Because of the prophetic importance of our Jewish people returning to Israel our Jewish identity halacha is based on the ability of a person to make aliyah (immigrate) to Israel.

I. Following the consensus of Jewish tradition, we recognize as a Jew anyone who is born of a Jewish mother or who is a convert to Judaism. (Beth Yeshua does not endorse the current “conversions” occurring within Messianic Judaism by groups like the Messianic Jewish Rabbinical Council.)

II. We also recognize as a Jew anyone who is born of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother if that person has undertaken public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people.

III. We also recognize as a Jew anyone who would be able to make Aliyah to Israel under the “Law of Return.” If, however, the person has not been raised in a Jewish home, and has not undertaken public and formal acts of identification with the Jewish faith and people - we will require a period of discipleship with a Jewish believer of the same gender in order to bring them to full and meaningful Jewish participation within our community.

IV. All of the above standards for Jewish identity must be established by tangible, physical evidence of Jewish descent and practice (ie. Jewish gravestones, B’rit Milah certificates, Bat Mitzvah certificates, Ketubbim, etc.) We DO NOT accept “word of mouth” confessions or testimonies of “Jewishness” that have been passed down by families.

V. We DO NOT recognize as Jewish those who claim to have Jewish DNA. DNA “evidence” is still primarily geographically based, and as such is a speculative science. DNA “evidence” is also NOT allowed as proof for immigration to Israel. DNA evidence will probably never be allowed as proof for immigration to Israel since the current Palestinian people are an exact DNA match with current Israelis.

We are a member congregation of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC). You can see what the UMJC stands for theologically by going to www.umjc.org. We adhere to many of the UMJC’s central beliefs and theology.

For quite a long time in history, if a Gentile wanted to worship the One True God they had to attach themselves to the Jewish people.

But when the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) died and rose from the dead, one of the things He accomplished supernaturally was to bring Gentiles into the fullness of intimacy with God without Gentiles having to become Jews!

For the first time in history intimacy with the living God was bigger than one ethnic group! Churches are a wonderful expression of this reality. Churches are a place of multi-ethnic community for worldwide believers. The calling of Beth Yeshua, however, is different than the “multi-ethnic community of worldwide believers.”

Our calling is to be a place for Jews to fall in love with Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, and to live out the distinct gifts and callings that God has given to Jews.

Our world is quickly becoming a place in which people can “define” themselves. People can decide for themselves what is “true.” We at Beth Yeshua reject this post-modern philosophy.

In fact, we believe that “blurring lines” and “self-definition” are forms of lawlessness that are offensive to God. Jews have always believed in a God who creates distinction and calls it “good!” God created distinctions between light and dark and called it “good.” He divided land from water and called it “good.” Whether it be the waters below and waters above, man and woman, or Levite and Cohen – our God is clearly a God of distinction for mutual blessing.

Since our God believes that distinction is “good” we strongly believe that Gentiles should remain Gentiles – and Jews should remain Jews. (Acts 15 and 21) In the same vein, we also strongly believe that men should remain men, and women should remain women.

We DO NOT believe that these distinctions mean that one is superior to the other. Light is not superior to dark. Man is not superior to woman. Jew is not superior to gentile. Instead these distinctions simply mean that we have different gifts and callings on our lives.

We have different jobs to do – and these different gifts and callings are created by God through the power of the Ruach HaKodesh to build up the community – with each person playing their part.

Jewish people need to wrestle with what it means to obey the commandments that God gave us in Torah to do “throughout our generations.” Therefore Jewish people need to meaningfully engage with some of the “peculiar” things that God asked us to do: celebrating Passover, the Feasts, circumcising our sons, wearing fringes on the borders of our garments, eating a peculiar way, etc.

Gentiles ARE NOT required to enter into these peculiarities as we read in the Book of Acts Chapter 15 and 21.