Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Loren Jacobs, the “Christian rabbi” whose prayer with Vice President Mike Pence on Monday night infuriated Jewish leaders in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, was reportedly defrocked 15 years ago. Jacobs, a leader of Messianic Judaism, which is widely seen as a variation on Christian theology, had already come under fire from critics who questioned why Pence would invite a rabbi who is not Jewish to pray for the Jewish victims of Saturday’s anti-Semitic attack at the Tree of Life synagogue. Now, according to NBC News, it appears he is not even recognized as a rabbi in Messianic Judaism. “Loren Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination by the UMJC in 2003, after our judicial board found him guilty of libel,” Monique Brumbach, a spokeswoman for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, told NBC News late Tuesday. Brumbach did not give details on who Jacobs had allegedly libeled. GOP congressional candidate Lena Epstein, who said she’d invited Jacobs to Pence’s rally as a “sign of unity,” has yet to comment on news of Jacobs’ defrocking.