What are we all about? Based on over 100 years of combined experience in this field, the staff of Menorah Ministries has a multi-dimensional purpose: to effectively communicate the message of Jesus (Yeshua) the Messiah to the Jewish people; to establish a model Messianic synagogue which will be a home for Jewish and Gentile followers of Yeshua the Messiah, serving as a pattern and a training ground for Messianic synagogues elsewhere in the world; to develop and distribute materials for reaching, discipling, and training Jewish followers of Yeshua; to train believers in Yeshua in communicating their faith sensitively to Jewish people; to educate believers in discovering the richness of the Jewish roots, foundations, and connections of their Christian faith; to promote, within the church, a greater understanding of the Jewish people and Jewish concerns; to combat the evils of anti-semitism. As part of its educational program, the staff of Menorah Ministries conducts classes, seminars and conferences on a variety of topics: communicating the Jewish gospel to Jewish people; understanding the Israel of yesterday and today; appreciating the significance and relevance of the Jewish holidays; comprehending the Jewish roots and foundations of the Bible and Christianity; understanding the Jewishness of Yeshua; responding to the history and menace of anti-semitism.

We are integrally connected with the modern re-emergence of a very Jewish movement, the Messianic synagogue movement, a movement committed to our Jewish heritage, traditions, people and life. For centuries the devout among us have longed for the coming of our promised Messiah. We have found him! When he came, he fulfilled prediction after prediction made by Israel's ancient prophets. He said he came to carry out G-d's purpose for our world and make good on his promises to our people; his mission was one of fulfillment (Matthew 5:17). In other words (as the term "fulfill" means in the language he spoke), he would uncover the depths and riches of our Scriptures and our heritage; he would showcase our traditions in all their beauty and brilliance; he would pack our beliefs and practices full of significance and meaning! Everywhere he went, he touched people and transformed their lives; and he still does. A noted rabbi and author said: "Who can compute all that he has meant to humanity? The love he has inspired, the solace he has given, the good he has engendered, the hope and the joy he has kindled—all that is unequaled in human history." One of our foremost philosophers, Martin Buber, added: "I am more than ever certain that a great place belongs to him in Israel's history of faith and that this place cannot be described by any usual categories." Albert Einstein, one of our greatest scientists, observed: "He is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful." As the anonymous author poetically put it: "...all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat, have not affected the life of mankind on this earth as has that one solitary life." As Messianic Jews, then, we have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah and have accepted G-d's provision of atonement through him. We acknowledge him as the one who fulfilled our prophets' predictions and who rose from the dead, a fact concerning which history bears eloquent testimony. This historical evidence brought Orthodox Jewish scholar, Pinhas Lapide, to acknowledge (Time, May 7, 1979, pp. 88f; cf. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective): "his Ressurrection was a Jewish affair...he is a dead Jew revived by the will of God.

One answer to this and other complex questions is simply that all those who have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah, and have accepted G-d's provision of atonement through him, remain Jewish. There is no conflict here. History has come to know him as Jesus of Nazareth, but his friends and close associates just called him Yeshua ("salvation," see Isaiah 62:11). He brought a message of life, a message of hope and joy. He injected peace and purpose, meaning and significance into life after life. He has transformed us also. "But," you might say, "doesn't Jesus, or Yeshua as you might call him, deny or oppose Judaism?" Not according to his own statements (Matthew 5:17-19), or according to the lives of his earliest followers, the apostles. They joyfully celebrated the holidays together and followed the Jewish traditions (Acts 2:46; 3:1; 20:5-6, 16; 21:24-26; 27:9). They came to realize the fullness that Yeshua said he would pack into their rich traditions. Even Rav Shaul, whom history knows as the Apostle Paul, remained a consistent, observant Jew (Acts 25:8; 28:17; cf. 21:20-26). Moreover, he claims that he continued to live as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), among the strictest of the Jewish groups of the first century! History confirms this. Irenaeus, whose teachers were taught by the apostles themselves, described the apostles' lives (Against Heresies 3.23.15): "But they themselves...continued in the ancient observances...thus did the apostles...scrupulously act according to the dispensation of the Mosaic law." Even our best scholars, such as David Flusser of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, concur (Jesus, p. 216): "As a Jew Jesus fully accepted the law. The community he founded, comparable in some ways to the Essenes, saw itself as a movement of reform and fulfillment within Judaism, not as a secession from it." Levi further reminds us that Yeshua did not come to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it. Yeshua was a Jew living in a Jewish land among Jewish people. All the apostles were Jewish as were the writers of the Newer Testament. For many years, faith in Yeshua was strictly a Jewish one. The book of Acts and other historical data tell us that during the first century there were hundreds of thousands of Messianic Jews. Moreover, there were Messianic Synagogues scattered throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. During this time, G-d miraculously showed his people that the Messiah was for both the Jew and the Gentile alike. Today, we are seeking to put the Messiah back into its biblical and Jewish context, and to share its beauty with other.

Absolutely not! All who respond to the Messiah, Jew and Gentile alike, are heirs to a rich Jewish heritage and have deep Jewish roots. Together, they share the dynamic vibrant life that he gives.