#mmjt

12 January 1978

The Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, a leading voice within the EKD, proposes steps for the construction of a new relationship between Christians and Jews. These groundbreaking theses lack only one thing – the recognition, invitation and inclusion of Messianic Jews. In terms of their theological depth and sensitivity to the past, their desire to change in asymetric relationship…

Silvester or Sylvester is the day of the Feast of Pope Sylvester I, a saint who served as Pope of the Catholic Church from 314 to 335 and oversaw both the First Council of Nicaea and Roman Emperor Constantine I’s conversion to Christianity.

The feast day is held on the anniversary of Sylvester’s death, 31 December, a date that, since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, has coincided with…

Mortimer Adler(December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001) was a philosopher, educator, and popular author. He is best known for his classic of American popular culture, “How to Read a Book”.

As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California. He worked for Columbia…

#onthisday #otdimjh 27 December 1814 First London Society (CMJ) Board Meeting of Charles Simeon, Anglican Evangelical Leader and Advocate of Jewish Evangelism

Charles Simeon (24 September 1759 – 13 November 1836) was a leading clergyman within the Evangelical party of the Church of England. When he began his ministry at Holy Trinity, Cambridge, he was so unpopular that the Churchwardens barred his entry, services were frequently interrupted, and he was often insulted in the streets. Overcoming public prejudice, he subsequently gained a remarkable and…

Perhaps the greatest scholar of the 19th century Hebrew Christians, Biesenthal was widely know, but I have been unable to find a photograph of him. The account in Bernstein reads:

Biesenthal, Dr. Joiachim Heinrich—or, to give him his birth-name, Raphael Hirsch—was born at Lobsens, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, on December 24th, 1804, of pious and strict Jewish parents. His early education was…

Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was one of the most acclaimed American poets of the 20th century

She was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex, a suburb to which Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland moved after arriving in the East End of London. Her father, Paul Levertoff, had been a teacher at Leipzig University and as a Russian Hassidic Jew was held under house arrest…

#Otdimjh 15 December 1883 Death of Alexander Neibaur, first Jewish Mormon who taught Joseph Smith Hebrew and Kabbalah

Alexander Neibaur (8 January 1808 – 15 December 1883)

From Fred E. Woods: A Mormon and Still A Jew:

Alexander Neibaur was a man of many talents. An educated man and gifted poet, he was fluent in seven languages. One account describes Neibaur as “a small thin man, with a round ruddy face, [with] sharp eyes.” He was also unusual inasmuch as he was Utah’s first dentist and matchmaker, and the…

Bernstein writes:

Hellmuth, Isaac. The fact that the subject of this sketch was one of the three Hebrew Christian Bishops [257] of the last century—Bishops Alexander and Schereschewsky being the other two—invests his life and memory with a special interest for all workers for Israel.

Whilst Alexander spent his life in actively seeking “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” in various lands of…