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By Alex Johnson
Vice President Mike Pence was heavily criticized on Monday for appearing at a campaign rally in Michigan where a messianic rabbi invoked Jesus to mourn the deaths of 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Pence, who has often proclaimed himself an evangelical Christian born again, invited Rabbi Loren Jacobs to the scene at a rally in the suburb of Waterford, in the suburbs of Detroit, for Lena Epstein, Republican candidate. for the Michigan District Convention Headquarters.
Jacobs, founder and chief rabbi of the Shema Yisrael congregation in Bloomfield Hills, opened up invoking "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God and Father of My Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, and my God and father, too. "
("Yeshua" – derived from a Greek spelling that eventually became "Jesus" in English – is the name by which many Messianic Jews refer to Jesus.You can watch the video of C-SPAN on the prayer of Jacobs here.)
Shema Yisrael is a messianic synagogue – a synagogue that recognizes the New Testament as authoritarian writing and believes that Jesus is the Messiah.
Messianic Judaism is strongly rejected by most traditional Jewish movements and it is not recognized by the Chief Rabbinate, the supreme spiritual authority of Judaism in Israel.
The most visible manifestation in the United States is perhaps the Jewish Organization for Jesus, which was founded in 1970 and states that "Jesus, the Messiah, was eternally pre-existent and co-equal with God the Father". Jacobs contributed a number of chronicles to the Jews for the publication number of Jesus.
Many people have excused Pence for what they said was insensitivity, at best, to Judaism and, at worst, a deliberate insult. Many described Jacobs as "false rabbi" and "Christian rabbi".
Epstein defended the Vice President Monday night, claiming in a statement that it was she who had invited Jacobs to the event, not Pence, "because we have to unite as a nation".
"Any media or political competitor who attacks me or attacks the Vice President is guilty of religious intolerance and should be ashamed," she said.
Pence's deputy chief of staff, Jarrod Agen, told NBC News that Pence had heard Jacobs make a prayer at the beginning of the event and invited him back on the stage so that everyone could l & # 39; to hear.
"We often have ecumenical prayers at the beginning of events that do not approve of any religion in particular," Agen said.
Jacobs could not be reached for comment Monday night. Congregation Shema Yisrael did not answer a call to solicit a comment.
Jacobs graduated from the Jewish Studies Program of the Moody Bible Institute in 1979, one of the leading Christian colleges in Chicago, and was ordained a rabbi by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, a grouping association. about 75 Messianic Jewish congregations with headquarters in Boca Raton. Florida.
In a first-person essay by Jewish Testimonies, a Jewish messianic website, Jacobs wrote that "coming to know the Messiah, I discovered a dimension of Jewish spirituality that I do not have. would have never imagined possible! "
Elyse Perlmutter-Gumbiner contributed.
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