Israel365 News is an admittedly non-mainstream media outlet that takes a prophetic look at current events. As such, I have witnessed what I feel is prophecy unfolding mostly unnoticed, though its effects and practical implications are enormous.
When I first began connecting with pro-Israel Christians, I was confused. 2,000 years of Jewish-Christian relations do not lead one to believe that there would ever be any basis for a love of Jews to spring up suddenly. Indeed, this current tsunami of Christian Zionism is faith-based, whereas 2,000 years of Christian Jew-hatred was based in Christian faith and the Church. Christian love for Israel is unprecedentedly illogical and has exploded fairly recently.
So what is happening here?
Yesterday, I wrote a fiery editorial about an encounter I had with a Jesus believer who claimed that Jews have no documentation or proof to back up the claim that we are descended from Abraham, that we were at Sinai, that we are in covenant with God. This hit what might be the biggest red button I have in my soul, and I exploded. I will not rehash what I wrote, but you are welcome to read it. I stand by every word I wrote.
But…
When I began writing articles, something strange happened. Every time I wrote about DNA testing and the common Jewish ancestry, I would inevitably receive emails saying, “I love Israel and the Jews. I am not Jewish, but I just did a DNA test and my great-grandmother was Jewish.” The same thing happened when I wrote about Anusim, Jews whom the Spanish and Portuguese forcibly converted. In 2017, I interviewed members of a church who participated in a three-day Esther Fast to show unity with Israel. I was awed by their devotion. A woman participant gushed, telling me how much she loved Israel. And, yes, she said that she was not Jewish, but her grandmother was Jewish.
I can give examples of this phenomenon all day. When I first came to Israel, Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu asked me to allow a man from the conversion program to stay in my room. He had, at the age of 35, undergone circumcision. Gil had been a professor of geology at the University of Zurich. He came from a blue-blooded Christian family with a chalet in the Alps. Before finalizing his conversion, he returned for a family visit and an attempt to explain what he was doing. When he explained to a venerable great aunt, rather than raise objections, she sighed and said, “The circle has closed.” She explained that when Gil’s grandmother became engaged to his grandfather, people in the family were forbidden from inquiring about her family. They all knew that she was a Jew but did not ever mention it, even in private conversations. Two generations later, her grandson returned to the tribe, and her great-grandchildren were born in Israel.
As I said, there are endless examples.
What I learned is that the soul is intangible but its influence is real and lasting, frequently being passed down for several generations. So when I am faced with a person who does not know of any Jewish ancestry but who has an overpowering love of Israel that he must act on, I ascribe it to his soul. It may be the result of actual ancestry, or it may not. But I do not refute it or ignore it. Ever.
That being said, I am faced with a dilemma. How do we cope with this on a practical level? The simple answer that most Orthodox Jews give is to tell these people to convert. I am uncomfortable with this as it discounts the obvious, and I think that rabbis are unprepared to cope with this. For 2,000 years, Judaism had a one-way door: Jews left, but no Christians entered. I have witnessed a bet din fumble for years to do what Ruth accomplished in a few sentences.
And for the most part, these amazing people do not want to convert. They just want to connect to the Nation of Israel.
There is a simple solution explicitly described in the Torah in numerous places: Ger Toshav, a foreign resident. Sixty verses in the Hebrew Bible use the Hebrew word Ger (plural Gerim). It is almost always mistranslated as stranger or foreigner, but it is also misunderstood to mean convert.
Becoming a Ger Toshav is not the same as what many today call a Noahide. It requires taking an oath before a Bet Din (rabbinic court) to obey the Seven Noahide Laws incumbent on all of mankind. They must also take an oath not to include a shituf in their belief. Shituf is a theological concept meaning “a partner”, more specifically, a partner or additional divine figure other than the God of Israel.
Since this status has not existed since Biblical times, few rabbis understand what this entails. This classification was formally recognized by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel in 2014 in connection with the current laws pertaining to the Sabbatical year, though it was considered theoretical at the time.
Rabbi David Katz authored a wonderful book on the subject titled Laws of Ger Toshav: Pious of the Nations.
I would not presume to tell these wonderful souls what to do. They are in the process of discovering a hidden part of their souls.
