By Dan Cohn-Sherbok
Cassell. 234 pages
ISBN 0 30470730 9
This, the latest contribution from the prolific Professor of Judaism at the University of Wales, Lampeter, provides us with an irenic, remarkably objective and generous study of Jewish believers in Jesus who seek to find a way to remain loyal to the claims of Yeshua (Jesus) and yet retain a lifestyle attachment to the Jewish community.
At one level this book truly makes history! Until now, as Cohn-Sherbok shows, all traditions in the Jewish world have seen acceptance of Jesus' messianic claims as 'the final taboo of Jewishness'. It is therefore most welcome that a Rabbi should argue against such long-standing animosity. Rather, he calls for the reintegration of Messianic Jews into the Jewish community as the seventh light on the Menorah (lamp-stand) of Judaism, taking their place along with the Hasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Humanistic branches of Judaism.