Modern-Day Devorah Takes Rabbinic World By Storm
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Rabbis call for Bible Quiz boycott [JPost]

A group of religious Zionist rabbis have called for a boycott of this year's International Bible Quiz after discovering that one of the four finalists from Israel is a Messianic Jew who believes Jesus is the true Messiah.

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The call to boycott the quiz came after Yad L'Achim, a haredi anti-missionary organization, discovered that one of the finalists, Bat-El Levi, an 11th grader from a high school in Pisgat Ze'ev, was a Messianic Jew.

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Calev Myers, founder and chief counsel of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, an advocacy group that represents members of the Messianic community, said that the rabbis' call to boycott the quiz was a show of weakness.

"If the participation of a Messianic Jewish lady is enough to shake up those rabbis' world, it shows the weakness of that world," said Myers.

"Why should they have a problem with a young woman who knows how to quote from the Bible?

"It is about time that they stop having a monopoly over determining who is a Jew. The beauty of the Jewish world is the diversity. If you can still be considered a Jew even if you believe that the Lubavitch Rebbe [Menachem Mendel Schneerson] is the messiah, the same thing should hold true if you believe Jesus is."

As far as I'm concerned, Bat-El Levi deserves a hearty hug of support from the entire Messianic community for having the guts to even enter the contest, knowing full well the uphill battle she would face if she did win any round, let alone make it to the finals.

A Messianic Jewish Israeli teenage chick who knows her Torah bowls over the Rabbinic Jewish world. How awesome is that? Call it the D'vorah Moment of the Week.

Labels: International Bible Quiz, Israel, Jerusalem Institute of Justice, Messianic Judaism