Praying for Ukraine: Messianic Jewish Spiritual Landscape

By The Rev. Dr. Joyce Miriam Brooks
CMJ USA contributor

As I step back and look at the spiritual landscape in which Russia's invasion of Ukraine is taking place, I am struck by three sets of facts regarding the Jewish people that may influence your prayers:

• Ukraine has a large Jewish community, including thousands of Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus).
• Messianic Jewish communities in Poland were decimated in World War II.
• This invasion is taking place when the Jewish calendar remembers Purim.

All of these point to Russia's invasion as being a physical manifestation of a spiritual attack on the Jewish people, including Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah.

As far back as the 1560's, the largest Jewish community in Europe was in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ⁴ and by 1818, Warsaw was "the center of Jewish life in Eastern Europe." ⁵ What many don't realize, however, is that there were thriving Messianic Jewish congregations in Poland at the beginning of World War II, and that Hitler targeted Christians of Jewish descent as well as those who identified as Jewish.

In August 1939, there were at least 120 adult congregants in the Hebrew Christian congregation called Emmanuel Church, Warsaw. Nearly all were killed by the Nazis. ⁶ In the Bethel Mission in Lodz, Poland, 300 Jewish believers in Jesus were murdered during the Holocaust. ⁷

The same happened to Christians of Jewish descent. Historian Kelvin Crombie reports that "there were about 5,200 Jewish Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto, most of whom were Jewish Catholics and the vast majority perished either in the Ghetto or in Treblinka." ⁸

God commissioned the Hebrew people to be missionaries at Mount Sinai (Ex 19:6) and that commission has never been rescinded (Rom 11:28-29). There will come a time when they will fulfill their commission to be witnesses to the rest of the nations in the world (cf., Is 60:1-3, Zech 8:20-23, Rom 11:15).

Jesus' second coming is tied to the widespread repentance of the Jewish people and their acceptance of him as the Messiah. ^{10 11} Paul quoted from Isaiah 59:20-21 and 27:9 when he asserted that the Jewish people would repent (Rom 11:26-27, cf. Rom 11:13-15, 30-31). The Prophets also spoke of a time when the Jewish people would accept Yeshua as Messiah (Ez 37:12-17, Zech 12:10, 13:1). Yeshua spoke of a time when the Jewish people would welcome him as Messiah (Matt. 23:37-39). And Jeremiah prophesied that the Jewish people would be saved when the Messiah reigns (Jer. 23:5-6).

For millennia, Satan's plot has been to foil God's plan of salvation by destroying the Jewish people. It is no accident that the attack on Ukraine, with its large Jewish population, is taking place during a year when the Jewish people remember--twice--Haman's attempt to annihilate them. The murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust was another manifestation of Satan's intentional attempt to destroy the Jewish people.

And, because the repentance of the Jewish people is key to the evangelism of the nations and the Messiah's return, the evil one has a special hatred for Jewish believers in Jesus. So, while there may be a number of geopolitical reasons for Russia to attack Ukraine, from a spiritual perspective, it is also no accident that the country--and city--where the largest Messianic synagogue in the world exists is in Satan's target. We have seen this before, when, during World War II, thriving Messianic congregations in Poland were decimated.