Last month, at a rally in Michigan for then-congressional candidate Lena Epstein, a self-styled “messianic rabbi” (who was in fact defrocked fifteen years ago by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations) delivered a benediction in honor of the victims of the Pittsburgh massacre, offending the sensibilities of many American Jews. David Wolpe explains why the terms “messianic Jew” and “Jew for Jesus” are deliberately misleading, and why the vast majority of Jews are justified in seeing them as outsiders:

According to the strict [talmudic] legal standard, a Jew, no matter what practice or belief he adopts, cannot leave Judaism. But as a communal, practical matter, of course one can. . . . [T]he clear bright line between Jews and Christians is, and has always been, belief in Jesus as divine. It was over precisely this question that early Christians separated from Jews. They were Christians because they accepted Jesus. In the first few centuries of Christianity that conviction split the new religion from its Jewish parent. If you ask why Christians persecuted Jews in the ancient, medieval, and modern period, that is the answer, because they accepted Jesus, and Jews refused to do so. . . .

After thousands of years of understanding this simple difference, in 1970, Moishe Rosen came to the strange realization that tweaking the message of Christianity was a successful strategy and “Jews for Jesus” or “messianic Jews” gained currency. It is a very attractive marketing scheme. You can stay Jewish! No need to abandon the faith of your ancestors. All you need do is make a small adjustment. Of course, that adjustment is precisely what has always divided you, but no matter. Of course, there are no Christians for Muhammad, but no matter. Be a Jew for Jesus, and when Jews object, just disparage their sensitivities.

A “Jew for Jesus” is an insult to Judaism and to Christianity. It takes the central tenet of a faith and pretends that you can hold it without being part of that faith. It is a strategy for conversion, . . . and a transparent one at that, . . . a marketing scheme dressed up as theology, a faith-based oxymoron that no one should believe. . . . [I]t is a disgrace and an offense to the countless Jews who remained faithful in the face of unimaginable suffering and gave their lives for refusing to accept Jesus as their savior.

Yasir Arafat was often quoted as saying that his “strongest weapon is the womb of an Arab woman.” That is, he believed the high birthrates of both Palestinians and Arab Israelis ensured that Jews would eventually be a minority in the Land of Israel, at which point Arabs could call for a binational state and get an Arab one. Using similar logic, both Israelis and their self-styled sympathizers have made the case for territorial concessions to prevent such an eventuality. Yet, Yoram Ettinger argues, the statistics have year after year told a different story:

Contrary to the projections of the demographic establishment at the end of the 19th century and during the 1940s, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than those of all Muslim countries other than Iraq and the sub-Saharan Muslim countries. Based on the latest data, the Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 births per woman is higher than the 2.85 Arab rate (since 2016) and the 3.01 Arab-Muslim fertility rate (since 2020).

The Westernization of Arab demography is a product of ongoing urbanization and modernization, with an increase in the number of women enrolling in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. Far from facing a “demographic time bomb” in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish state enjoys a robust demographic tailwind, aided by immigration.

However, the demographic and policy-making establishment persists in echoing official Palestinian figures without auditing them, ignoring a 100-percent artificial inflation of those population numbers. This inflation is accomplished via the inclusion of overseas residents, double-counting Jerusalem Arabs and Israeli Arabs married to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, an inflated birth rate, and deflated death rate.

The U.S. should derive much satisfaction from Israel’s demographic viability and therefore, Israel’s enhanced posture of deterrence, which is America’s top force- and dollar-multiplier in the Middle East and beyond.