There has been a heated discussion on Facebook regarding Barry Shaw, Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at Israel Institute for Strategic Studies, making a shidach with Calev Myers and the Jerusalem Institute for Justice(JIJ) and it became nasty. I wrote that I was terribly disappointed that Barry Shaw, the author of a book about anti-semitism would enter into such a relationship. For me, proselytizing, getting Jews to accept Jesus as the Jewish messiah, is post –modern anti-semitism. Taking a Jewish soul is as egregious as taking a Jewish life.
Instead of discussing the pros and cons of working with organizations who state up front that they want the Law of Return changed to include Messianic Jews and Jews for Jesus, or the fact that these organizations proselytize in Israel, I was called a religious racist and attacked for sharing information about Calev Myers and accused of slandering him. Slander is lying about someone.
The post became filled with glowing statements about Myers’ work in advocating for Israel and my posts about his other life. If Barry Shaw and others want to work with Calev Myers and JIJ, by all means. But know that it comes with a price.
So, I want to re-introduce you to Calev Myers. You decide if my concerns are warranted. Or if I committed slander.
Caleb is a well-known Israeli attorney and civil rights activist. He is a clean cut, well-dressed, well-spoken advocate for Israel. I have listened to him deliver first class talking points.
Caleb is also founder and chief counsel of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice. I have visited the Facebook page. It’s slick and full of well-written articles about Israel. It’s just that Myers and his organization, Jerusalem Institute for Justice, represent the interests of Messianic Jews. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my enemy. Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, whatever Jewish sounding name they use, are the serpent in the garden, the worm in the apple. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing luring our people by dangling the word “Jewish” in front of them to bring them through the portals of their Christian temples.
Myers is a modern-day Janus and makes a perfect Trojan Horse because he hides his primary purpose. If all you knew about Myers were his incredible YouTube presentations and his biography on his website, you too would think he was a gift to the Jews. You wouldn’t think that his real purpose is abusing democracy in Israel to de-Judaize Israel-the only Jewish State.
Former American Ambassador to Israel, Michael Oren said: “I have no statistics on the size of the Messianic community, but I think certainly that the State of Israel wants the Jewish people to remain Jewish…” While noting that “Israel greatly values its relationship with the evangelical community and other Christian communities in the world,” Oren cautioned that “we are very sensitive to the notion of proselytizing — very sensitive.”
Calev Myers presents himself on his website as “Human Rights Champion and Israel Advocate,” and “General Counsel to over 90 non-profit organizations in Israel focusing upon education, humanitarian needs, social justice and civil rights,” without a word of his real work-changing the laws regarding who is a Jew through the Law of Return. Not a word about his advocating for Messianic Jews (Christians) in Israel and America.
Here is Calev Myers including his own words. The following originally appeared in my blog on Times of Israel, but Myers’ convinced them to take it down. Menashe Walsh managed to rescue it.
“Myers, in the forefront of key legal battles for the rights of Messianic Jews, was commencement speaker Saturday for Southeastern University. ‘I was not intending to be the Messianic Jewish Robin Hood … but God had other plans.’”
At the time Myers had “developed an awareness of social injustice that prompted him to found, and serve as chief counsel of The Jerusalem Institute of Justice, and has put him before Israel’s highest court two times… he won a case brought on behalf of 12 Messianic Jews who had been unable to get the citizenship promised Jews born elsewhere who return to Israel to live.
The court ruled “that being a Messianic Jew can’t prevent obtaining Israeli citizenship if the Jewish descent is on the father’s side.”
Myers says “that I am biologically from a Jewish background. I identify with the Jewish people. I celebrate the Jewish holidays. I see myself as an integral part of the Jewish culture, but I believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah based on Jewish Scriptures.”
Messianic Jews are blamed for many things in Israel, Myers said, but “favor is coming on the Jewish believers in Israel today.”
He urged Jewish believers from around the world to relocate to Israel, as his family did when he was 18.
“We believe the day is coming, friends, when Jesus once again will reveal himself to Israel, to the Jewish people.”
From other posts:
It was Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute for Justice who turned to the USA with his complaint about discrimination against “religious minorities” in Israel. America took notice in their International Religious Freedom Report for 2013: Israel and the Occupied Territories.
They wrote that Israel’s Ministry of Interior continues “to deny citizenship or deny or delay services such as child registration and issuance of social benefits, identity cards, and passports to some citizens based on their religious beliefs, according to the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, an NGO. This included cases of individuals who immigrated under the Law of Return as Jews but were discovered to hold Messianic or Christian beliefs.”
Calev Myers assisted in bringing Southeastern University Jerusalem Studies Center satellite campus for Ministerial students to Israel. The self-described “Christ-centered University” was founded in 1935 as a Bible Institute to train pastors and missionaries. They offer a Bachelor of Science in Practical Theology which prepares graduates to take on positions as Evangelists or Missionary program directors and staff member. Their Religion and Philosophy department offers a study program including “Missions/Missionary Studies and Missiology ”
The University’s fundraising and development section of their website assures the donor that SEU students aim “to fulfill the Great Commission” and “your gifts advance Christ’s cause around the world.”
Note that the Mormon Church, which has mission work at its core worldwide, agreed when it opened a campus in Jerusalem to refrain from missionary activity.
In 2008 Calev Myers, Chief Counsel for JIJ, represented “Rabbi Jamie Cowan’s (now Cohen) daughter, Amy in a ground breaking case which made it possible for several messianic Christians to make aliyah because they were not Jews as defined by the Law, but rather because they were the offspring of Jewish fathers. At the time Amy Cowen declared:
“This legal precedent not only guarantees rights to those represented in the case, but also paves the way and opens immense doors to unhindered Messianic Jewish aliyah (with Jewish ancestry on the father’s side).”
Calev Myers is the de facto spokesman for Israel’s 100 messianic congregations who want to “shine a light on a phobia that exists toward messianic Jews in Israel.
Here’s the phobia: “The Jewish people as a whole & those Jewish people who identify with Yeshua/Jesus, King of the Jews, suffer an age-old rift stemming out of everything from simple misunderstanding to raging spiritual blindness & outright persecution. The modern state of Israel, born out of the heart & word of God, as well as the ashes of the Holocaust, has historically denied citizenship to those who identify with Yeshua.”
To those who say that Jews well-versed will not be turned by Jews for Jesus, they aren’t the people we need to protect. Let us never forget the damage done by Calev Myers and his ilk for taking our most vulnerable away from the Judaism that they had carried over the centuries: Ethiopian and Russian Jews. People who held on by a thread to the teachings passed down, often only knowing they were Jewish, but not knowing the true meaning. Then these people, these Jews for Jesus, these Messianic Jews (Christians in disguise) stole their souls after so much hardship and took them away from Torah and brought them to Jesus.
It is our obligation to care for the weakest amongst us. We have failed.
It is our duty, our obligation to remember the number of Jews who have been taken from us, from the collective soul of our people-in the name of Jesus- and stop this attack on our peoplehood. Jesus cannot be rehabilitated, and more importantly, must not be rehabilitated or the deaths of our people would have been for naught.
Quotes from Calev
Exactly who is a Jew, however, is “at the heart of the debate of the Jewish world,” Myers said.
Israeli attorney Calev Myers, chief counsel of The Jerusalem Institute, said that a lot of the clerks in the Interior Ministry are ultra-Orthodox Jews. “During the years that [the ultra-Orthodox] Shas [party] controlled the ministry, they made sure to appoint clerks who were willing to carry out their policies.”As a result, Israel is the only Western country where basic freedom of religion is denied. Today, those being discriminated against are Messianic Jews. Tomorrow it will be Conservative and Reform Jews,” he said.
CBN News December 15, 2008
And from others:
Calev Myers is a Pastor and attorney.
The pastor of the church (Congregation Shemen Sasson) Calev Myers, is also a lawyer that helps Messianic Jews come back to Israel since the Israeli government denies them citizenship because they said they have “turned away.” The messages that we have heard have been awesome and the way I feel the church was called to be. They are very theologically sound and very encouraging. Congregation Shemen Sasson is an Israeli community in Jerusalem, comprised of people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds who believe in the Bible; Old and New Covenants, as the inspired word of God. We honor Yeshua of Nazareth as the promised Messiah of Israel.
The Israel Business Forum, hosted by the Messianic organization First Fruits: The Israel Center for Economic Advancement like-minded investors could meet over 100 Israeli Messianic and Arab-Christian entrepreneurs…from all parts of the Body of Messiah in Israel. First Fruits chairman and CEO Mordechai Wiseman “We believe the Messianic community shouldn’t be a ghetto and should engage with the larger Israeli community.” Messianic presenters included Calev Myers.
This is the JIJ
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