Korean by Birth, Jewish by Choice
“The Torah is truly the most valuable thing I ever found in my life,” says Jung-Eun Jeong, a 43-year-old stay at home wife. She leads a Korean Messianic Jewish study group every Saturday afternoon at her apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey. One of the newer members, Mi-Young Jang, age 35, picks at the bits and pieces of beef and vegetable dumplings scattered on the paper plates.
Jeong had them delivered from the only place in Fort Lee that makes them without the traditional pork filling, which the Torah considers unclean to eat. On her windowsill sits a menorah and a shofar, a traditional Jewish horn. “This is made from a real ram’s horn—it’s from Israel! That’s why it was so expensive,” proudly explains Jeong, setting it back down carefully.
According to Jeong as well as the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America, Messianic Judaism technically dates back to Jesus and his twelve disciples, who were all Jews that strictly kept all of the original customs with the exception of believing that their “Yeshua”—or Jesus—had come.
Messianic Jews place themselves right in the middle of Judaism and Christianity—they consider Christian traditions to be entirely pagan, manipulated over the centuries by Greek and Roman rule, and look to interpret the Bible in its original Hebrew language and perspective for God’s real “truth.”
However, Messianic Jews are also absolutely certain that Jesus Christ was the Messiah promised in the Torah. To most people, Messianic Judaism seems contradictory and confusing—how can they believe in Jesus, but despise Christmas and celebrate Hanukkah?
“I cannot go back to my old church because they started persecuting me,” says Jeong, laughing in a way one does when pardoning those who know less. “When I started sharing what I learned, they called me a heretic. Christians say we have a new testament, a brand new and renewed covenant. But that means there was something wrong with the Old Testament, which means that God made a mistake and is not perfect. But in the Bible, God says he doesn’t change. He says I am not human and I do not make mistakes.”
Born into a wealthy Buddhist family and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Jeong converted to Christianity shortly after moving to the US and marrying a Korean-American dentist. Pastors loved her for her devotion and of course, donations. “There was this one pastor who told me God wanted me to open a business for the church. So in 2008, I started an art gallery in Korea and it completely failed,” recalls Jeong, this time laughing in a way one does when remembering an embarrassing mistake.
Then during a visit back to Seoul in October 2010, Jeong first heard about the Torah during a small group session among friends. Two members had just returned from a trip to Israel, and shared with the group that “God would restore his Festival and the Torah.”
Upon returning to the US, Jeong began her fervent research of the Torah. Despite her thick Korean accent, Jeong fearlessly went to Jewish synagogues for answers. But alas, “they just read from the Torah in Hebrew and I couldn’t understand anything. When I went to meet with the rabbi, he poured some whiskey and asked if I wanted some. I said oh, you are so fun but left because he couldn’t tell me much."
Jeong then took to the internet, researching the history of the Christian church and studying whatever Hebraic teachings she could piece together. Eventually, she learned enough to translate the most important texts into Korean, adding Korean subtitles to the most widely viewed lectures on the Torah. Her biggest accomplishment: a website she created as a Korean missionary for the Torah Theological Seminary in Washington, where students of all cultural backgrounds can study Jewish theology.
One of the members of Jeong’s weekly small group, Diane Byun, 51, received her Master of Theology from Torah Theological Seminary in October 2012, completing most of her courses online. One of her main roles in the group is to teach the other the Hebrew alphabet. Together, the small group of five Korean women—all middle-aged immigrants—keeps Sabbath as often as they can, staying away from pork, seafood, Christmas, and Easter.
Each session begins and ends with Jewish hymns, its Hebrew lyrics laced with Korean accents. Oftentimes, they watch a live-stream of Korean Messianic Jewish pastors back in Seoul. Jeong maintains the site for Talmidim Community Church, a Korean Messianic Jewish church that has its own kosher bakery. Live-stream videos display the pastor wearing a yarmulke, and every service starts with a loud and clear blow of the shofar.
Furthermore, while God and science have always battled head to head, for Jeong, the Bible instead makes her regret not learning more biology, chemistry, and physics. “I think the foundation of all of these sciences are in the Bible. It makes me regret not learning more about the world around me. Science is in here,” Jeong says, pointing to her Bible, “but it’s all in layers of code, of equations. That’s why the Torah has a literal meaning and then layers and layers of real meaning. So really what we’re trying to do is dig through all of them.”
Many Koreans would never understand Jeong, especially her abstinence from pork, a beloved staple meat in Korean culture. But this doesn’t seem to faze Jeong.
“Before I learned the Hebraic perspective, I never had fun. When I was Christian, I stopped drinking. But now I drink and hang out with my friends! I learned that I can enjoy my life. People think that’s secular, but it’s not,” Jeong explains with a smile.
