By Movieguide® Staff
At a time when we could all use an infusion of joy, a new Gospel musical attempts to answer what does it mean to be a Jewish person who believes in Yeshua/Jesus. MENDEL’S MESSIAH attempts to answer that question not through a sermon, but through song, dance, and a Brooklyn candy store owner’s improbable dream journey to ancient Jerusalem.
The movie was inspired by writer and composer Jeremiah Ginsberg’s spiritual experience in a law office. Ginsberg was working as a Broadway attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison when, as he describes it, everything changed.
“I had a very profound divine visitation,” Ginsberg told Movieguide®. “I found myself in the spirit in heaven, and I met the Lord face-to-face. And I discovered that He was Jewish.”
That encounter, Ginsberg says, set him on a mission: to show the Jewish community that believing in Jesus is not a betrayal of their heritage, but a fulfillment of it. “It is not a sin to believe in Jesus,” he said plainly — a statement that remains genuinely controversial in many Jewish circles. So he took his testimony to the screen.
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MENDEL’S MESSIAH follows Mendel Moskowitz, a Jewish candy store owner in modern-day Brooklyn who, rattled by antisemitic vandalism, prays for answers and is whisked away by the angel Gabriel to ancient Jerusalem. There, he witnesses the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The setup may sound earnest to the point of naivety, but the execution, according to the team behind it, is anything but simple.
Lead actor Gary Morgan — a Jewish believer himself who has worked in theater and television since childhood — compared the film’s emotional architecture to one of the most iconic movies of all time.
“God says to the angel Gabriel, ‘Go to Brooklyn, and show one of my chosen people the road,’” Morgan explained. “It’s so much like IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to me that I was just thrilled to be a part of it.”
Both stories hinge on a man who needs to see his own life differently before he can live it fully. What makes MENDEL’S MESSIAH distinctive is the specific theological weight it carries: the movie is not aimed at a general Christian audience, but pointedly at Jewish viewers who may have never considered Jesus as anything other than someone else’s savior.
Wendy Ginsberg, who co-wrote the book alongside her husband and serves as a producer, spoke to what makes the musical’s score unusual.
“Most of the songs are actual scriptures,” she told Movieguide, explaining that Jesus himself sings the Sermon on the Mount while the disciples dance. She described a later scene, set during the crucifixion, as operatic: Yeshua sings the 22nd Psalm — “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” — while on the cross.
“It’s never been done before,” Wendy said. “It’s true to scripture. It’s gorgeous.”
The original stage production earned a Bronze Halo Award and critical praise, with DC Theater Arts calling it “exhilarating.”
The film arrives during what critics are calling a genuine coming-of-age for faith-based cinema. As film critic Joseph Holmes wrote in January 2026, “In 2025, faith-based movies didn’t just get louder — they got better. The craft finally started catching up to the subject matter.”
MENDEL’S MESSIAH fits that trajectory: it is less a polished Hollywood product than a deeply personal project that wears its convictions openly. Whether that reads as sincerity or limitation will likely depend on the viewer.
For Morgan, the most powerful moment came near the end, when Mendel, having witnessed the resurrection, asks Jesus if he can stay.
“Jesus says, ‘No, you’ve got a mission. You’ve got to go back to Brooklyn and tell people about me,’” Morgan recounted.
MENDEL’S MESSIAH is currently streaming on FaithChannel. For more information, visit mendelsmessiah.com.
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