Inspiring Stories

Aida

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My name is Aida I am a native of South America who is a Jewish believer in Yeshua the Messiah. My family is Jewish and three of my grandparents were Holocaust survivors who tried to come to the United States from Austria and Germany, but were unable to secure a coveted American visa. They were fortunate enough, however, to obtain visas from a foreign land they had never even heard of before- Bolivia in South America. This country saved their lives. I am the second generation of these strong survivors and grew up in a small close-knit Jewish community in Bolivia, which is 97% Catholic.

When I was in third grade, my mother enrolled me in a Christian missionary school, hoping that I would have a Godly education in a loving environment, which I did. The teachers at the school knew that I was Jewish and respected as well as embraced my religious heritage. One of the girls in my school introduced me to Yeshua, and it was a special moment in my life that I will forever cherish. I look back now and appreciate that my friend introduced Yeshua to me in a loving and non-threatening way. She cared about me and wanted to share the special love that she shared with Yeshua.

I continued to attend the Jewish community center and celebrate Jewish holidays, but I also had a special love for Yeshua in my heart. I knew about Him and prayed to Him throughout the remainder of my childhood. When I graduated from high school in Bolivia, my family embraced the idea of my attending university in the United States. My father visited different schools to pick the best college, and he ultimately chose a large Christian university in the South, thinking it would be the same as the loving missionary school I attended.

When I arrived at this school, I was only 17 and far away from home. The moment I arrived, a fellow freshman asked me what religion I was. I answered like I always had, "I am Jewish". The student gave me a strange stare and told everyone that I was Jewish. Later I found out that they blamed me for Jesus' (Yeshua's) death and said that I had "horns on my head". I was very surprised that a Christian held such a view of Jews, given that Jesus himself was Jewish. The same girl later invited me to her church and I went with an open mind. I arrived to the church thinking "this is Yeshua's home", and I was shocked when the preacher asked to "convert" me in front of the congregation as soon as I arrived. She had originally promised me that she would in return go to synagogue with me, but when I later asked she informed me that Jesus did not want her to go. This individual has now written a best-selling novel about her faith in Jesus.

Anti-Semitism at one the largest Christian schools in the United States was not limited to students. For example, my Old Testament teacher gave me a "D" in his class after I clearly earned an "A" when he discovered that I was of Jewish heritage, because he thought I was a good candidate for his denomination's seminary school and I declined. If these Christians loved God, I did not understand how they could harbor prejudice towards me. I did not understand how my converting to Christianity would change who I was if I had already given my life to Yeshua years ago. How can people love Yeshua and at the same time have negativity in their heart for Jews? I wondered if they believed that Israel is non-existent since in their minds the church had replaced Israel because the Jews had gone astray. Yeshua was the Jewish Messiah but he now preferred the Christians, because we, the Jews, killed him. What happened to the loving missionaries that I had met in Bolivia during my childhood? My first encounters with anti-Semitism occurred at a Christian university, and I knew that deep in my heart this is not what God wanted.

After such a negative experience in college I hoped it was just that school and that surely everyone else was not like that. Perhaps I had only picked the wrong school. It was surprising to me that I encountered much the same everywhere I went in the United States. I was full of anger and confusion. I believed in the Messiah and at the same time I held him responsible for all the anti-Semitism I had experienced. If Yeshua was our Messiah and he came to the Jew first, why was there so much resentment towards us? I then read the Bible completely through because I wanted to find the answers myself and I trusted no one. I later married a Christian man and his family accepted me as a Jewish believer in Yeshua, even though the preachers at his church wanted to "convert" and "baptize" me, as if to mark up a score on their conversion sheet. Bonus points for a Jew! I did not understand why I had to "convert" if I was Jewish and Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah. The apostles were Jewish and they did not "convert" but instead followed Him as Jewish believers. Why are we so different today? Why can't people follow the written word instead of insisting on Jews being replaced as Hebrew Christians? God is the only one that has all the answers and that is why we have the Bible as the written word. In my opinion, people should be careful when they replace God's word with prejudice and self interest. For example, Martin Luther called Jews "pigs", but the reason was apparently that he was angry that Jews refused to follow his theology. There is one Bible, though some sources say there are at least 26,000 doctrines of Christianity in the United States. Who is right? I chose to follow the written word of God and I find no evidence that as a Jewish believer in Yeshua I have to "convert" to Christianity and abandon my Jewishness. I attended my husband's church for the next ten years, but never came to terms with who I was religiously, as if I was a believer who had one foot in the New Testament and the other in the Torah.

This inner-conflict over my religious identity all changed last Spring when my husband met Moran Rosenblit of Hope for Israel who attended a Men's Breakfast at a new church we attended with his colleague Tom Bradford of Seed of Abraham Ministries. My husband waited for everyone to leave and invited them to our home to meet me, sensing that I would learn from their wisdom. Early on that Saturday morning I heard the door bell in my house and the last thing I expected was to meet Moran and Tom. I had met Tom before given that he was giving a class at the church based on Jewish history and the Torah and I had learned a lot from his class and I respected him. He did not know that I was Jewish since I was scared to tell him because no one in the church knew. I attended the church because I wanted to learn about Yeshua and I did not want to open a "can of worms". I just wanted to blend in with the rest of the congregation. The short time I spent with them was quite an experience for me. Moran taught me for the first time that I can be a Jewish believer in Yeshua the Messiah, which allows me to be the Jew that I am, while showing the world that Yeshua is the Messiah for Jews and Gentiles alike. It took a Jewish person to teach me this, as I was void of suspicion that he was looking to his own self-interests. The fact that Moran was Israeli accentuated the point.

For years I needed answers about who I was and how to handle the pain of anti-Semitism. Moran was the first person I ever met that truly understood my inner-conflict. We shared two things in common, the love for the Messiah and our Jewish heritage. Moran explained to me that Yeshua is our Messiah and he is part of our Jewish heritage. He explained to me that I need to feel proud and not hide it. He expressed to me that Yeshua was Jewish and he loves us and that God has a plan for his people. I learned also from Tom that God has not forgotten Israel or the Jewish people, and that the church has not necessarily "replaced" Israel as many tried to make me believe. Furthermore I have learned the importance of Jews to be disciples of Yeshua and to follow him. I only hope that many people in the church can learn to accept the Jewish heritage and understand that according to Romans 11, the church has been grafted into the olive tree of Israel. It is comforting to me and my husband that our child, our family, is "one family tree" thanks to the Grace of God. I am a Jewish believer of Yeshua the Messiah, and I thank Moran and Tom from the bottom of my heart for helping me understand that! Shalom and God Bless, Aida.