Dear IAMCS Members,
Shalom in Yeshua! We greet you with good news for the body of Messiah!
Back in 2004, the leadership of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues (IAMCS) and the Young Messianic Jewish Alliance (YMJA) communicated to you a series of issues primarily centering on Jews for Jesus and Stan Telchin’s book, Messianic Judaism is Not Christianity. We informed you that due to an unsatisfactory resolution to the issue, Jews for Jesus leadership and professional staff would no longer be welcomed as participants at Alliance sponsored events nor would they be allowed to exhibit at those events. You were cautioned regarding this organization given the outstanding issues.
We are very pleased to come back to you now and say that there has been a healing in our relationship with Jews for Jesus. On May 7th and 8th,Joel Chernoff, Paul Liberman, Larry Feldman and Kevin Solomon met with David Brickner, Susan Perlman, Tuvya Zaretsky and Jhan Moskowitz in Irvine, California. We prayed together,discussed the breach in our relationship and by the conclusion of meeting; our hearts were joined in unity. Attached is a statement that the Jews for Jesus Leadership Council has unanimously endorsed and which puts to rest the concerns we have held for the past eight years. They have also posted this statement on their website. We, as an executive committee, have met and have amiably received their statement and feel strongly that it addresses all of our concerns. We have therefore decided that any and all restrictions we had relating to Jews for Jesus due to the concerns in our previous communication no longer exist and are rescinded.
We are convinced that the whole movement is better served when we can work in harmony. We affirm our brothers and sisters at Jews for Jesus and their labor to reach our Jewish people with the message of Yeshua. It is our joy to see this new chapter begin between the MJAA and Jews for Jesus.
Psalm 133:1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!
In our Messiah, on behalf on the MJAA Executive Committee, the IAMCS Steering Committee and the YMJA Executive Committee.
Jews for Jesus Affirms the Messianic Jewish Movement
and the Messianic Congregational Movement
(July, 2012) In a statement released today, the Jews for Jesus Council (its global leadership body) issued the following statement of clarification on its position on the Messianic Jewish Movement.
Moved by a desire for unity, and in the interest of mutual affirmation, we want to correct a long standing misimpression to the contrary: we affirm both the Messianic Jewish Movement as a whole as well as its Congregational component, as being legitimate and credible expressions of God’s work today. We have been, and will continue to be supportive of both.
We also recognize that the book, “Some Messianic Jews Say, Messianic Judaism is Not Christianity: A Loving Call to Unity” to which we had inadvertently been connected at the time of its release in 2004, has been a source of great consternation and hurt to some in the body. We truly regret that Jews for Jesus was ever associated with this book. We have never endorsed it, published it, carried it, sold it, nor do we have any copies for distribution at our disposal.
It is our hope that as we look to the future, Jews for Jesus and the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America will find ways of working together for unity and the salvation of our people Israel.
Said David Brickner, executive director of Jews for Jesus, “Truly, we’ve never felt anything other than affirmative of the messianic movement, and have acknowledged that sentiment in our Jews for Jesus Newsletter lead article in the past, “Why I love Messianic Congregations” (September 2004) and in subsequent public statements such as “Jews for Jesus and Messianic Congregations” which appeared in the Messianic Times (January/February 2009).”
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America President, Paul Liberman, said, “The people at Jews for Jesus are our brothers and sisters. We are grateful to God for restoring our relationship with them.”