I was raised in a warm, loving, typical Reform Jewish family in a small town in Northeastern Ohio and was Bar Mitzvahed in an outdoor service in Cleveland. As an adult, I always had a strong belief in God and attended High Holy Day services. In the late 1970's, being grateful to God for the blessings in my life, I wanted to serve Him by bringing my Jewish friends into a closer relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I realized we were God's chosen people, but I wondered why a billion other people believed that a Jew, Jesus, could be the Messiah when I was taught that he was yet to come.

I prayed and studied for years, and read the entire Bible, twice. A Jewish believer in Yeshua (Jesus) invited me to a service at Beth Ariel Fellowship in late 1982. I was touched and enlightened. The wonderful pastor and teacher, Louis Lapides, further opened my eyes and heart to the claims of Jesus as Israel's Messiah and Redeemer. In February 1983, I took that leap of faith and accepted Yeshua as my Lord and Savior and my life radically changed.

The Lord took me through many ensuing trials and tribulations but where I have been weak, He has remained strong. My family and I have been richly blessed at Beth Ariel over the years. The teaching has been biblically strong, the music and worship is uplifting and inspiring, and my children have been blessed by the Children's Sunday School program.

I was raised in an intellectual, secular, Zionist, liberal Jewish family with traditional Judeo-Christian morals. Our faith was agnostic, but our culture was Jewish. We had Passover Seders and Chanukah parties, and we respectfully stayed home on the high holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We stopped going to synagogue after my brother’s Bar Mitzvah. Although I had completed the Hebrew School coursework, I chose not to become a Bat Mitzvah.

My mother passed down to me all she had learned in her comparative religion course in college. After college, I started attending different churches out of curiosity, as had my mother. I think she assumed this was an intellectual pursuit for me, as it had been for her. However, whether I even realized it or not, my pursuit was spiritual. My soul was hungry for God. I wanted to connect with Him, but I was not experiencing Him in synagogue. In my view, rote ritual and the relentless pursuit of interpreting the Law have thwarted the Spirit of God.

Looking back, I see that God kept putting Christians in my life – Christians with deep faith and knowledge of God and His Truth. Seeds were being planted for 16 years. One day, a friend asked if he could give a book to me, The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel. God guided my friend because He knew I was ready. This book did not convince me intellectually. God knows that my mind is too doubting, cynical and questioning. God knew that he was going to get me via my heart and not just my head, and this book led me to the final seed…

The Case For Christ includes an interview with Pastor Louis Lapides, a Messianic Jew, who founded Beth Ariel Fellowship, a Messianic congregation, in Sherman Oaks, California. My first visit there was on Resurrection Day 2001, and my life was about to change forever.

It was the music. That was it – the worship team at Beth Ariel Fellowship. The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me through the music. My heart became convicted; the experience was real. I spent a lot of time on my knees for the next six months. I said the prayer to accept Yeshua many times, but I kept wondering if a change had really occurred. I kept attending Beth Ariel Fellowship, kept feeling the Spirit of the Lord working in me… but my mind would not let up with its doubts and questions. So, I kept reading.

The Michael L. Brown series, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, was invaluable. I realized how much misinformation had been given to me throughout my life. And that got to me. What would motivate the twisting of facts? Was there Truth here that was threatening to someone? Yes, it reminded me of my frustration when talking about Israel to otherwise intelligent, well-informed people – these people seem blinded to the truth about the Jewish people. I began to see that the Enemy wants to rob the Chosen people of all that God has promised – our homeland and our Messiah.

September 11, 2001, was the most traumatic, horrifying day of my life, as it was for many Americans. Yet, I remember that I could not get over the feeling that God had spared us from a much worse outcome. I could not stop thinking of the “what if.” Then, on November 7, 2001, God used music once more. I watched Alan Jackson perform “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning” on the CMA Awards show. This emotional song about September 11 spoke of what I had felt that day. I was stunned when he got to this line in the chorus: “But I know Jesus and I talk to God.” When the song ended, I got down on my knees with tears streaming down my face and prayed once again for the Holy Spirit to fill me and for Jesus to come into my heart… and that’s when I realized that He was already there.

The first day I walked into Beth Ariel I felt as though I had come home. I grew up as a very secular Jew, and did not really have God in my life. I came to know the Lord after some tragic circumstances. I’d lost my first husband at a very young age, and was left behind with a small baby. My search for answers began then.

Down the road, I met a wonderful Christian man who shared his faith with me. After a lot of questions and research, I came to faith in January of 1989. But my search didn’t stop there. I still needed to find my roots. I was not comfortable in a church environment. My culture was deeply ingrained in me, (even if half of it involved eating all the time at family events!). We searched for a congregation that would meet both of our needs – teaching Christian principles, the Old and the New Testaments, and celebrating holidays of “traditional” Judaism and Christianity. Also, the congregational leader had to be one I could relate to as a Jewish woman. It was a long search, and at times a difficult one.

The day we came to Beth Ariel I sat quietly in the chair listening to Pastor Louis’ sermon. I felt as though he was speaking only to me. I sobbed as Pastor Louis preached on a topic very close to my heart. His gifts were truly amazing. He was knowledgeable, articulate, humorous, and able to provide examples and analogies that were timely and insightful. The pastor’s wife, Deborah, welcomed our family warmly. The congregants were open and friendly. That was about fifteen years ago now. Beth Ariel is a unique and loving home, open to all who seek the Lord. If you come to our spiritual home, you won’t be disappointed.

I can’t say enough about how much my wife and I have appreciated our experience at Beth Ariel Fellowship over the last 25 years. We are Gentile believers from a traditional church background, but until arriving at Beth Ariel, we never really understood, nor appreciated the very Jewish roots of our faith.

It’s interesting: Jesus was Jewish, the disciples were Jewish, virtually all the early assembly of believers were Jewish – and the early Jewish believers never dropped their Jewishness in coming to faith! How often we forget that! In Romans 9-11, Rabbi Shaul (the apostle Paul), writes about how there will always remain a Jewish remnant of believers as a testimony to God’s faithfulness to Israel. How can that remnant be identified unless Jews maintain their identity as Jews in the midst of the larger, non-Jewish Body of Messiah?

This is something my wife and I have come to learn, appreciate and foster. It’s okay and it’s biblical to be Jewish and believe in Jesus – and maintain your Jewish identity. Yes, Galatians 3:28 talks about there being “neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female… for we are all one in Messiah Jesus” – but the last time I checked I was still a male, and my wife was still a female – and this is after coming to faith! So a Jew is still a Jew – and Paul’s point was that we are all spiritual equals before God.

This is where Messianic congregations like Beth Ariel have stepped in. Jews can maintain their biblical/cultural/ethnic distinction as well as the Gentiles – and we can all love and appreciate one another’s uniqueness in the Lord: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity” (Psalm 133:1).

Forgive me for preaching a little bit here, but I just couldn’t help it as we have found our immersion in things Messianic, especially at Beth Ariel, so enlightening over the years!