Pence slammed for paying tribute to synagogue shooting victims alongside ‘Messianic rabbi’

Vice President Pence drew criticism on Monday after a rabbi, standing beside him at a campaign rally, invoked “Jesus the Messiah” to mourn the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 people dead.

Messianic Judaism holds the belief that Jesus is the messiah and that the New Testament is authentic. It is not recognized by mainstream Jewish leaders in the U.S., according to NBC News.

{mosads}During Monday’s campaign rally for GOP House candidate Lena Epstein in Detroit, Pence invited Rabbi Loren Jacobs onstage to give a prayer to open the event.

Jacobs, the founder and senior rabbi of Congregation Shema Yisrael in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., proceeded to lead a prayer in which he invoked the “Jesus the Messiah” and “Savior Yeshua,” another name for Jesus.

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, God and Father of my Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, and my God and Father, too,” he said, according to The Washington Post.

An aide to the vice president told the newspaper that Pence was unaware which religious leader would lead a prayer at the campaign event on Detroit. Epstein said in a statement posted on Twitter that it was her decision to invite Pence.

“Any media or political competitor who is attacking me or the Vice President is guilty of nothing short of religious intolerance and should be ashamed,” she said.

Statement on Jewish Faith and Religious Tolerance: pic.twitter.com/QUxYG3ZIh5

— Lena Epstein (@LenaEpstein) October 29, 2018

But his presence next to Jacobs as he mourned the victims of Saturday’s mass shooting led to swift backlash.

“Yesterday I received the directory of Michigan Board of Rabbis” Jason Miller, a rabbi in the Detroit area, wrote on Facebook. “There are over 60 rabbis on this list and yet the only rabbi they could find to offer a prayer for the 11 Jewish victims in Pittsburgh at the Mike Pence rally was a local Jews for Jesus rabbi? That’s pathetic!”

“Two days after the worst anti-Semitic massacre ever on American soil, the Vice President appears at an event with group whose main purpose is to proselytize to Jews & convert them to Christianity,” New Republic staff writer Jeet Heer wrote.

Two days after the worst anti-Semitic massacre ever on American soil, the Vice President appears at an event with group whose main purpose is to proselytize to Jews & convert them to Christianity. https://t.co/x4QU9uyGDy

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) October 29, 2018

“Messianic Judaism” is antisemitism.

It is deceptive proselytising that sees Jews as in need of saving, and has Christians playact Jewish ritual.

Inviting one to speak publicly is not OK. Pence must apologize for this, or if he’s OK with it, he’s unambiguously an antisemite. https://t.co/7NvwiCDN2l

— Steven I. Weiss (@steveniweiss) October 29, 2018

NBC News noted that Jacobs graduated from the Jewish studies program at Moody Bible Institute in 1979 and was later ordained as a rabbi by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations.

“In coming to know the Messiah, I discovered a dimension of Jewish spirituality that I never dreamed possible!” he once wrote in an essay for Jewish Testimonies.