Shocking: Orthodox Rabbi For Kosher Jesus

We used to know of 'Jews for Jesus', but now we also have 'Orthodox Rabbi for Jesus.'

Shmuley Boteach  is about to release a book, 'Kosher Jesus,' which describes Jesus as a Jewish patriot, according to Haaretz and various other news sources. According to the report, the book calls "to recognize Jesus as a Torah-abiding Jewish patriot."

According to Boteach "this book is telling the Jews to reclaim Jesus, the authentic Jesus, the historical Jesus, the Jewish Jesus" and to be inspired by his "beautiful" teachings.

Part of his motivation is the alliance in recent years between Christian evangelicals and the Israeli settlement movement. "Suddenly we have evangelical Christians emerging as the foremost supporters of the state of Israel," he said. "We have this political alliance. What is a lacking is a theological bridge."

Boteach, who recently attended a large Christian pro-Israel gathering, said he found it irritating that participants avoided any mention of Jesus for fear of offending Jews."It's weird. How can you have a relationship with close friends and you can't talk about the most important thing in their life and the most famous Jews that ever lived?" Boteach asked.

He wants both sides to recognize Jesus as a Kosher Jew. "Christians don't know the Jewish Jesus," Boteach continued. "They know the Christ-divinity but not the Jewish man Jesus. There's a need to discover the humanity of Jesus."

Boteach argues that Jesus never meant to abolish Jewish law. And the fact that Jesus thought of himself as the messiah shouldn't bother Jews, he insists: "I could declare myself the messiah right now. There's nothing blasphemous about this," Boteach said. "I even encourage people to have a certain messianic tendency in their lives, a desire to redeem the world." BTW, Boteach is a disciple from the Chabad movement - this adds some color to this statement, although he clearly strayed away of the Chabad teachings and was removed from an official Chabad Shlichus position and spoke out against the movement leaders.

This new book should give caution to all who work to increase interfaith relations, and surely would have aroused the Jewish world a decade ago. But who have time for this now, when we are in a struggle with those zealots in Israel. At least Boteach concurs with us that Oso H'ish may be Kosher, but the zealots are Treif.