When a Jewish person “confess[es]… Yeshua as Lord, and believe[s] in [his] heart that God raised Him from the dead,” (Ro.10:9) he immediately becomes caught between two worlds.  To his Jewish family, he is either meshuginah (Yiddish for “crazy”) or he has abandoned and forsaken his people.  To most Christians, his Jewish ethnicity is either just an interesting novelty, or has now become irrelevant, because he is “a new creature; the old things [have] passed away… new things have come.” (2Co.5:17)   These opposing forces are an ever-present source of pressure for the Messianic Jew.  Does he disown the Messiah Yeshua and return to the unbelieving Jewish fold?  Or should he turn his back on his family, his people and himself by assimilating into the foreign religion of Christianity?  It is a heart-wrenching, lonely existence that Messianic Jews often face, but all believers in Yeshua can—and should—take an active role in encouraging Jewish believers to be restored to the distinctive identity that is their God-given birthright. Read more