Article #83
Subject: brief biography
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 10/17/2011 01:06:38 PM

Joseph Rabinowitz is sometimes said to be the Theodore Herzl of Messianic
Judiasm. He was born and lived in Kishinev Russia (the area is now a part of
Moldava and the Jews there suffered much from Chrisitans). In 1881 he and has
brothers set up a Jewish agricultural society there. Believing the only
future for Judaism depended on it restablishming itself in the Holy Land, in
1882 he travelled to Palestine to set up a community of believers there. He
converted to Chrisitianity (chose to believe in Jesus Christ as God’s Son,
believed in Him as a savior and a brother, and was baptized a Christian in
Germany in 1885). He believed “our brother Jesus” to be the key to opening
the way for Jews to return to the Holy Land. A Christian council in London
was set up for his support in 1887 and he travelled to the U.S. to spend 35
days and attend the Moody Bible conference in Chicago in 1893. There he
shared a room next to A.J. Gordon at the conference. He was declared by him
(Gordon) to be a new Isaiah.

He chose to use the name YHWH in his group’s prayer service as opposed to the
name Adonai to reflect their belief that the Messiah for Judaism had already
come in the person of Jesus Christ.