In Memoriam: Ryan Karp, PhD – Missionary, Pastor, Scholar, Father

“I love watching Jewish and Gentile believers come together to further the kingdom—especially when sharing a story of redemption with a Jewish person who hasn’t yet met their Messiah.” –Ryan Karp

The Messianic Jewish community, Chosen People Ministries, and the broader body of believers who stand with Israel in prayer and proclamation mourn the passing of Ryan Karp—a man whose life was a living testimony to the truth that knowing Yeshua changes everything. Ryan was a husband, a father of three, a missionary, a scholar, a preacher, and, above all, a Jewish man who had found his Shalom in the Messiah of Israel.

Ryan was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in suburban Maryland in what he would describe as a secular Jewish American home—a family with a Jewish father and a Gentile mother who celebrated the occasional Jewish holiday but remained largely unconnected to faith. The trajectory of his family changed forever when Ryan was eight years old. His father attended a Passover presentation by a Chosen People Ministries missionary, saw in that ancient Seder the shadow of Yeshua’s atoning death and triumphant resurrection, and believed. The family believed together.

Ryan came to faith himself at ten years old, though he would later describe his early years as a period in which that faith had not yet taken deep root. He grew up in an interfaith home and struggled with insecurity and anxiety—wrestling with a sense of identity that felt unmoored between two worlds. An altercation in his youth, serious enough that police were called, became the turning point. His mother sent him to a Christian counseling center, where a counselor showed him something he had never grasped before: that his worth was not earned, measured, or proved. It was given—in Yeshua. From that moment forward, Ryan Karp had a purpose.

That purpose took him to Philadelphia Biblical University (now Cairn University), where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Bible, and then to Capital Bible Seminary in Maryland, where he completed his Master of Arts in Biblical Studies. He went on to pursue a PhD in Leadership Studies at Anderson University—a program he did not live to complete in the traditional sense. In a gesture of profound honor, Anderson University awarded Ryan the honorary doctorate posthumously, recognizing a life of scholarship lived in service of the gospel and the Jewish people.

In 2004, Ryan joined Chosen People Ministries, the historic organization founded in 1894 by Leopold Cohn to bring the message of Yeshua to Jewish people worldwide. For more than two decades, Ryan served in Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago before moving to South Florida to serve as one of the ministry’s vice presidents. He directed outreach efforts and led international missionary training conferences in cities including Berlin, Krakow, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Prague, Warsaw, Lisbon, and Budapest—gathering workers from around the globe under the shared conviction that Israel’s Messiah is the world’s only hope.

In his years with Chosen People Ministries, Ryan became especially beloved for two outreach efforts that bore his particular imprint. Shalom Brooklyn brought believers of every background into the streets of New York City to share the gospel with Jewish neighbors in one of the world’s most concentrated Jewish communities. Outreach Israel sent college-aged believers to the land of Israel itself, placing young disciples alongside indigenous Messianic ministries and training the next generation for a lifetime of Jewish mission.

Ryan’s story was featured on I Found Shalom, Chosen People Ministries’ platform dedicated to gathering and sharing the testimonies of Jewish men and women who have found peace in Yeshua. His own testimony—from a restless, anxious young man measuring his worth by all the wrong things to a man whose identity was grounded in the Messiah—was precisely the kind of story he spent his career helping others discover for themselves.

He is survived by his wife, Jessica, herself a fellow laborer in Jewish mission and a fitness instructor—a woman who shared her husband’s passion and walked alongside him in every season of the work. They raised three children together: Benzion (Benzi), born in 2013; Josiah (Yoshi), born in 2016; and Talia, born in 2019. Those who knew Ryan knew that his family was among the greatest evidences of God’s grace at work in a human life.

In lieu of flowers, Chosen People Ministries has established three memorial funds in Ryan’s honor: the Ryan Karp Memorial Fund, which supports Jessica and the Karp family in their immediate and ongoing needs; the Camp Kesher–Ryan Karp Messianic Leadership Scholarship, which invests in the next generation of Messianic leaders through Camp Kesher; and the Ryan Karp Ramat Gan Messianic Center Fund, which advances the work of the Ramat Gan Messianic Center in Israel. Contributions may be made at chosenpeople.com/ryankarp.

Dr. Ryan Karp did not measure his life by titles, though the titles eventually came. He measured it by redeemed lives—by Jewish faces that had heard, believed, and found Shalom. He leaves behind a ministry enriched by his vision, a community transformed by his faithfulness, three children who will grow up knowing who their father was, and a wife who served beside him until the end.

זכרונו לברכה Zichrono livracha.
May his memory be a blessing.