard that it hath been said”.
But in the Tanakh, Leviticus 19:18 does not mention any ‘enemy’.
Matthew 1511 – ‘Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.’ Contradicted by all the dietary laws in the Tanakh.
Matthew on Isaiah:
Matt 1:23 – Mistakenly uses the Septuagint word for virgin instead of Hebrew “Almah” (young woman)
Matthew 1:23 – Misquotes Isaiah 7:14, “they” will call Jesus Immanuel, whereas Isaiah wrote “his mother” would call him Immanuel – not “they”.
Matthew 3:3 – Misinterprets and alters Isaiah 40:3 – “Prepare the way of the Lord”. Not so.
Matt 4:15 – Added “Galilee of the Gentiles” to Isaiah 9:1-2. Not in the Hebrew Tanakh.
Matt 8:17 – Took Isaiah 53:4 out of context – Isaiah was relating to a leper (nagua).
Matt 12:17-21 – Taking Isaiah 42:1-4 out of context – the Servant was Israel 4 times
Matt. 13.14-15 – Took out of context Isaiah 6:9-10 of people being “blind”
Matthew also misinterprets the Jewish Prophets:
Matthew 2:5-6 – Misinterprets Micah 5:2 – the Messiah coming from Bethlehem. It was David a Bethlemite, born in Bethlehem and from his seed would come the messiah.
Matthew 2:15 –Taking Hosea 11:1 out of context, Jesus being called out of Egypt
Matthew 2:17-18 – Distorts meaning of Jeremiah 31:1-17 of Rachel weeping.
Matthew 11.10: By changing the pronoun in Malachi 3.1 “before me” or “before you”?
Matthew 13:35 – The Christ will speak in parables – distorting Psalm 78:2
Matthew 21:1-7 – Jesus riding on two donkeys at the same time – ???????? – (Zechariah 9:9)
Matthew 22:43-44 – Capitalizes the second lord – altering the meaning of Psalm 110:1
Matthew 23:35 Mistakenly gave Zechariah’ father the wrong son. Zechariah was the son of Jehoiada, not Barachiah. II Chronicles 24:20–21
Matthew 27:9 – Quoted the wrong prophet – was not Jeremiah but Zechariah
Matthew 27:9 – Book of Zechariah was never about any “potter’s field”
————————————–… Are the ‘covenant’ and the ‘testament’ synonymous? Remember that Jeremiah wrote in Hebrew. So when Greeks–not fully understanding the correct Hebrew definition of the word “Bereeth–interpreted the Hebrew word “Bereeth”, they interpreted it as Covenant and also Testament,” They failed to realize that “Bereeth” also means a “promise.”
The Hebrew word "BEREETH" or covenant signifies a promise between God and the Jewish people. It may be made official by any number of symbolic acts such as circumcision (bris), offerings (sacrifice), etc. Bereeth binds living persons to certain behaviour. In the case of the ‘new’ Contract (Covenant), the parties involved were God, Israel, and Judah. The New Covenant is to be made with both Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:31).
‘Bereeth’ is a promise from God that he will never abandon the Jews as is revealed over and over again in His Torah and Tanakh.
Christianity statesJeremiah says that God replaced the old covenant with a new one. “Behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the House of Judah”.(Jer 31:30-31 quoted in Heb 8:8-12, 10:16).
Christians claim this clearly proves that the old covenant will be abolished for the new one of Jesus. Well, maybe, if you stop right there with verse 32. But continue: The very next verse 33 says,
"I will put my Torah within them."
It does not say new Torah – instead, it is the same Torah which will become a permanent part and will not be forgotten as in the past. Verse 32 in the jewish Bible says;
“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put My Torah in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
Sherwin Wine, founder of Humanistic 