Why?

Being a Messianic Jewish believer can, at times, elicit many conflicting emotions when it comes to witnessing to one's own people.

http://www.messianicassociation.org/arad.htm

There is nothing that I desire more than to see my brothers and sisters come to know THEIR Messiah (as well as the world's). I feel for Paul when he writes in Romans 9, these words:

I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit -- that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

However as can be seen from recent events in Eretz Israel this year, the Hasidim are violent in their opposition to the Messianic Believers' presence there. You would think after the millennia of persecution that we have faced, there would be an intolerance to using the same tactics against our own people that were used against us in the not-so-distant past.

However, the reality is that the Hasidim justify this by making the statement; "The believer in this Yeshua is no longer Jewish." But again, I ask, does this justify the violence done to the believers? Although the Hasidim are incorrect; we have never 'stopped' being Jewish; even if this were true as in their bent perspective, would that actually justify stoning and burning a Messianic House of Worship?

Does this not bring up images of Kristallnacht? I am not one of those who would label my own people with the title reserved for the perpetrators of the aforementioned event, however I spoke with a survivor of the camps in WW II, who is now a believer and he said the same things! Is this not tragic; for a man who survived the camps of the Nazis to now, in his old age, be going through the same harassment again, but this time in Eretz Israel?!

The images conjure up not only the events of the pogroms of the past, but also of the days when Messiah walked the streets of Jerusalem, being harassed by the Jewish religious leadership of the day. It is tragic how little has changed in Eretz Israel when it comes to the persecution of those who would follow Messiah!