The article is by a religious Jew, and the source is an Israeli newspaper. It is not about what Christians or gentiles think of the Messiah, but about the fact that there has been a selective exclusion of readings of prophetic passages from the Hebrew Bible in the synagogues. Namely, those passages that the rabbis of the past saw as teaching tools of Christians, passages too readily associated with fulfillment in Jesus. Most Jews don't realize that their scriptures have been abridged in the selections for public reading, and are largely unaware of the teachings of the listed prophetic passages.

There is wide diversity among religious Jews as to the meaning of messianic passages. There have of course been many supposed messiahs since Jesus' day, and many still expect a literal fulfillment of prophecies with the coming of a warrior deliverer. Others have reinterpreted the messiah as the nation, or something mystical in human development. In an interview posted on BeliefNet (see http://www.beliefnet.com/story/162/story_16261_1.html )with Jewish author David Klinghoffer we have this statement,
[Jewish radio personality] Michael Medved has made the point that this is the one thing that all Jews have in common--that we don't accept Jesus as our savior. That's the one and only thing on which all Jews agree. For many Jews, tragically, that's where their Judaism ends. For them, Judaism means we don't believe in Jesus.

It is unfortunate, in the context of learning who or what the Messiah is, that some (Jewish) scriptures have simply been excluded from public consideration, and are not read to the congregations. How can people in those circumstances to draw a firm and honestly reasoned conclusion about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah, if they believe in the teachings of scripture but the Biblical material itself has been abridged in its presentation to the congregations?

• What happened to Jesus' haftarah? By Hananel Mack