The controversial “Messianic rabbi” who joined Vice President Mike Pence to honor victims of the massacre in Pittsburgh during a Michigan rally was reportedly kicked out of his congregation for libel more than a decade ago.
Rabbi Loren Jacobs — who curiously invoked Jesus while delivering a prayer for the Jewish victims on Monday — was defrocked 15 years ago by the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, according to NBC News.
“Loren Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination by the UMJC in 2003, after our judicial board found him guilty of libel,” a spokesperson for the congregation told the network.
The rabbi’s ouster appears to stem from a quarrel over theological teachings and the role converting Christians to Judaism.
Jacobs’ appearance at the rally for GOP congressional candidate Lena Epstein had originally been criticized for his invoking Messianic Judaism. The fringe sect believes that Jesus is the son of God — which is considered offensive to most Jews.
“There are over 60 rabbis in Michigan & yet the only rabbi the Michigan RNC 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?” tweeted Detroit Rabbi Jason Miller. “That’s pathetic!”
Epstein, who herself is a member of a Detroit-area synagogue, said the prayer was an effort for “unity.”
“Any media or political competitor who is attacking me or the Vice President is guilty of nothing short of religious intolerance,” she said in a statement.
Pence is a “devout evangelical” who describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”