The Messianic groups see their religious message as beneficial to those in distress, and say they offer it unconditionally, apart from essential aid, while critics say the groups are exploiting vulnerable people in a compromised situation.
“We give people food and medicine and Bibles and gas for their cars to get them moving. We see the Bible as just as practical as all these other things,” said Susan Perlman, one of the founders of Jews for Jesus.
Rabbi Tovia Singer, the head of the counter-missionary organization Outreach Judaism, said Messianic groups were “weaponizing humanitarian aid in order to share the gospel.”
Messianic Judaism is a movement that combines Jewish tradition and practice with the belief that Jesus Christ is the coming messiah. It is considered outside the fold by all mainstream Jewish denominations, who say the ideology directly contradicts many of the religion’s principal tenets. Some Messianic Jews want the movement to be accepted as a sect of Judaism, and view it as such. They often have ties to explicitly Christian organizations. READ MORE
