What shapes Jewish Identity Paper available at http://blog.mappingmessianicjewishtheology.eu/search/identity

1. What Shapes Jewish Identity?

2. Outline
 What is Jewish Identity?
 How did it develop?
 What shapes it today?
 What is our response?

3. What is Jewish identity?
 Unpacking the question
– An issue with an agenda
– Like the question “Who is a Jew?”
1. Survival
2. Religion
3. Defence

4. Why is it important?
“The source of so many failures in
evangelical efforts to „convert‟ Jews
is the narrow fundamentalist
definition of what constitutes
Jewishness”
(Horowitz - Jewish Survival)

5. Defining personal identity
 How is individual
identity formed?
 How does
religious identity
develop?
Erikson's 8 Ages
0-2 Trust
2-4 Autonomy
4-6 Initiative
6-12 Industry
13-19 IDENTITY
20-30 Intimacy
30-60 Responsibility
65-? Integrity

6. What is ethnic identity?
 A social way of organising cultural
difference
 A combination of ancestry, territory,
language and culture
 Identity markers shift

7. What is Jewish identity?
 Religious, ethnic or both?
 “A multiplexed phenomenon moving in
a variety of historical as well as
structural directions”

8. Jewish Identity Stages
 Covenant 2000-1250
 Settlement 1250-500
 Rabbinism 500-500
 Diaspora 500-1800
 Emancipation 1800-1945
 Postmodernity 1945-1999

9. World Jewish Population
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1700 1800 1900 1940 2000
Year
Millions
Actual
Projected

10. World, Israel and Diaspora Population

11. “Core and Peripheral Jews”
1
3
2
4
1. Jews
2. Non-Jewish
family of 1.
3. “Former Jews”
4. Non-Jewish
family of 3.

12. USA Denominational Links

13. Types of Jewish Identity
 Normative/Traditional 2 million
 Ethnicity/Communal 6 million
 Cultural Residue 4 million
 Dual Jewish/Non-Jewish 1 million

14. Seven Factors
 Population
 Geography
– Diaspora/Israel Immigration
 Politics
 Religion
 Postmodernity
 Messianic movement
 Messiah

15. Conclusion
 Jewish identity both
religious and ethnic
 All identity flawed
without the Messiah
 See Him clearly before
we see ourselves

16. “What shapes Jewish Identity?”
is available at
www.mmjt.eu
Copies of the paper are available from the
Lausanne Consultation on Jewish
Evangelism
email: lcje-int@post3.tele.dk