Rabbi Loren Jacobs, who mentioned Jesus while delivering a prayer for the Pittsburgh synagogue victims, was defrocked 15 years ago by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, the organization that had ordained him, NBC News is reporting.
Jacobs had outraged many Jews by invoking Jesus after being invited to come on stage by Vice President Mike Pence to speak at a political rally for a congressional candidate in Michigan.
“Loren Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination by the UMJC in 2003, after our judicial board found him guilty of libel,” said Monique Brumbach, a spokesman for the Messianic Jewish congregations.
She did not say who he was accused of libeling.
“We don’t even recognize him as a rabbi,” Rabbi Marla Hornsten, past president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis, told NBC News. “Even to call him a rabbi is offensive.”
And the Rabbinical Assembly, an organization that represents the rabbis of the Conservative movement, said in a statement: “Judaism itself is a multi-denominational religion that encompasses multiple forms of expression and belief. Nonetheless, so-called 'Messianic Judaism' is not a Jewish movement, and the phrase 'Jews for Jesus' is a contradiction in terms, insofar as Judaism does not recognize Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah.”
According to The Indianapolis Star, Jacobs had started his prayer with: "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, the God and Father of My Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah and my God and Father too."
Jacobs would not comment on the controversy surrounding his appearance, NBC News said.
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