The Olive Tree Blooms
Harry K. Zeiders
April 1, 1999
Mark Kinzer grew up in a devout Jewish family. He was bar mitzvah at age thirteen. His father was the president of their Conservative Jewish synagogue. One of his grandfathers was an Orthodox rabbi. Yet like thousands of other youth in the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s, he "became an agnostic, alienated from all institutional religion. … But I had a friend in the Jesus Movement who spoke personally about God." At this friend's prompting, Mark began pondering the plausibility of "a very real God and Messiah who were personally concerned about people." Eventually, Mark accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as his personal Messiah. The costliness of Mark's decision, and that of thousands of other Jews today, is something few Gentiles can appreciate. At the same time that they have accepted the Jewish Messiah, many Jewish followers of Yeshua have been alienated from their Jewish relatives and neighbors.Since the days Yeshua walked the earth, the Jewish establishment has rejected his followers. This coffin was nailed shut during the Second Jewish Revolt (CE 132-135) against Roman occupiers in Israel. When Rabbi Akiba declared General Simon Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah, most of the Jews became his fervent supporters. Jewish believers in Yeshua, however, had no choice. They had to withdraw their support from the revolt. Roman armies proceeded to slaughter 500,000 Jews and made it illegal for Jews to even enter the gates of Jerusalem. Ever since that time Jewish believers in Yeshua have been labeled meshumedim (traitors).While Mark Kinzer experienced the predictable difficulties with his parents, he was "very fortunate" to be discipled by an older believer who was from an Orthodox Jewish background. Through this gentleman's example, "I ...
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