Jews against Jews for Jesus

Here's a fascinating article in the Bartholomew's notes on religion blog. There are about 6,000 messianic Jews in Israel.

Messianic Jews are Jews who have become Christians, but who maintain a Jewish identity and worship in a Jewish style.

Well apparently a community of about 30 of them in the southern Israeli desert town of Arad are being victimised by an orthodox Jewish group called the Gur Chasidim.

Gur Chassidim (or "Gur Hassidim") is dominant within Agudat Israel, a body which represents many Ultra-Orthodox Jews, and has a long history of militancy that goes back to nineteenth-century Poland.

Please go to Bartholomew's blog to read the whole thing. It has the current situation together with links to historical information about both the messianic Jews and their Israeli and orthodox Jewish oppressors.