Carol Harris-Shapiro is a lecturer at Temple University

Temple University

Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...

 in the Intellectual Heritage Department. She has written a controversial book on Messianic Judaism

Messianic Judaism

Messianic Judaism is a syncretic religious movement that arose in the 1960s and 70s. It blends evangelical Christian theology with elements of Jewish terminology and ritual....

, a belief system considered by most Christians and Jews to be a form of Christianity, adhered to by groups that seek to combine Christianity and Judaism.

She received her rabbinical ordination

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College , is located in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, about 10 miles north of central Philadelphia. RRC is the only seminary affiliated with Reconstructionist Judaism. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and...

 in 1988, and religiously affiliates with Reconstructionist Judaism

Reconstructionist Judaism

Reconstructionist Judaism is a modern American-based Jewish movement based on the ideas of Mordecai Kaplan . The movement views Judaism as a progressively evolving civilization. It originated as a branch of Conservative Judaism, before it splintered...

. She received a Ph.D. in religion from Temple University in 1992. In the past she has taught at Villanova University

Villanova University

Villanova University is a private university located in Radnor Township, a suburb northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States...

, LaSalle University, Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University

Philadelphia University, founded in 1884, is a private university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Philadelphia University's student body consists of about 3,500 individuals from all 50 states and over 50 countries...

, Rosemont College

Rosemont College

Rosemont College is a coeducational college located in Rosemont in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. It was originally founded as a women's college. A Catholic college, it is operated by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus...

, and Gratz College

Gratz College

Gratz College is a general college of Jewish studies founded in 1895 offering a broad array of credentials and programs in virtually every area of higher Judaic learning to aspiring Jewish educators, communal professionals, lay people and others seeking to become more knowledgeable of...

.

She looks at religion from a sociological standpoint, and sees that although Jewish community as a whole accepts Secular Humanistic Jews and Jewish Buddhists as still being "in the fold," Messianic Jews are considered to be heretics. It was this puzzle in the behavior of the Jewish community—accepting atheist and Buddhist Jews, while rejecting Jews practicing Christianity—that led her to explore the Messianic Jewish community in a focused ethnographic study and to think through the issue of legitimacy surrounding Messianic Judaism.

Book controversy

Her book Messianic Judaism: A Rabbi's Journey through Religious Change in America has been the focus of a controversy because of misunderstandings of her final point. She concludes that given the Jewish community's tacit acceptance of other seemingly "heretical" Jews as part of the ethnic Jewish community, it would be difficult to find a consistently logical reason to reject Messianic Judaism, although she is quite clear that communities can draw boundaries as they see fit. Theologically, she affirms that Messianic Jews are adherents of Evangelical Christianity.

This was reiterated in an interview with World: The Journal of the Unitarian Universalist Association (Nov/Dec 99), Harris-Shapiro reiterates that she views messianic Judaism as a form of Christianity.

World: Describe the Christianity practiced by Messianic Jews and in particular their appropriation of Jesus.

CHS: They practice evangelical Christianity. Like evangelical Christians, they believe Jesus was both God and man, came to earth, died for our sins, was resurrected on the third day, performed the miracles, and that the New Testament is literally true. Some also hold some fundamentalist beliefs about exactly how one interprets the New Testament. Some are very interested in the millennium, in prophecy, in when or if the rapture is going to happen. Many congregations, though not all, are Pentecostal—that is, they believe in gifts of the spirit such as speaking in tongues, charismatic healing, exorcising demons, and the real presence of Satan that has to be battled.

As for how they see Jesus, that's interesting. Although they accept the theological doctrine that Jesus is both God and human, they don't pray to him. They don't feel comfortable with that. Some Messianic rabbis have even had difficulty accepting Yeshua as God and have been kicked out of the movement.

The idea that "messianic Judaism" could be considered a form of Judaism has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of Jewish historians and rabbis. Reform Rabbi

Reform Judaism

Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the...

 Eric Yoffie

Eric Yoffie

Eric H. Yoffie is a Reform rabbi, and president of the Union for Reform Judaism , the congregational arm of the Reform movement in North America which represents an estimated 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada...

, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations called her conclusions absurd, writing that "there's no such thing as a 'messianic Jew.' The whole notion is a fraud.…There will be no compromise on that point." In the same newspaper article on this book, Conservative Rabbi

Rabbinical Assembly

The Rabbinical Assembly is the international association of Conservative rabbis. The RA was founded in 1901 to shape the ideology, programs, and practices of the Conservative movement. It publishes prayerbooks and books of Jewish interest, and oversees the work of the Committee on Jewish Law and...

 Jerome Epstein, vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is the primary organization of synagogues practicing Conservative Judaism in North America...

 and Orthodox Rabbi

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 Lawrence Shiffman, professor of Judaic Studies at New York University also stated that Harris-Shapiro was egregiously incorrect. Shiffman wrote that she "has been sucked into the very conception the missionaries want to create." (Kessler, E. J. The Jewish Forward, June 4, 1999: page 1).