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Lineage Matters: DNA, Race, and Gene Talk in Judaism and Messianic Judaism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Sarah Imhoff  and
Hillary Kaell
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Abstract

Based on ethnographic and archival research conducted on North American Judaism and Messianic Judaism, this article argues that each group uses DNA in what appear to be sociologically similar ways but that actually differ profoundly at the theological level. Our analysis moves beyond DNA testing per se to focus on what anthropologist Kim Tallbear calls “gene talk,” referring to “the idea that essential truths about identity inhere in sequences of DNA.” Contrasting Jews and Messianic Jews, we demonstrate clearly what scholars have only begun to recognize: how theological commitments may drive investments in genetic science and interpretations of it. Further, we show how religiously significant identities associated with race, ethnicity, or lineage interact with DNA science, coming to be viewed as inalienable qualities that reside in the self but move beyond phenotype alone. Finally, we argue that gene talk in these contexts is a religiously inflected practice, which serves to binds communities and (implicitly or explicitly) authorize existing theological ideals.

Keywords

raceJudaismMessianic Judaismgeneticsscienceidentity
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , Winter 2017 , pp. 95 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 2017

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References

Notes

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2. Two denominational associations (UMJC, MJAA) formed in the 1970s, with which many congregations affiliate. Although Messianic Judaism is clearly growing, estimates of adherents vary widely from thirty thousand to three million. The number of GBs is also persistently debated and downplayed. Recently, historian Yaacov Ariel estimated the number is 25–50 percent, relying on a two-decades-old source by Schiffman, Messianic rabbi Michael, Return of the Remnant: The Rebirth of Messianic Judaism (Baltimore: Lederer Publications, 1992)Google Scholar. Nearly all scholars cite 50 percent in part because they echo Messianic Jewish leaders (for whom it is the acceptable limit in a “Jewish” movement) and because ethnographers, especially, have studied flagship congregations with high Jewish involvement. A broader demographic survey is needed; however, based on this study of five sites, it seems clear that in most cases GBs account for at least 70–80 percent of attendees. Ariel, , An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews (New York: New York University Press, 2013), 233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaell, Hillary, “Born-again Seeking: Explaining the Gentile Majority in Messianic Judaism,” Religion 45 (2015): 43 n. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6. Data on Messianics is based on twelve months (2012–2013) of participant observation by the authors and two research assistants at five sites in three mid-sized North American cities. Besides attendance at worship, Bible studies, and other activities, we conducted fifty-six-long-form conversational interviews with GBs and congregational leaders. Research also included periodical reviews of conservative Christian media and the full run of the Messianic magazine Kesher, as well as six interviews with Messianic denominational leaders in 2010. The research on Jews consisted of participant observation in three online Jewish genealogical groups (2013–2014) and data analysis from twenty-nine Jewish websites, including those highlighted in Ari Y Kelman, “The Reality of the Virtual: Looking for American Jewish Leadership Online” (AVI CHAI, Foundation, 2010), http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=12881. Historical and archival work complement the contemporary studies.

7. Tallbear, Kim, Native American DNA (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The first commercial DNA testing service began in 1998. For a list of some media related to genetic testing, see Hirschman and Panther-Yates, “Peering Inward for Ethnic Identification,” 49.

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38. Comments to Koffmann, David, “Native Americans and Jews: The Lost Tribes Episode,” http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1700–1914/America_at_the_Turn_of_the_Century/Regional_Judaism/Peddlers_and_Frontier_Judaism/Native_Americans_and_Jews.shtml. Accessed October, 5 2014.Google Scholar

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41. Feher, Passing Over Easter, 48.

42. About 85 percent of U.S. Messianic Jews are charismatic, as are 65 percent of congregations, according to Hocken, Peter, Challenges of the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Messianic Jewish Movements: The Tensions of the Spirit (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2009), 97.Google Scholar Four out of five leaders in this multisite study received ordination from Pentecostal seminaries. “Charismatic” means adherence to Pentecostal beliefs, regardless of denominational affiliation.

43. Cannell, , “The Blood of Abraham,” S91.Google Scholar

44. Jewish organizations that propagate these discoveries include Be’chol Lashon (San Francisco), Kulanu (New York), Amishav (Jerusalem), and Shavei Israel (Jerusalem). Each organization has clear ideological/ theological reasons for finding “lost tribes”– ranging from wanting to grow Judaism in the wake of the Holocaust to a Zionist apocalypticism similar to premillennialist Christian theology.

45. Rausch, David A., “The Emergence of Messianic Judaism in Recent American History,” Christian Scholar's Review (1983): 44–45 Google Scholar; Winer, Robert I., The Calling: The History of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, 1915–1990 (Wynnewood, Pa.: Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, 1990), 9, 11 Google Scholar; Ariel, Yaacov, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880–2000 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 224–25, 229Google Scholar; Ariel, , An Unusual Relationship, 218–21.Google Scholar

46. Conversion has long been contentious in Messianic Judaism; as early as 1983, the UMJC released a paper on the topic. Fisher, John and Urbach, Chaim, “Messianic Conversion: Is it Viable?” Kesher 6 (Winter 1998): 30–49.Google Scholar This is another difference with the LDS, mentioned above: although less popular an idea today, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young believed that “Gentile” converts’ blood would be physically changed during Mormon baptism so that after the ritual they too would have the blood of Abraham. Nyman, Monte S., Shute, R. Wayne, and Bott, Randy L., Ephraim: Chosen of the Lord (Salt Lake City: Millennial Press, 1999), 63.Google Scholar

47. Kidd, The Forging of Races, 204.

48. British Israelism influenced U.S. Pentecostalism through the theology of Charles Fox Parham (Kidd, The Forging of Races, 209, 214–16) and, more directly, through Herbert Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God in California. While few GBs seem to come directly from this church (which dispersed in the 1990s), it has influenced the diffuse “Hebraic roots” movement. GBs access both Messianic and Hebraic roots websites on “reclaiming Judaic roots,” before and during their affiliation with Messianic Judaism.

49. This is not “classic” replacement theology, whereby the church becomes Israel. It is more closely linked to what Messianics often call Twohouse theology (or the “Ephraimite movement”), a kind of replacement in reverse that says the descendants of Ephraim became “the nations” foretold in Genesis 48:19—that is, the lost tribes of Israel—who will now join the Jews (descendants of Judah) to share in the eschatological promises.

50. See, for example, Gannon, Ray, Richardson, Sam, and Stokes, Bruce, “Gentiles in the Messianic Community,” Kesher 6 (Winter 1998): 61–78.Google Scholar Also, Strum, Becoming Indian, 9.

50. This pattern is found among crypto-Jews, too: Jacobs, Hidden Heritage, 96. Kaell,“Born-again Seeking,” 17.

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64. GBs use “scientific” as shorthand for something that, no matter how hard one prays or wills it, cannot be changed, such as bloodline (though prayer may lead to discovering a hidden lineage).

65. Rubin, Rita, “Tapping into Growing Lure of Hidden Jewish Heritage Online,” Jewish Daily Forward, June 18, 2013, http://forward.com/articles/178628/tapping-into-growing-lure-of-hidden-jewish-heritag/?p=all Google Scholar; Romero, Simon, “Hispanics Uncovering Roots as Inquisition's ‘Hidden’ Jews,” New York Times, October 29, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/national/29religion.html Google Scholar; Greenspan's tone changes when he is not addressing crypto-Jews and other Jewish roots seekers: see, for example, RonNixon, , “DNATests Find Branches but FewRoots,” New York Times, November 25, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/business/25dna.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Google Scholar. All sites accessed January 23, 2015.

66. Sturm, Becoming Indian, 41.

67. Johnson, , “Rise of the Black Ethnics;” Goldschmidt, Henry, “Introduction: Race, Nation, and Religion,” in Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas, ed. Goldschmidt, and McAlister, Elizabeth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 3–34.Google Scholar

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70. Moore, Scott, “Gentiles and the Spirit of Adoption,” Kesher 11 (Summer 2000): 102–16.Google Scholar

71. The reference to these tribes likely comes from British Israelism, which focused on Ephraim in particular, and later Menasseh (Kidd, The Forging of Races, 204, 213). For this reason, the “two-house” movement may be called “Ephraimites” (see note 44). On parallels with Latter-day Saints, Mauss, Armand L., All Abraham's Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (University of Illinois Press, 2003), 161–65.Google Scholar

72. Admittedly immigrants are a small percentage of this sample; however, many did hail from independent churches with Jewish-like rituals and/or replacement theologies. Scholars have also engaged in acrimonious debates about whether the prevalence of such churches among Hispanics is driving the discovery of anusim. See Neulander, Judith, “The Crypto-Jewish Canon: Choosing to be ‘Chosen’ in Millennial Tradition,” Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 18 (1996); 19–59 Google Scholar; Hordes, Stanley, “The Sephardic Legacy in New Mexico: A History of the Crypto-Jews,” Journal of the West 354 (1996): 88 Google Scholar; Seth, D. Kunin, “Juggling Identities among the Crypto-Jews of the American Southwest,” Religion 31(1) 2001: 45, 58 n. 5.Google Scholar

73. Harris-Shapiro, Messianic Judaism, 73.

74. Egorova, Yulia, “The Proof Is in the Genes? Jewish Responses to DNA Research,” Culture and Religion 10 (2009): 159–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75. See, for comparison, Sturm, Becoming Indian, 61.

76. Mauss, All Abraham's Children; Murphy, Thomas, “Simply Implausible: DNA and a Mesoamerican Setting for the Book of Mormon,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36 (2003): 109–31Google Scholar; Southerton, Simon, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004).Google Scholar

77. Cannell, , “The Blood of Abraham,” S87 Google Scholar; Mauss, , All Abraham’s Children, 34–35 Google Scholar. Both authors note that these ideas about racialization have changed significantly in the last generation and also that they are not crudely racialized; for example, uncommon tribal ascriptions, such as Isaacher or Asher, are expected to emerge in the End Times and are not connected with any known contemporary “race.”