#WhatTheChurchNeedsToKnow

A Question for the President of Israel
by Guy Cohen
August 13, 2026

The President of the State of Israel is elected by the Knesset. Alongside the formal and ceremonial responsibilities of the office, the President carries a much deeper role. He is often regarded as Israel’s number one citizen, someone expected to rise above political and social divisions and seek to bring together the different communities that make up Israeli society.

The President does not have to agree with the faith, worldview, or lifestyle of every Israeli citizen. Nor does meeting a particular community amount to theological endorsement of its beliefs. But the President is expected to be the President of all Israelis.

This raises a question that has been on my mind for some time. Is there a community in Israel that is simply too politically or socially costly for the President to publicly embrace?

I am referring to Israel’s Messianic Jewish community.

Israeli Messianic Believers are often accused of being a “CULT”. That bears no resemblance to reality to any of the Messianic congregations I have been covering for the past 25 years! So I was glad to see Israeli Messianic congregational leader, Guy Cohen, shed some light on this. As the saying goes, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant” and I believe Guy Cohen moves this discussion forward greatly.

Guy Cohen writing on August 10, 2026:

In Israel, the word “cult” carries an unmistakably negative meaning. It evokes images of manipulation, psychological control, blind obedience, isolation and leaders who exercise extraordinary power over their followers. Yet the same word has also appeared in Israeli public discourse as a description of Messianic Jews, a community whose members identify as Jews and believe that Yeshua is the Messiah.

The label is not confined to private conversations. Israeli religious media have explicitly described Messianic Jews as a “cult,” while mainstream Israeli media have also reflected the language of suspicion surrounding the community. In a 2009 report by the investigative television program Uvda about the bombing that severely injured 15 year old Ami Ortiz, whose family was part of a Messianic community in Ariel, the accompanying report described the hostility directed toward Messianic Jews and noted accusations that they sought to turn Israel into a Christian country. It also described them as being treated as missionaries attempting to win Jewish souls.

The suspicion surrounding Messianic Jews in Israel cannot be understood simply as a disagreement about Yeshua. Behind it stands another word with an especially powerful meaning in Israeli Jewish society: “missionary.”

For many Israelis, missionary activity is not perceived as the neutral sharing of a personal faith. It carries a historical memory of the relationship between Jews and Christianity, including periods in which Jewish communities experienced persecution, discrimination, pressure to convert and, at times, forced conversion.

That history continues to influence the language of modern Israel.