Meet Eva Frank: The First Jewish Female Messiah

Was this revered female figurehead an empowered leader or a tragic victim in her father's wake?

Shira Telushkin
JSTOR Daily
April 27, 2022

We know very little detail about Eva Frank in her own words. There is her father's portrayal of a dream she had, in which an old man from heaven soothes her anxiety about being the representation of the divine Messiah on Earth. There are descriptions by pilgrims and visitors of her court in Offenbach, Germany, where she listened to confessions and passed judgment on followers in the 1790s, often instructing them to be lashed for their sins. Few of these texts quote her directly. In 1800, there is her request to Jewish communities to convert to Christianity and take up the Frankist cause, written in red ink and sent to hundreds of Jewish towns scattered across eastern Europe. There are her letters soliciting supporters for money and merchants for loans. We know from these letters that she was mostly supported by followers of her father, she was accustomed to luxury, and she died in tremendous debt in 1816. We know she was venerated as the Messiah into the 20th century, where followers still carried her image, a small portrait of their holy female saint, the incarnated divine presence on Earth. We know that US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis had such a portrait, given to him by his mother, descended from a prominent line of Jews who continued to revere Eva Frank.

The legacy of Eva Frank is almost as complicated as her own life, which wound through Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and secular communities in a dazzling cross-section of mysticism that attracted followers and spinoffs from nearly every corner of the Ottoman Empire and Polish world, dovetailing with the unfolding Enlightenment. It is the story of one woman given a mantle she might not have been born to bear, and the uneasy way worship of the divine feminine in 1700s Europe affirmed both women's power and passivity, working in unexpected ways alongside Enlightenment calls for women's emancipations and greater political leadership and educational access. With such a captivating and nuanced history, how can it be that we know so little about the only woman to have been worshipped as a Messiah in modern history?

Eva Frank was born in 1756, in modern-day Ukraine, to Jacob and Hannah Frank, along with their existing children. Jacob had been raised in a family staunchly committed to the radical teachings of Shabtai Tzvi, the Jewish messianic claimant who died in 1676 after ultimately converting to Islam, and whose widely embraced prophecies and antinomian preaching—which specifically called for overturning Jewish law—nearly upended European Jewry. Around 1751, five years before Eva's birth, Jacob proclaimed that he was Shabtai Tzvi's successor on Earth. Building on Jewish mystical teachings and Shabtai Tzvi's legacy, he fashioned himself as the Messiah on earth who had come to teach a new way of religious life that would bring the Messianic era. He quickly attracted thousands of followers, known as "Frankists", and reportedly took the antinomian embrace of holy subversion even further than Shabtai Tzvi, hosting intricate rituals that overthrew the taboos of incest, menstruation, and adultery, often with the aid of sacred objects, including Torah scrolls. Though there is ongoing debate about the extent of such rituals in practice, as opposed to simply wild rumors, scholars Cristina Ciucu and Regan Kramer argue in their article published in Clio. Women, Gender, History that such ideology was markedly more extreme in Frankist practice than that of prior leaders and took a specific focus on the display of feminine sensuality.

In 1756, local Jewish authorities excommunicated Jacob and his followers for these transgressive rituals and beliefs, and he responded by converting to Catholicism, along with three thousand believers. It was during this transition that Eva, who had been named Rachel at birth in honor of Jacob's mother, was baptized with her new name. At this point, Jacob began to integrate Jewish and Christian beliefs more boldly into his theology. Soon after, however, local Catholic authorities imprisoned Jacob on charges of false conversion, noting that his followers continued to worship him as a divine presence and refused to marry outside their own community. Jacob was kept in a monastery in Częstochowa, where he continued to receive visits from admirers and develop his own ideas about mysticism, redemption, and feminine sexual power. Eva stayed with her father throughout the thirteen years of his imprisonment, along with her mother Hannah, and grew close to him. Their bond was reinforced when, later, Eva refused to leave during a Russian siege of the city, which kept even his staunchest followers outside the gates. Częstochowa was a city rich in Marian worship, as the home of the venerated Black Mary icon, and that influence is likely one reason (along with his new embrace of Catholicism as an important element in his own theology) that Jacob began to write more avidly than ever before about the feminine identity of the Messiah, focusing specifically on his wife as the divine representation on Earth.

In 1770, following the death of his wife, Jacob refocused his divine feminine decrees on nearly 16-year-old Eva. He declared her to be the Messiah and the reincarnation of both the Virgin Mary and the Shekhinah, the divine presence on Earth, interpreted as feminine in Jewish mysticism. Though there was some incredulity at the idea of a female Messiah among his followers, Jacob admonished them to accept this unprecedented belief, and, by and large, they did. Eva became widely known as "the Lady" or "the Virgin". Portraits of her were distributed among Frankists in the area, similar to the small portraits of the Virgin Mary carried by Christian worshippers, though she was depicted unconventionally in a stylish outfit with a noticeably scooped neckline. Jacob established Eva as a central figure of worship among his followers and encouraged her to hear confessions and administer punishments for sins. When Jacob died in 1791, Eva moved to Offenbach, Germany, with two of her brothers, where they strived to continue their father's work and continue her role as the Messianic divine figurehead of the movement. There, she continued to receive visitors, offer confession, and maintain support. In 1803, the Offenbach court was disbanded for unclear reasons, and Eva moved back to Poland, where she continued to function in her Messianic role to an increasingly diminished and diverse group of followers, before her own death in 1816. After her death, the baptized Frankists largely assimilated into Christian culture while the Jewish ones lingered on in clandestine meetings until eventually petering out. By early 19th century, the Frankists were seen as a group similar to the freemasons and other vaguely secular, secret, ritual-based societies that ran rampant in this era, with their Jewish origins largely lost, though pockets of support for Jacob and Eva Frank lingered across all of these communities in Poland and beyond for at least a century after her death.

What do we make of Eva Frank? Her strange legacy is often caught between those eager to embrace her as a trailblazing icon of female religious authority, and those convinced she was a tragic victim in her father's abusive schemes for sex and power, as read into his Messianic claims and teachings about unconventional, socially transgressive sexual acts as means to hurry along the new Messianic era. Each has evidence in their corner. The emphasis on taboo sexual relations and female sensuality within Frankist theology make it difficult to definitively rule out a physical relationship with her father, though by all accounts Eva never married and her status as a holy Virgin remained central to her identity until her death. She is consistently referred to as the Virgin in Frankist writings, compared to the Virgin Mary and other religious Christian saints celebrated for their perpetual virginity. No physical relationship between Jacob and Eva is ever mentioned in any of the writings of Jacob himself or his followers. Though Eva is referred to as Jacob's divine female companion in his own writings, her own religious identity was fashioned on the cult of Mary, which already promoted a divine female counterpart that was not a sexual partner, but a mother. The Frankists, possibly borrowing from Christian monastic culture, referred to one another as brothers and sisters, further extending the categories of non-sexual associations between male and female members. In Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666 – 1816, one of the most recent books on the topic, scholar Ada Rapoport-Albert is much more skeptical about the pervasiveness of incest and ritualistic orgies within the movement. In general, the transgressive sexual element of Frankist practice has been most fervently emphasized by traditional Jewish voices who see the entire offshoot as heretical and subversive. There was indeed a strange culture of purity and ritualized sexuality prevalent in Offenbach, and it is far more likely that Eva occupied a place of confirmed celibacy while other women engaged in ritualistic sexual practices, though this hardly addresses the full question of her own agency in the matter.

Another way to consider how Eva should be understood is to reflect on the role of women in Frankist circles more generally. Scholars Ada Rapoport-Albert and Cesar Merchan Hamann shed some light on this question through an intriguing analysis of a Frankist manuscript dated to 1800, written by a follower of Jacob Frank and used by Gershom Scholem, one of the most influential scholars of Jewish mysticism, to advocate the view of a progressive embrace of female authority within Frankist belief. In their analysis, however, Ada Rapoport-Albert and Cesar Merchan Hamann caution against simply adopting Eva Frank as an empowered religious figure, or the text as evidence of broad female emancipation in the movement. Through a thorough rebuttal of Scholem's argument, they argue there is little evidence to suggest the Frankist beliefs about the divine feminine were synonymous with those of female emancipation within Enlightenment thought. Though there is some shared interest in reshaping beliefs about the role of women in their relative contexts, it is too simple to view the example of Eva Frank and the embrace of divine femininity as evidence of the influence of the Enlightenment on the movement, or even mutual influence between the two movements.

Nonetheless, the analysis of this Frankist manuscript draws out important elements of Frankist beliefs about women, and why their theology believes the Messiah is a woman. The problem with casting Eva's ascendency to divine Messiah as evidence of the adoption of female emancipation as a Frankist value is that, far from advocating for political and education reforms for women (a core focus of Enlightenment activists), the Frankist text used for evidence here is much more focused on freeing the sexual impulse within both men and women. As Rapoport-Albert and Hamann demonstrate, the author describes the need for the female sexual impulse to be "release from captivity—understood in the sense of 'shame', 'modesty', or in other words, the constraints of conventional sexual morality" so that the coming Messianic era can dawn, a breakthrough only possible "with the emergence of the Messianic 'virgin' or 'maiden' who he believes is embodied in the figure of Eva Frank." The societal repression of female sexuality is, the unnamed Frankist writer believes, a suppression of the creative vitality of women which, when expressed, will revitalize the male sexual impulse, a development which will ultimately allow the hidden, repressed female Messiah to emerge in her full glory and thus usher in the era of Messianic redemption. She need only be seduced, encouraged to overcome her feminine shyness, and aroused to action to reveal herself. The text itself repeatedly emphasizes the desire of women to be cherished, noting how, "the whole essence of woman is to be loved, kissed, etc.," and how society keeps the female Messiah hidden by condemning the feminine expression of sexual desire. The theological ramifications are tremendous, because, the author continues to his reader

You will be well aware that the personification of shekhina, from now on better called the Holy Virgin, the betulah, is the gateway to God and to all divine treasures. All capacity for Him is in her; all the keys to His treasures are with here; everything apparent, manifest, and revealed in the world is to be revealed through her; she is the first step and the gateway; she is also the true sensuality for God, just as every good wife is her husband's sensuality.

Though Scholem sees in this text evidence of female empowerment, it is hard not to read instead a rendering in which Eva Frank personifies a divine force that is worshipped but passive, merely a gateway to divine powers higher up the ladder. Jacob Frank, in his own writings, describes this feminine divine presence on Earth as "the gateway to God, and only through her is it possible to read God and grasp him." In this understanding, the female divinity remains little more than an icon to be worshipped, with no activated leadership requiring her to speak, think, or act. She is passive, her power limited to the fact of her existence.

This divine conception within Frankist thought is hard to square entirely with the role of Eva Frank in the court at Offenbach, where she pronounced judgements on her followers and meted out punishment and, we know, occasionally refused to see devotees she deemed insufficiently holy to stand in her presence. But it is also hard to know how much authority she actually had, beyond her venerated status. We know little of how women more broadly functioned in Frankist communities, and how they understood their own relationship to her.

One should not overlook, of course, that the religious participation of women in these antinomian communities was radically expanded, and it is possibly one reason the claims of sexual perversion were so quick to stick. Many movements throughout history with more equitable female participation have faced accusations of sexual perversion, especially at times when women rarely socialized outside the home, leading many to assume their presence in public rituals or socially among men could only have a sexual basis. From his earliest leadership claims, Shabtai Tzvi allowed women to participate in public worship in ways that would remain prohibited in mainstream Jewish communities for another three hundred years. As Rapoport-Albert and Hamann note, Shabtai Tzvi's strident focus on the desire to liberate women from masculine domination was noteworthy, and persisted among his followers, who were known as Sabbateans. "Sabbatianisnism's promotion of women to positions of prophetic and even messianic-divine authority…was a unique feature of the movement…and persisted in one form or another throughout its history, culminating in the veneration in Frankist circles of Eva Frank as the female Messiah and the living incarnation of the divine sefirah Malkhut," they write, using a different term in Jewish mysticism for the Shekihina. In fact, Rapoport-Albert believes it was the female liberation inherent in this movement that rendered the emerging Jewish mystical tradition of Hasidism particularly hostile to female religious authority and leadership. The desire to liberate the sexual impulse undoubtedly led to abuse, and to the odd perversion of women as objects, and yet this was also the most dramatic break from Jewish traditions of sidelining female religious participation, allowing new possibilities to unfold and manifest.

Despite her fascinating role in 18th century religious life, Eva Frank has long been considered little more than a footnote to the legacy of her charismatic father. When she is mentioned, it is often due to the novelty of calling her the first (and only) female Jewish Messiah, though the term stretches the definition of Jewish identity almost to a breaking point. This is a puzzling development. Scholar Abraham Duker makes a convincing case in his article published in Jewish Social Studies that Eva had come to personify, and outlive, the movement her father had started. Citing numerous examples of continued veneration in the 1850s and beyond, in addition to strong consensus that it was her death in 1816, not her father's death in 1791, which forced the movement into decline, Duker's research suggests that Eva had become the central focus of divine worship among the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other Frankist followers in the century following her death.

While she seems to have lacked the force of vision and leadership power that defined her father's legacy, there is every reason to think she had embraced her role among the community, by the end of her life, as a figure of divine significance and Messianic authority. In turn, as the extreme aspects of her father's writings faded from memory, her followers in subsequent decades would keep her portrait close, seeing her as a misunderstood figure who had come to Earth with the promise of divine redemption, and was thwarted by traditional religious leadership's fear of female ascendency. This acceptance, by a community which had initially believed they were following a male messiah, is noteworthy and extremely dramatic, and there is every reason to see Eva as an unprecedented religious figure in her own right. However one views her, she deserves a place among the strange, evolving story of religious life in the 18th century, when so much changed, and so much remained the same.


Resources

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A female Messiah? Jewish mysticism and messianism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

By: Cristina Ciucu and Regan Kramer

Clio. Women, Gender, History, No. 44, Judaism: Gender and Religion (2016), pp. 63-93

Editions Belin

'Something for the Female Sex': A Call for the Liberation of Women, and the Release of the Female Libido from the 'Shackles of Shame', in an Anonymous Frankist Manuscript from Prague c. 1800

By: Ada Rapoport-Albert and Cesar Merchan Hamann

Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought / מחקרי ירושלים במחשבת ישראל, כרך כא‎, Gershom Scholem (1897-1982): In memoriam: Volume Two / ספר זיכרון לגרשם שלום. במלאת עשרים וחמש שנים לפטירתו – כרך שני‎ (תשס"ז), pp. 77*-135*

Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies / המכון למדעי היהדות ע"ש מנדל

Polish Frankism's Duration: From Cabbalistic Judaism to Roman Catholicism and from Jewishness to Polishness: A Preliminary Investigation

By: Abraham G. Duker
Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Oct., 1963), pp. 287-333
Indiana University Press

https://daily.jstor.org/meet-eva-frank-the-first-jewish-female-messiah/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/3/2016

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http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/11/jewish-communities-discouraged.html

Polygamist church leader says underage marriages were God’s will

"The leader of a fundamentalist church that practises polygamy was aware that asking members in southeastern British Columbia to take their daughters across the U.S. border to be married could attract the attention of authorities, but he believed he was acting under instructions from God, according to a B.C. Supreme Court decision."

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Record of B.C. teen's marriage to Warren Jeffs can be used in trial: judge

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"Brandon Blackmore and Ruth Gail Blackmore are accused in B.C. Supreme Court of transporting the girl into the United States for a sexual purpose.

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More details come out in B.C. trial of parents accused of forcing daughters into polygamous marriages

"Some of the evidence – particularly the diaries of Warren Jeffs, the convicted pedophile prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – is stunning and chilling."

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Today in Korean history

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Critical Thinking: The Antidote to Undue Influence — With Bill Goldberg, LCSW, Psy.A

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​​News, Intervention, Recovery

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Rabbi with promises of a hubby and magical Torahs cons woman out of $214K: suit

Priscilla DeGregory, Dana Sauchelli and Selim Algar
NY Post
March 23, 2016

A lonely Brooklyn woman got her heartstrings played by a grifting Jewish mystic, who promised to find her a husband and three lucky magic Torahs for a payment of $214,000, a new lawsuit claims.

Cecilia Lifschitz says she handed over the huge sum to controversial Borough Park mystic Rabbi Chaim Sharabi in a desperate bid to find a life mate — but the hustling holy man never came through with what he promised.

“Plaintiff was an easy target for defendants and defendants were aware of this,” her suit says.

The woman claims that Sharabi and two collaborators — his daughter-in-law, Michal Hadad, and Alon Jacobi — promised they would quickly find her a husband in exchange for the money.

“Defendants had every reason to know Plaintiff would do anything, including paying a large sum of money, to get married,” the suit states.

Sharabi apparently told the woman he’d secure the lucky holy texts for the woman, and that they would be housed in synagogues in Israel and Brooklyn.

“Plaintiffs made these knowingly false statements about her finding a husband and the existence of the Torah books when she paid them $214,000,” the suit says, adding: “Purchasing a Torah book is considered a very significant good deed in the Jewish religion, one which brings a person good luck.”

Lifschitz noted that parties are typically held after someone buys a new handwritten Torah and that the purchaser is invited to attend. But she never got any proof that he bought the books.

Sharabi, however, disputed the woman’s claims — saying he really did set up Lifschitz with a man, named Alon. They even went on a trip to Brazil, he said.

“When things didn’t work out with her and Alon, she got upset,” he told The Post on Tuesday.

Sharabi also claimed he got the Torahs for her. He showed The Post a Torah that he said had her name written in it in Hebrew. He said it cost $42,000 and that the other two were in Israel.

“Sometimes you don’t get what you want and you have to say thank you to God because he knows best,” he told The Post. “I love her, I want to help her, she’s a good person.”

According to published reports, Sharabi has successfully styled himself as a clairvoyant in the Borough Park community, selling everything from promises of wealth and marriage to lucky amulets.

A 2009 story in The Forward reported that Sharabi received clients in the back of a Borough Park optician and occasionally kept people waiting for six hours to bask in his wisdom.

Lifschitz and her attorney declined to comment on the case.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/23/rabbi-with-promises-of-a-hubby-and-magical-torahs-cons-woman-out-of-214k-suit/

Bill aims to outlaw sex between rabbis and their followers

Legislation seeks to prevent exploitation by spiritual leaders, similar to restrictions between therapists and patients
SUE SURKES 
The Times of Israel
March 2, 2016

Meretz MK Michal Rozin speaks during a committee
meeting in the Knesset, December 14, 2015. 

Rabbis and other spiritual figures who use their influence to sexually exploit their followers could face the full weight of criminal law if a bill which was cleared for its first reading in the Knesset Tuesday enters the books.

Passed for preliminary reading in January, the bill forms part of broader efforts to create a framework for dealing with cults in Israel and calls for up to three years imprisonment for offenders.

But the wording will allow it to deal also with cases in which religious figures sexually exploit their followers. Activities would be deemed criminal should the authority figure exploit the “real psychological dependence” of his or her victim during or close to a period in which advice or guidance was given in one-on-one meetings.

The proposed legislation, introduced by Meretz MK Michal Rozin and signed by lawmakers from across the spiritual spectrum, places encounters such as these on a par with sexual relations between a therapist and patient, which are illegal, the Hebrew daily Haaretz reported.

“This is about psychological dependence, just as exists in a therapist-patient relationship,” Rozin said. “It’s the place of the legislature to determine that sexual relationships within the framework of such dependence cannot take place within the law and that they have to be prohibited by criminal law.”

Liat Klein, legal adviser to the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, which helped to put the draft bill together, said: “Rabbis and spiritual individuals create great dependence among those who turn to them, usually during distress or a crisis.”

The police and prosecution services endeavored for years to prosecute cult leader Goel Ratzon, who presented himself as a spiritual guru, and was finally convicted in September of multiple sexual offenses, including rape, sodomy, sex with a minor, indecent assault and fraud.

Ratzon, 64, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison and ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of shekels in restitution to his victims, is believed to have had up to 32 “wives” starting in 1991. He also reportedly fathered at least 49 children, with some media sources estimating that more than 60 children were involved in his cult.

Prosecutors tried to create a legal precedent of “spiritual slavery” and argued that relationships, including sexual ones, with 12 women had to be seen within the context of Ratzon’s spiritual control which negated the womens’ ability to choose freely.

The court acquitted Ratzon of sexual slavery and rejected the prosecution’s attempt to enshrine spiritual slavery as a precedent.

According to the Israeli Center for Cult Victims, there are some 100 cults active in Israel, with 15,000-20,000 adults and 3,000 children in their ranks.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-aims-to-outlaw-sex-between-rabbis-and-their-followers/

Can Montreal Hasidic School Pupils Be Jolted Into Modernity?

Julie Masis
Forward
February 25, 2016

At five o’clock in the afternoon, the lights are still on at an elementary school in Montreal. The school looks like any other school. It is a four-story red-brick building with a playground in the front and a parking lot in the back. A curtain in a third-floor window moves aside, and a little boy with sidelocks gazes out at this journalist pacing on the sidewalk and freezing in the February wind (school officials have turned down her request to come inside). Soon two boys appear at the window, then five, then 10. They wave and tap on the glass. When the journalist tries to snap a photo, they hide behind the curtain. As soon as she puts her camera in her purse, they tap on the glass and motion for her to try and take their picture again.

This is Yeshiva Toras Moshe, an ultra-Orthodox school for Satmar boys. Until 2014, it was regarded as “illegal” by the provincial government of Quebec because it doesn’t teach subjects — including the French language — that the Ministry of Education requires. Last fall, the government implemented a new system it had mandated a year earlier: The yeshiva still has no permit, but the 238 boys from grades one to six are required to participate in a homeschooling program supervised by the school board. They have to pass evaluations across all mandatory homeschooling subjects throughout the year.

“We had a few [homeschooled children before], about 20 — it wasn’t anything like we have now,” said Angela Mancini, the president of the English Montreal school board that oversees the homeschooled boys from Yeshiva Toras Moshe, since the parents are English-speakers.

The children from the yeshiva are now technically studying at home the same subjects as are required in all schools in the province, including subjects such as geography, science, history and French, Mancini said. Their education is based on an individualized plan designed by their parents and approved by the school board, and their progress is evaluated using a portfolio of work.

“Some students are doing very well, but they need to catch up,” Mancini said.

Yeshiva Toras Moshe refused to provide any information to the Forward, but former teacher Yohanan Lowen (who has since left the Hasidic community), said that until now the children there received only the total of an hour of math and English a day — and did not learn any other secular subjects. The school board would not comment on what the children were learning prior to the homeschooling mandate.

“Maybe it’s an hour a day — but that hour, it’s not a requirement to come,” Lowen said, explaining that even the classes provided were limited. “It’s not taken seriously. The children are tired already and the children are taught that it’s not important.”

The rest of the day is devoted to religious studies — in Yiddish and Aramaic. Children do not even learn Modern Hebrew, Lowen said, as the Satmars consider it a forbidden language of the Zionists.

This struggle between the Montreal Hasidic community and the provincial government of Quebec is the latest example of the conflict between religious educational priorities and legal requirements for secular studies. In New York State Naftuli Moster and his organization Yaffed has stung the Department of Education into an investigation of taxpayer dollars funding schools that he alleges do not meet minimum educational requirements. And in Israel Bar Von Mayer and 52 others are suing the state for not ensuring that their ultra-Orthodox state schools gave them adequate schooling.

Until now, secular education in the Montreal community stopped after the boys’ bar mitzvah at the age of 13, according to Lowen. After that, the Satmar boys continue learning only religious studies, he said. The yeshiva would not answer any questions. According to the school board, the homeschooling program is administered on a year by year basis, and it is up to the parents to sign their children up. Education is mandatory in Quebec until the age of 16.

Yeshiva Toras Moshe was not the only illegal Jewish school in the province. The nearby Satmar girls’ school, Beth Esther, which used to be accredited, lost its permit recently. The school did not respond to calls from the Forward. (Even its Yiddish answering-machine message does not comply with government regulations, according to which messages must be in French and English.)

In 2014, Quebec’s Minister of Education called for illegal schools in the province to close. The Ministry would not provide information on how many illegal Jewish schools are within its jurisdiction — and whether the homeschooling model might be applied to the students of other illegal schools in the future. “We don’t know the exact number of illegal schools because they’re illegal, so they’re not registered anywhere,” said Bryan Saint-Louis, a spokesman for Quebec’s Ministry of Education.

Some Hasidic schools that have government permits still cut corners when it comes to secular subjects. In some Chabad-Lubavitch schools in Montreal, for example, boys are not introduced to the English alphabet until they are nine — well after the legal requirement to start in first grade — and many stop studying secular subjects after their bar mitzvahs, said Peisach Sperlin, a Chabad rabbi in Montreal who has sons at one of the elementary schools. Despite mandatory science and technology requirements from the third grade onwards, the schools do not teach physics, chemistry, or biology he said. There just “isn’t enough time in the day, so they choose the most important subjects,” he added.

The Rabbinical College of Canada — the elementary school (“college” in French is a form of grade school) his sons attend — confirmed that it does not offer any biology, chemistry or physics classes. There is no Chabad high school in Montreal. Children from Chabad families travel elsewhere to continue their education.

“If they want to learn [science], they can learn it on their own,” said Sperlin.

Hasidic girls receive more hours of secular instruction than boys, because according to Hasidic tradition, boys concentrate on religious texts.

In the Satmar community, the issue seems to be the subject matter itself rather than the number of hours of study. “You don’t really need all the science. Biology and ecology definitely not,” said Alex Werzberger, a member of the Montreal Satmar community whose grandchildren attend Yeshiva Toras Moshe. “Especially when you take a small child and you tell them that what they learn in the Bible is not the real thing. So what do you do to that child? You confuse him.”

Werzberger said that the fact that most Satmar people are successful in life proves that secular education is useless. In Montreal, members of the community are known for going into real estate.

“You don’t see many Jews on welfare or on unemployment,” Werzberger said. “We live very nicely and we’ve done very nicely for ourselves. The government is trying to force people to learn something that is against their basic beliefs.”

But Lowen — who could read only in Yiddish and Aramaic until he taught himself to read in English when he was 29 — said that for him, the lack of education has been detrimental.

“It basically stole my youth. It ruined my life forever,” he said. “People are telling me [if you had had an education], you could have been a judge, a researcher, a professor. I don’t know what I could have been.”

Contact Julie Masis at feedback@forward.com

http://forward.com/news/333756/can-montreal-hasidic-school-pupils-be-jolted-into-modernity/

Jewish Mormons see hybrid identity as no contradiction

URIEL HEILMAN
The Jewish Standard
February 25, 2016

Salt Lake Temple

SALT LAKE CITY – Phyllis Miller’s experience growing up in Southern California wasn’t much different from that of many American Jews.

The product of an intermarriage — her mother wasn’t Jewish but later converted — Miller’s family attended synagogue occasionally, kept the kids home from school on the High Holidays, and ate matzah on Passover.

But Miller’s religious life took an unusual turn during her high school years in San Diego, when she embraced the Mormon church.

After a year of resistance from her parents, when she was 16 she was baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She later moved to Utah, enrolled in Brigham Young University, married a Mormon, and raised six kids as Latter-day Saints, or LDS.

For decades afterward, Miller felt that part of her identity was missing. So about 20 years ago, she started celebrating Chanukah again. Later she found her way to a synagogue seder. These days Miller, 55, often wears her Star of David necklace, and every six months she attends the semi-annual gathering of B’nai Shalom, a Jewish Mormon group that holds events in this city on the eve of the twice-yearly LDS general conferences.

Make no mistake, however: Miller still is Mormon. She just celebrates her Jewishness, too.

“I still consider myself Jewish,” said Miller, whose grandfather was Larry Fine, one of the Three Stooges. “I feel like I just added on to my faith.”

Miller is among at least hundreds of Jews across North America who have converted to Mormonism yet still practice some Jewish traditions and identify as Jewish. They see no contradiction between the two.

“Being Jewish is my heritage,” Miller said. “It’s not like you can just get rid of it.”

The number of Jewish Mormons is difficult to estimate. The B’nai Shalom LDS & Jewish Facebook group has about 450 members. Some 200 to 400 people usually show up to the group’s March and September gatherings, which typically include a potluck dinner with traditional Jewish foods, a lecture, Jewish music and dancing, and plenty of schmoozing.

Victor Ludlow, a longtime religion professor at BYU who helped launch the Mormon university’s Near Eastern and Jewish studies programs in the 1970s, and has served two five-year terms as an LDS bishop, says the Mormon church smiles upon hybrid Jewish-Mormon identities. Jewish rituals such as Chanukah candle lightings and Passover seders are seen as positive cultural rather than religious traditions — as long as the practitioners still believe in Jesus and the Book of Mormon.

“If it doesn’t interfere with their practice as Latter-day Saints, as long as it’s something that’s positive, that enriches their lives, there’s no problem with them. In fact, they’re encouraged,” said Ludlow, who is retired. “And there are enough commonalities between the two cultures that sometimes it’s not as much as a cultural shock for Jews to become Mormons as it is for Christians.”

Among those commonalities, according to Ludlow, are that both peoples are bound by a covenant, are or have been led by living prophets, build temples, and observe dietary laws. Both religions use the word gentile to describe people outside the faith. In Utah, which has a Mormon majority, it is the Jews who are the gentiles.

Mormons also feel a kinship with Jews as a people persecuted for their faith. Mormons cite the hostility of American Christians, especially in the decades following the religion’s founding in 1830 by Joseph Smith, as echoing the Jewish experience.

That’s all cold comfort for the parents of Jews drawn to the Mormon church. When Mitch Cowitz, a native of Toronto, told his Jewish parents that he was interested in converting to Mormonism, they were aghast, insisting he meet with rabbis and someone from an anti-cult group.

“They did everything but try to disown me,” Cowitz recalled.

They failed. Cowitz was baptized when he was 21. Though he’s now a Mormon bishop, he says he hasn’t left Judaism. Cowitz lives in Thornhill, a heavily Jewish neighborhood of Toronto, and still celebrates many Jewish holidays. He also closely follows news from Israel.

“It’s my people. I consider it my land as well. I still consider myself Jewish,” said Cowitz, 50. “But I believe that the Book of Mormon is God’s word that has been revealed in these modern days. That’s what originally spoke to me. And the whole concept of Jesus Christ as the messiah.”

In an interview with JTA, a few commonalities in the experiences of Jews who convert to Mormonism emerged: The converts tend to be from relatively assimilated or mixed-faith families, grew up in places without a strong Jewish community, discovered the Mormon church through friends, and had their crucial first encounter with Mormonism in their formative late-teen years. All encountered parental resistance. Many cited the Mormon focus on family as one of the faith’s most attractive elements.

Jason Olson, a U.S. Navy chaplain serving in Japan, is the son of a Jewish mother and Lutheran father. Growing up in Phoenix, he went to a Reform synagogue and to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah, and observed Jewish holidays, but his family also celebrated Christmas and Easter. That confused him, and prompted a religious quest that led him eventually to Mormonism, thanks to some LDS friends in high school.

Those were difficult years, Olson recalls.

“I had privately embraced Jesus as the messiah, but I was still outwardly living a Jewish life and struggling with my identity,” he said.

Though he kept studying with rabbis, they couldn’t shake his convictions, and at 18 he was baptized. But that was hardly the end of Olson’s Jewish road. When it came time to serve his requisite tour as a Mormon missionary, he was sent first to New Jersey and then to the Orthodox Jewish stronghold of Monsey, New York. His encounters there rekindled his interest in Judaism and prompted soul-searching that eventually led him to spend several months living in Israel.

For college, Olson went to BYU and majored in Hebrew Bible. After graduation he enrolled in a doctoral program in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis, the Jewish-sponsored nonsectarian university in suburban Boston. Eventually Olson became a Navy chaplain — as a Mormon. But Olson, 30, still considers himself Jewish.

“In religious practice, I’m a Latter-day Saint, but I still embrace Jewish traditions,” Olson said in a telephone interview from Japan. “I still will light Chanukah candles and have a Passover seder. I feel it’s part of my religious and cultural heritage. I personally don’t see any contradiction between Jewish tradition and the Christian faith that I have embraced.”

Aside from converts like Olson, there are thousands more Jews who have embraced Mormonism and no longer identify as Jewish, according to Ludlow, who has been dubbed the “Passover Patriarch of Provo” for hosting several traditional seders every year — mostly to teach Mormons about the Exodus story and Jewish traditions.

“There’s hardly a Mormon congregation between Boston and Washington, D.C., that doesn’t have some Jewish individuals who have converted to the church,” said Ludlow, who was born and bred in the LDS church.

Harold Levy, 67, a retired teacher in California who converted to Mormonism when he was 36, says he has come to appreciate Judaism more in the decades since his baptism. Now he studies Judaism and even went to Chabad for services last Rosh Hashanah.

“I used to take Judaism for granted,” said Levy, who is deaf and communicated with JTA through instant message. “Now I understand Judaism much better and enjoy it more. I am a member of LDS, but inside I am still Jewish.”

JTA Wire Service

http://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/jewish-mormons-see-hybrid-identity-as-no-contradiction/

Exposing the Big Lie: Orthodox Jews Must Denounce Gay 'Conversion Therapy'

Gay Orthodox Jews face tremendous pressures to deny or hide their sexuality, making them easy prey for the missionaries of JONAH’s useless and dangerous attempts to ‘convert’ them to heterosexuality.

Haaretz

Michael J. Salamon

February 9, 2016 

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH), an organization devoted to helping boost “self-esteem and masculinity” to reduce homosexual inclinations, was recently forced to shut its doors in the U.S. after a trial in which it was determined that its operations were little more than “consumer fraud.”

That apparently has not stopped JONAH, specifically designed to operate within the Orthodox Jewish world, from operating its brand of conversion therapy: it has recently made a new home in Israel.

This is in spite of the fact that there have been dozens of peer reviewed research articles indicating that conversion therapy, an amalgam of so-called therapeutic interventions allegedly designed and targeted to convert homosexual individuals to a heterosexual lifestyle, are useless at best and more likely, dangerous. Despite one very biased, limited and discredited study, the overwhelming proof, as substantiated by all the major health and mental health professional organizations worldwide, shows that undergoing conversion therapy can lead to a host of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, suicidality and more.

Undaunted, there are still adherents who insist that a person born gay can become hetero if they simply follow their charade of conversion therapy. Some advocates continue to bemoan the loss of the JONAH program in the U.S., not for the pain that conversion therapy caused participants, but for the alleged benefits of a totally unsound program, and they persist in claiming it helps Orthodox Jews in Israel to 'convert' to a heterosexual lifestyle.

Conversion therapy believers tend to be Orthodox, and use religious doctrine to support their positions decrying scientific evidence disproving their efforts as false and misleading. They often conflate religious rules against the practice of homosexuality with the desire to “cure” something that is simply not curable.

Homosexuality according to halakha [Jewish religious law] is a to'aivah [an 'abomination']. That puts a tremendous burden on religious people who are gay to either deny their sexuality or hide it if they wish to remain within the Orthodox community, whether Modern, Yeshivish or Hareidi. To'aivah, however, does not mean that sexuality can be converted. If an individual is homosexual that is not a disease to be fixed but a life issue to be dealt with. But not for those in the broader Orthodox religious world who see a mission in gay conversion.

For the sake of argument, though, in terms of assessing the 'efficacy' of conversion therapy and whether it's an answer for the dilemma of gay Orthodox Jews, let’s put aside the research evidence indicating that conversion therapy causes mental harm. For some people it is much easier and more meaningful to put aside data and statistics and take a simple look at outcomes.

Performing an outcome evaluation is not quite as complex as setting up a study with control groups and, when possible, randomization. To follow outcome you simply track the process over time to determine if the people you have worked with achieve and maintain their goals. There is no direct need to compare them to others to determine statistical significance on things like rates of mental illness. Outcome analysis is a relatively effective technique that yields data which can, after the fact, be compared to other groups if there is a need. It is hard to argue with outcomes when they are simply a follow up of information about people over a period of time.

An easy outcome study for conversion therapy would be to evaluate if, following the so-called treatment, a person can live a heterosexual life. That information now exists.

Outcome data of close to 2,000 individuals who had undergone conversion therapy and subsequently married indicates that over 60% admitted to cheating on their spouse with a homosexual liaison some as often as every week, or month, others only once a year. Regardless of the frequency this indicates the failure of conversion therapy, compounded by the fact that many of these marriages are now ending in divorce. These numbers are staggering. More significantly, they put truth to the lie about the efficacy of conversion therapy.

This finding offers an important lesson beyond homosexuality and conversion therapy. Outcome studies offer a methodology to address the inviolability of truth and how we can arrive at it within the context of religion and reality.

This is not a question of cynicism or mindless criticism. If we know that something is not real, does not work or is harmful why should we allow it to be perpetuated? When someone tells me, for example, that they know of a fail-safe shadchan [matchmaker] I ask for outcome information.  A foolproof or fail-safe shadchan would be someone who had good outcomes. We could set up a study of shadchanim and compare who makes more matches or we could do an outcome evaluation and see how many of the matches made result in lasting marriages. If a shadchan’s system works, outcome information would validate it.

It was not that long ago that I first publicly presented data on the frequency of sexual abuse in our community. I was told by some that my data was inaccurate. Not unlike the conversion therapy issue, I was also told that in a religious world there is no abuse. Some continue to suggest that abuse is an extremely rare occurrence heightened only by attention seekers. Yet, as more individuals feel freer to report the abuse they suffered the outcome data is incontrovertible. Abuse does exist in all of our communities.

Instead of denying or obfuscating to support an erroneous belief we should use outcome information that is available. It is a cruel mistake to foster inaccuracies on those who are harmed by them. Reality and belief need not differ if there is a compassionate approach that is supported by reliability and honesty. The Rabbinical Council of America, the largest Orthodox organization of rabbis, has stated “individuals with homosexual inclinations should be treated with the care and concern appropriate to all human beings. As Rabbis we recognize the acute and painful challenges faced by homosexual Jews in their quest to remain connected and faithful to God and tradition. We urge those Orthodox Jews with homosexual tendencies to seek counsel from their Rabbis. Equally, we urge all Rabbis to show compassion to all those who approach them.”

The interpretation of halakha requires a compassion that is based on the reality of the individual. We can only hope that this compassion is true and born out by subsequent action. Forcing someone into “therapy” that is fraudulent and potentially deleterious, a marriage that is farcical or excluding them from their community is heartless.

Dr. Michael J. Salamon is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the author of numerous articles and books, most recently “Abuse in the Jewish Community” (Urim Publications).

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.702240

Fugitive rabbi accused of sex crimes issues death threat against South Africa's chief rabbi

Jeremy Gordin
January 30, 2016

A fugitive rabbi on the run from Interpol has issued a death threat against the chief rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein.

The threat, made by followers of the Jewish sect’s leader in his name and on his website, has rattled the South African Jewish community.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.700433

The Gentiles Who Act Like Jews (Tablet)

Ilana E. Strauss

Tablet
January 26, 2016

 

A man with a brambly salt-and-pepper beard, a kippah on his head, and circular glasses balanced on his nose stood behind a podium, lecturing on the parasha, the weekly Torah reading, in a southern twang. He was not a rabbi. He wasn't even Jewish.

In front of him, an audience of about 20 sat in rows, listening attentively. Some wore head wraps and dresses suitable for a wedding, and others looked like they came in off the street. One man boasted neck tattoos and a gauge earring.

I was the only Jew in the room, but everyone else was here to study Torah. I was here to study them.

They call themselves Righteous Noahides: non-Jews who believe in Orthodox Judaism. According to Jewish theology, there are laws that Jews must obey, the 613 mitzvot, but then there are seven laws for children of Noah—everyone else in the world. They are: Do not deny God; do not blaspheme; do not murder; do not engage in incest, adultery, pederasty, or bestiality; do not steal; do not eat of a live animal; and establish courts.

The Noahide laws, which are derived from passages in the Torah, were enumerated in the Talmud. In the Middle Ages, Maimonides urged their observance on non-Jews, writing, "Anyone who accepts upon himself and carefully observes the Seven Commandments is of the Righteous of the Nations of the World and has a portion in the World to Come." But the idea never really caught on among non-Jews.

But about 40 years ago, Chabad grand Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson launched a global "Noahide Campaign," writing and speaking about the need for Righteous Noahide communities, believing Noahide laws would bring about peace and understanding and would hasten the coming of the Messiah. Some non-Jews listened. For example, in 1987, President Reagan signed a proclamation glorifying "the historical tradition of ethical values and principles, which have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws, transmitted through God to Moses on Mount Sinai."

Noahidism now encompasses communities around the world, especially in Great Britain, the Philippines, Latin America, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States. According to Rabbi Michael Schulman, who runs Noahide website AskNoah.org, the Philippines may have the most developed community, with well over 1,000 adults and their children living in a collection of agricultural towns. They run Hebrew schools, community meetings, and even a national summit.

The group I visited, called Netiv, is a bustling 40-person community located in Humble, Texas—in the United States, Texas is the center of Noahide life. Some members travel over two hours each way, two or three times a week, for classes. They obey the Noahide laws, but they also take the concept further, endeavoring to obey other mitzvot and learn more from Judaism.

Adults set out a potluck in the kitchen while children ran around. The man with neck tattoos showed everyone the Kabbalistic painting he made and auctioned it to the crowd.

But the main event was Rod Bryant's lecture on the parasha, in which Moshe—Bryant used Moses' Hebrew name—strikes down an Egyptian for beating a Jew. It's a familiar story, but Bryant put a Noahide spin on it. He emphasized how Moshe stood up for what he knew was right, despite the masses around him just following the status quo.

Like Moshe, Bryant said, Noahides struggle to stand up for their beliefs, despite being surrounded by Christian families and friends. Unlike those around them, Noahides do not identify as Christian. Their feelings on Christianity and Jesus range from respect of the "all religions have something to offer" variety to palpable disdain. They've given up what they consider idol worship to follow Jewish theology.

Bryant didn't always teach Torah; he was a Pentecostal chaplain in the Army during the first Gulf War. He started a small study group in his house that got so large that it moved to a church. Around that time, Bryant began finding inconsistencies in Christian scripture, so he started digging into historical records.

"It was like archeology," Bryant recalled.

The larger his group grew, the more uncomfortable he felt: He was responsible for the spiritual lives of all these people, and here he was teaching things he didn't believe. When people asked him to lecture on passages about Jesus, he started making excuses.

"He was like, 'It's too long,' " remembered one former Christian group member. "I was like, 'I'll bring food.' "

He started teaching Torah from a Jewish perspective to a small group. Arilio Navarro, who had been having similar doubts about Christianity, came in to learn at one point. Navarro pulled Bryant aside and told him quietly, "I don't think Jesus is God." He was pretty sure he'd be thrown out.

To his surprise, Bryant replied, "Oh, you don't? Me neither."

It eventually became obvious that Bryant couldn't be part of the church anymore, and he left, or was kicked out, depending on whom you ask. Probably a bit of both. Either way, he found himself without a job.

"OK, Hashem, funny sense of humor," he remembered thinking. "Now I really have to trust you."

He started communicating with rabbis who had been inspired by Rabbi Schneerson's teachings about Noahides, and he learned about Righteous Gentiles and the seven laws of Noah. Eventually, in 2010, he founded Netiv, which has been growing ever since.

***

Like Bryant, others who have discovered Noahidism, while not identifying as Jews, seem to love Judaism: the emphasis on asking questions rather than just taking a priest's word for things, the traditions, the intellectual rigor, the in-depth instructions it provides for maintaining family relations. But above all, they say Judaism gives them a newfound sense of peace.

"It gives me a new way to breathe before God," said Irene Griffin, a Netiv regular.

The typical story goes like this: A person starts out Christian. (I've yet to meet someone who came to Noahidism from anything else. Bryant said one Muslim girl used to stop by, but her family found out and put a stop to it.) These seekers then find inconsistencies between the scripture and the priest's or minister's teachings. They start asking questions their religious leaders can't answer to their satisfaction, questions like: "Why don't we keep the Sabbath?" "Why do babies need to be baptized?" "If the Bible says God is one, why do we have a Trinity?"

And so on.

Thus begins a journey into different kinds of Christianity. Some searchers become Seventh Day Adventists, who obey Old Testament commandments. Many, interestingly enough, join Messianic Judaism, which becomes a stepping-stone toward more traditional Judaism—apparently, Jews for Jesus can occasionally bring Christians to Judaism rather than the other way around.

At some point, many give up Christianity altogether, which puts them in a boat that seems to be taking on water.

"We're not Christian. So, what are we?" Dianna Navarro, Arilio's wife, remembered thinking. She recalled when she discovered that God was one in Genesis while in her old Christian church, while she was starting to doubt the Trinity. She jumped up, excited, crying, "God is one!" The lady next to her muttered, "I know."

Tina Sachs was already part of Bryant's group while she was questioning, resulting in a fairly smooth transition from Christianity to Noahidism. But for others, like the Navarros, there was no easy way to land safely: They gave up Christianity and found themselves like Looney Tunes characters who had walked off a cliff with nowhere to stand.

***

Though he and his wife Jackie are currently Noahides, Richard Waer didn't used to be religious at all.

"He wouldn't let me baptize my babies!" pouted Jackie Waer, who had been raising their children Catholic up until a few years ago. It must have been a big source of marital stress at the time; I marveled at how irrelevant it is now.

Richard's friend Arilio Navarro brought him to a Netiv class, and Richard was hooked. "I felt like I'd been taken out of the Matrix," he said. "And I felt a little lost."

Jackie came on board immediately. Something about Judaism attracted her. But even more important was seeing how much her husband began to change. He'd struggled with alcoholism before, but Noahide theology set him free—paradoxically, by calling him to account. "Seeing alcoholism not as the devil, and not as me, but as something in me was what did it," Richard said. Judaism didn't demonize alcohol but set forth a way of thinking about the yetzer hara—evil inclination—that made sense to him.

"God speaks to people how they listen," he said. "I just had to get out of my own way."

Jackie covers her hair with colorful wraps that she finds on Wrapunzel.com, an online community of Orthodox Jews. A foodie at heart, she zealously tries to make her Netive Mexican cooking kosher, although cholent remains a challenge.

"A lot of us are just fumbling in the dark," she said.

People around the Waers didn't really know what was going on when they became Noahides, and many confuse them for Muslim. Even the Waers' three daughters were perplexed by the sudden "Guess what, kids! We're not Catholic anymore!" nature of their family's change, but they noticed that their parents seemed happier.

Ryan Smith's journey to Noahidism was considerably different. While incarcerated in 2009, he dreamed he was watching the news, and the weatherman said there would be a solar flare causing temperatures to hit about 800 degrees.

In the dream, Smith waited for everything to start burning. Then he saw some sort of figure coming out of the sky, saying, "Don't be afraid, I've come to take my people home." Smith started crying in his sleep and woke up.

Despite growing up Catholic, Smith had never seriously read a Bible before, but the moment after waking up from an apocalyptic dream seemed like a good time to start. He went on to research religion obsessively and even taught himself to read Hebrew, he said, so he could read the Torah. He contacted Schulman, the rabbi who runs AskNoah.org, from whom he learned about Noahidism, and began teaching Noahidism to other inmates, turning it into a small prison religion.

For Smith, who has since been released and is now volunteering with Schulman, Noahidism changed everything; he wouldn't take back being incarcerated.

"It was the highlight of my existence," he said. "I'm glad I went there."

Just as paths to Noahidism are different, so are individual practices. Tina Sachs is a Noahide, and her husband is a secular Jew. For her, Noahidism mainly means attending classes at Netiv and lighting candles on Shabbat. On the other hand, others at Netiv are "Noahide Hasidim," as Bryant, the Netiv leader, jokingly calls them.

The Navarros for instance, keep kosher and observe Shabbat, and Arilio studies with a rabbi online. When we met, Dianna was wearing a necklace with a Kabbalah tree of life symbol on it and a red string around her wrist.

"It reminds me never to speak badly of anyone," she said.

Noahides elicit mixed responses from religious Jews. When I first began researching Noahidism, one rabbi emailed me, telling me to avoid a particular Noahide leader, saying the leader was "throwing teachings like pasta at the wall to see what sticks."

Some rabbis emphasize that Noahides should not perform any mitzvot designated specifically for Jews; they point to interpretations of Genesis 8:22 that argue it is forbidden for non-Jews to keep Shabbat. According to Maimonides:

The general principle governing these matters is: [Non-Jews] are not to be allowed to originate a new religion or create mitzvot for themselves based on their own decisions. They may either become righteous converts and accept all the mitzvot, or retain their statutes [in the Noahide Code] without adding or detracting from them.

Arilio Navarro understands these concerns, but he doesn't abide by them.

"There are a lot of blessings that come with Shabbat, and I don't want to leave them on the table," he said. "I spent most of my life doing that; I don't want to do that anymore. I have a Jewish soul."

All the rabbis and Noahides I talked to agreed that Noahides don't have an obligation to keep more than the seven laws. But the sort of people who go on a spiritual quest that leads them out of Christianity aren't the sort who are typically satisfied with that. They want to do more.

"We left Egypt and can feel the warmth of Judaism," said Bryant. "We don't want to just keep wandering through the desert."

The Navarros, like several others at Netiv, want to convert to Judaism. What holds them back is not conviction, but logistics: It's hard to maintain an Orthodox lifestyle alone. There are no shuls within walking distance, and the closest Orthodox Jews live in downtown Houston. Moving would be expensive; houses cost twice as much in the city. That's why many at Netiv want to start an Orthodox Jewish community of their own, one intimately connected with Noahides.

But most Noahides don't express a need to convert. They like the flexibility of not being obligated to take on the laws.

***

When Gallup took a poll of 3,789 Texans in 2004, only 0.7 percent identified as Jewish. So, why has Noahidism taken root here, albeit on a small scale? I heard a variety of theories, involving, variously: Texan independence, superior leadership, or a surplus of shekhina—divine feminine presence—in the Lone Star State.

Considering the large number of Noahides in Latin America and Africa, Schulman theorized that countries that had had Christianity forced upon them might be pulling off the yoke of their oppressors. And it's true that Noahidism seems to spring up mostly in Christian countries. But imperialism is pretty much everywhere—what place hasn't been taken over by Christianity or Islam or nationalism or something else?

The best explanation for Noahidism's spread lies not in space, but in time. A few decades ago, Noahides were usually lone individuals, or perhaps groups of four or five, who had come to the Noahide commandments on their own.

"No one knew each other existed," explained Bryant.

But thanks to the Internet, Noahides realized they weren't alone. Religious seekers were suddenly able to get their hands on all kinds of information on Judaism (many talk about Aish.com and Chabad.org like family friends), and Noahide-specific websites appeared. The true headquarters of Noahidism isn't in Texas or the Philippines; it's in the web servers. Bryant regularly gets emails saying, "I'm so happy I found your video. I thought I was the only person in the world who lived this way."

Because Noahides are so spread out, dating can be a problem; it's not that easy to find non-Jews who practice Judaism. So, Noahides having started dating sites, such as Soulmate Connections. Cherrie Lacrosse, another Texan, met her husband through one such site.

"It was like we'd known each other forever," she remembered.

***

Of course, many are already married before becoming Noahides, such as Peter and Val Loth, a couple that frequents Netiv.

They both grew up Christian, but as an adult Peter found out he was actually a Jewish Holocaust survivor who'd been adopted by a Polish family as a baby. Already married, Peter and Val started looking into Judaism, and they discovered that many did not consider their marriage valid. All of a sudden, religious Jews were telling them that they might need to get divorced. "It was scary," said Val. Peter met Bryant at a church speaking engagement, and the Loths joined his study group, which eventually became Netiv.

They decided to remain married—"God brought us together for this purpose," said Val—but life got complicated in other ways. Peter had from time to time spoken on forgiveness to church groups, but once he announced that he was religiously Jewish, speaking engagements dried up. Upon finding out he was Jewish before one speech, a pastor dropped Peter off at a McDonald's, leaving him to find his own way back to his hotel.

Peter and Val aren't alone in experiencing these problems; Netiv is a kind of support group for Noahides. "We stick together because we have to," said Jackie Waer. Extended families rarely understand what's going on, and that's created rifts. Val Loth simply hasn't told her elderly Christian mother, knowing it would break her heart. "Honoring her is leaving her in her little Catholic world," she said.

Most people simply don't know Noahides exist. Bryant remembers one time a Noahide group from Waco, Texas, took a trip to Israel for Sukkot and, for some reason, decided it would be a great idea to show up on the Temple Mount. A Muslim man approached them.

"Are you Jewish?" he asked.

"No," replied one of the Noahides, who looked like a Hasid. "I'm a Noahide."

"Are you an American?"

"No, I'm a Texan."

"… OK, then."

And when Noahides show up at Chabad houses or synagogues, saying they want to learn Torah, they're frequently turned away at the door.

"What about being a light to the nations?" asked Bryant, the Netiv leader. "Where else are they going to learn Torah? At church?"

One thing about Noahides: They really, really want to be accepted by Jews.

"We all came from Adam and Chava," Smith pointed out. "We're all related, just with very big branches."

Ilana E. Strauss is a writer and filmmaker living in New York. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Heeb, GOOD Magazine, The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, and The Toast.

www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/196588/the-gentiles-who-act-like-jews

Head of extremist Jewish group calls Christians ‘blood-sucking vampires’

By Times of Israel staff
December 22, 2015

A religious rights organization on Monday called on the police to investigate the head of an extremist anti-assimilation group after he published an op-ed branding Christians "blood-sucking vampires" and calling for them to be expelled from the country.

Bentzi Gopstein, leader of the Lehava organization, penned an article published on the ultra-Orthodox Kooker website last week decrying the "lack of spiritual security" he's felt in Jerusalem of late because of "our deadly centuries-old enemy — the Christian church."

Last month, a dozen Lehava protesters headed by Gopstein demonstrated outside a Christmas event at Jerusalem's YMCA, decrying what they termed the "murder" of Jewish souls.

Shouting, "You murdered us in exile," and condemning European blood libels and historical persecution of the Jews, the small group waved Israeli flags and sang Hanukkah songs outside the venue, with some signs urging all the "impure" Christians to leave the Holy Land.

In his Kooker article published December 17 in Hebrew, Gopstein called the establishment of the State of Israel in the mid-20th century "the most ringing slap in the face the church ever received" after centuries of failed attempts to eliminate the Jews. Since violent methods failed, he writes in his diatribe, "it was decided to invest billions of dollars over the years in order to gain a foothold in the Holy Land and disseminate spiritual poison" through missionary work.

"The Christian is no longer considered a threatening vampire, rather a pleasant, friendly tourist and partner in the Western culture that dominates our lives," he said, blaming the Israeli education system for not instilling enough Jewish education in students. "The vampires can send a message of thanks to the government of Israel for making their work much easier."

He called on all willing Jews to raise a cry "and fight the devious phenomenon," referring to Christianity as "that accursed religion."

"Christmas has no place in the Holy Land," he concluded. "Missionary work must not be given a foothold. Let's throw the vampires out of our land before they drink our blood again."

Approximately 160,000 Israeli citizens, or 2 percent of the population, is Christian, and a considerable number of Israel's foreign tourists are adherents to the faith as well.

In response to Gopstein's remarks, the Israel Religious Action Center called on Israeli legal authorities to launch a criminal investigation into what it deemed to be the Lehava leader's incitement to violence against another religious group.

"Bentzi Gopstein is capable of doing anything in order to incite against anyone not like him — Arab Muslims, Christians and others, while using blunt language and calling to violence," Orly Erez-Likhovski said in a statement posted on the group's Facebook page.

"Unfortunately, against this blatant incitement, accompanied by unruly violence, there's deafening silence by law enforcement," she said, calling on Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to put Lehava leaders and others who incite to violence in the dock.

Lehava was established as an organization aiming to prevent marriage between Jews and Arabs, which is prohibited according to religious Jewish law. The group has become identified with the extreme Jewish right and its members have been seen patrolling downtown Jerusalem on some evenings, looking, they claim, for mixed couples.

Their vigilante patrols have often degenerated into scuffles, and there were several instances over the past year where members of the organization have beaten Arabs. Most of the organization's members are teens.

Some Israeli politicians have been calling on the government to outlaw the group, whose members have been implicated in several hate crimes.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/head-of-extremist-jewish-group-calls-christians-blood-sucking-vampires/#