I was floored

WALKING through Crestmoor Park the other Shabbat, a couple, the guy’s head covered with a yarmulke and tzitzit (four-cornered tassles) protruding from his shirt, the woman at his side dressed in a long skirt and her head completely wrapped in a scarf — greeted me with “Shabbat Shalom.” I naturally responded warmly in kind, with my own “Shabbat Shalom.” Ah, a lantzman.

Denver Jewry used to have that small village kind of feeling in which everyone knew everyone, at least when it came to bumping into other Jews walking on Shabbat. Today, although the community is still pretty small, you don’t necessarily know everyone anymore. And even if you do, it was holiday time, when there are a lot of new faces and out of town visitors.

Not a moment later, once the couple passed by, the friend I was walking with said, “Now you know those weren’t Jews, right? Those were messianics.”

I was floored.

What?

“Yes,” she went on. “That church right there near the park, at Monaco and Cedar, has recently become a messianic church.”

I couldn’t believe it. So they “set up shop” right in the heart of a Jewish neighborhood. I suppose I shouldn’t be all that surprised. It is typical of their deceptive, missionizing style.

But still, to know that such a church and its community with their twisted sense of mission are roaming around among our community, possibly preying on unsuspecting Jews, perhaps even teens or children, turns my stomach.

Of course, it is a free country. Messianic Christians posing as Jews can attend church wherever their heart desires.

But passing yourself as something you’re not in order to deceive another and suck them away from their tradition elicits a particularly strong reaction.

DENVER has been burned by this before, when some synagogues and organizations in the Denver Jewish community opened their arms to a young couple searching for a deeper Judaism, when later they were outed as frauds, linked with a messianic church.

This week the news broke that it turns out a fellow who for years frequented kiddushes in various synagogues in Baltimore is, in fact, a messianic Christian.

The whole point of the messianic Christian method of missionizing is to misrepresent themselves in order to lure in Jews. Many of them are Christians yet they claim to be and present themselves as Jews. Under this guise, the goal is to convert as many Jews as they can.

Some of them are born Jews, but they are practicing Christians.

I AM usually of the school of thought of “live and let live.” I respect everyone as long as people are good people, living and promoting quality lives of human, caring values, and not damaging or hurting others. Everyone should believe what they believe. This is one of the things I am so proud about in being Jewish is that we Jews don’t prosletyze. We respect others and believe that everyone has a place in this world, and in the world to come, not just Jews.

But when it comes to messianic Christians, it is important to be aware that many of them are out to stalk the Jewish community, and even bring about casualties of the innocent kind.

So, beware.

One of their churches — founded as a synagogue, ironically — is currently nestled squarely in the center of one of Denver’s Jewish hubs.

Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News