I am a faithful Jew just like all the other faithful Jews who keep the Torah. In every instance we see eye to eye. There is only one area in which I cannot agree; one thing distinguishes and separates me from most other Jews… Yeshua the Messiah is the life of my spirit. In him I find rest for my soul… even if more and more my soul maintains the desire to agree with them on every issue. (Chaim Yedidiah Pollak)
This new 300-page anthology is comprised of articles translated from the original nineteenth-century Messianic Jewish periodical Edut LeYisra’el. Named after the title of the Hebrew journal, this book contains the core message from every article that testifies to Israel that Yeshua is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. Theophilus Lucky wrote, edited, and published the journal over the course of approximately ten years.
About Chaim Yedidiah Pollak (a.k.a. Theophilus Lucky)
A critic once said, “Nothing good will come out of Pollak, and in the end he will be a most unlucky man.” Chaim Yedidiah Pollak never forgot the remark, and after he came to believe that Yeshua was the promised Jewish Messiah, he took the name Theophilus Lucky. Lucky was born into the Chasidic world of mid-nineteenth-century Galicia, but he received a broader worldview and much of his higher education at a Reform Jewish seminary in Berlin.
In that context Lucky first encountered the Hebrew New Testament and the Jewish Jesus. Lucky spent the rest of his life calling his beloved Jewish brothers and sisters to observe the Torah of Moses and submit to the testimony of Yeshua of Nazareth. This was the message of his publication, Testimony to Israel. As an Orthodox Jewish believer in Yeshua, he lived out that testimony to Israel.
His progressive views left him ostracized from most Jewish Christian missionary societies. Lucky led a small group of Orthodox Jewish believers and worked boldly and tirelessly to return Yeshua to the synagogue.