EJA44,
I am one of the most forgiving and I always hope that teshuva can be done. But I tried to rebuke my uncle and he never called me back, and his email went dead. I would have continued trying to appeal to his Jewish neshama but he would rather not deal with the guilt he must feel.
I have a Jewish community, a Chabad Jewish community which is growing. We are inclusive and have many Jewish families, and even some who have converted to Judaism. Everyone is treated well no matter where they come from. We regularly have Rabbis from around the areas spend Shabbat with us. I like out in the boonies of Jewish life, and Chabad have several shlichum within a 20 minute drive of where I live. It is one of the only ways I can keep a mostly kosher existence here in Northern California.
But regarding trying to bring my uncle back. I think it is a lost cause. And as I posted in another thread, any Jew who attempts to sway another Jew to follow a god which is foreign to Jews should not be pitied, even if a family member.
That's rough Muman, I've also been deceived by these people and it's frightening how they just pick us off as a wolf going after sheep, it's like they know they can't convince real religious jews so they go after their family and create division and take jews away from their families.
I've been working with some relatives who also fell in the same trap and feel it's my duty, I found out most of these so called jews for Jesus and messianics don't really truly understand what it is they are worshipping and simply want the community, there seems to be a variety of reasons and none of the for a valid reason
Some jews join these movements because they are protesting against rabbinical judaism or feel unfulfilled in the synagogues, these are the latter groups because it's rare a true religious Jew would start believing in Christianity, I could see this possibly happening with reform or conservative jews but not orthodox.
So called half jews (jewish father/non Jewish mother), messianics teach a paternal descent for jews yet Ezra says for the Jewish men to leave their non Jewish wives and children, messianics focus on people with Jewish heritage,
Isolated jews, sometimes jews are adopted into families or the mother becomes a messianic and forces her kids to be messianic too, the children are Jewish but are tricked into believing in the messianic stuff, other jews end up in communities where there is a lack of Jewish community and end up also getting sucked into these groups,
The messianics now have their own program on Tv as well they call the Jewish voice ministries and make no mention of it being a messianic group or their God, this also tricks a lot of Jews, the fraud and deception must be exposed.
I really believe JTF should have a outreach program as a counter missionary group like Jewish outreach and jews for judaism and we need to bring our brothers back, I know it's possible, if we could start a video campaign, I'd actually be happy to start making videos. Believe it or not, some messianics have actually seen huge jews for judaism videos who weren't Jewish and realized what they were following was wrong and became actual jews rejecting their belief in Jesus.
Theres a saying, sometimes people become intellectually retarded when they don't question things and get the proper answers, and that's what happens in missionary movements is jews are told "just have faith,just believe" yet when they have serious doubts, it's suppressed, the most wonderful thing about judaism and the rabbis is you can ask a question and have so many different answers, but it's a fulfilling answer why God did what he did.