Actually the notion that this question should have to be asked in the first place is entirely ridiculous.  It utterly defies all laws of reason and rational thought!  Trying to explain to someone that the Story of Y’shua (Jesus) is an entirely Jewish story ought to be like taking a person outside, having him look briefly at the sun and explain that it’s light outside because of that giant ball of fire in the sky.  It ought to be that way, but it’s more like taking a person outside who is not only blind but also has no sense of touch with which to feel the heat and then trying to tell him what the sun does.  He doesn't even have the tools with which to perceive what the sun does.

Having to communicate over again, that the story of the Gospel is Jewish is a true testimony to the first part of the very message of the Gospel, itself… that men are fundamentally depraved and in need of a substitutionary atonement.  The Apostle Paul put it well when he wrote…

To illustrate how pervasive this non-Jewish perspective of the Gospel is in our culture, even as I was typing this essay, while typing “Y’shua” (the transliteration of the Hebrew name by which our Messiah is more appropriately called) my spell checker changed it to “Yeshiva” which is a place for Jewish study.  I’ll have to tell my spell checker who Y’shua is.

And so, like “déjà vu all over again” I become the zillionth and one person to explain that the Gospel is Jewish:

First of all, the people to whom Y'shua ministered and taught were unanimously Jewish.  A quick word search of the word “crowds” comes up with the following references in the Gospel accounts.

Mattai (Matthew) 4:25 - Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

Mattai 5:1 - When Y'shua saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.

Mattai  7:28 - When Y'shua had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching;

Mattai 8:1 - When Y'shua came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him.

Mattai 9:8 - But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified G-d, who had given such authority to men.

Mattai  9:33 - After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed, and were saying, " Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel."

Mattai  11:7 - As these men were going away, Y'shua began to speak to the crowds about John, "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

Mattai 12:23 - All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, "This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?"

Mattai 12:46 - While He was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.

Mattai  15:39 - And sending away the crowds, Y'shua got into the boat and came to the region of Magadan.

Mattai  19:2 - and large crowds followed Him, and He healed them there.

Mattai 21:9 - The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting,"Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE L-RD; Hosanna in the highest!"

Mattai 26:55 - At that time Y'shua said to the crowds, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me as you would against a robber? Every day I used to sit in the temple teaching and you did not seize Me.

Mattai 27:20 - But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas and to put Y'shua to death.

Mark 1:20 - And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

Mark 10:1 - Getting up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach them.

Luke 3:7 - So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, " You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 3:10 - And the crowds were questioning him, saying, " Then what shall we do?"

Luke 4:42 - When day came, Y'shua left and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them.

Luke 5:15 - But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

Luke 7:24 - When the messengers of John had left, He began to speak to the crowds about John, "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

Luke 8:42 - for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. But as He went, the crowds were pressing against Him.

Luke 9:11 - But the crowds were aware of this and followed Him; and welcoming them, He began speaking to them about the kingdom of G-d and curing those who had need of healing.

Luke 11:14 - And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute; when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed.

Luke 11:29 - As the crowds were increasing, He began to say, " This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.

Luke 12:54 - And He was also saying to the crowds, " When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming,' and so it turns out.

Luke 14:25-26 - Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.

Luke 23:4 - Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, " I find no guilt in this man."

 Luke 23:48 - And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts.

John 7:12 - There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, "He is a good man"; others were saying, "No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray."

Many of these instances are reiterations of one another in light of the Synoptic Gospels to recall similar or the same events.  Nevertheless, in absolutely every one of these examples, at least 99.44% of the people present in these “crowds” were Jews.  Perhaps an occasional Roman Centurian might slip his way in, but these events all happened in either Galilee or Judea where the entire population was Jewish.

All of these Jewish people heard Y'shuas’ teaching.  The last example from John illustrates that some of these Jews thought fondly of Y'shua  and responded positively while others had a negative opinion… not too much of a difference from what might be derived from any ethnic group.

Secondly, Y'shua, Himself, specified to whom He was called.  Matthew 15:21-28 gives us the following dialogue between Y'shua  and a Syrophoenician woman.

Mattai 8:1-4, Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16) - Not only do we know that the leper healed in each of these accounts was Jewish because of the location and setting of the accounts, but Y'shua tells the Leper to show himself to the priest as a testimony to them.  Lev. 14:1-32 outlines a complete ceremony involving animal sacrifice in the temple required in order to officially dedicate a leper as clean according to Mosaic law.  Surely no Roman or Greek was given this requirement, however the act of performing this ceremony, [the first instance of a leper being healed in Israel (excluding the Aramite general, Naaman, a Gentile) since the healing of Miriam, Moses’ sister (Nu. 12:9-16)],  was a testimony to Y'shua's commitment to complying with the Mosaic law and secondarily served to proclaim that Messiah has indeed come to the Jewish people since the Rabbis had dismissed leprosy as incurable² and regarded the only one capable of such a cure as G-d Himself.

Mattai 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10 - The Roman Centurian implores Y'shua to heal his servant.  In all probability, the servant was Jewish.  Y'shua , in response, to the centurians faith, alludes to a feast that the Rabbis thought would take place during the Messianic age.  They presumed that those present at the feast were limited strictly to those who were the household of Israel.  Y'shua  turns their thinking topsy-turvy by saying…

The feast may be real or a mere image but it does symbolize the benefits of being a recipient of the blessings of the Kingdom of G-d when Messiah’s reign on earth will be actualized.  The Jewish audience to whom Y'shua  was speaking understood this.  Likewise, Y'shua s’ proclamation that the “sons of the Kingdom would be cast out into outer darkness” was something else that His audience understood.  The reference to “gehenna”, the place of outer darkness, was the place to where the Rabbis regarded Gentiles and sinners, “b’nai gehinom" (children of gehenna) to be consigned³.  Y'shua  is not in this statement, saying that ALL of the sons of the Kingdom (the Jews) will be relegated to gehenna just as not all Gentiles who claim association with Y'shua  will receive the blessings of the kingdom.  What He is saying is that, contrary to the presuppositions of the Rabbis, “pedigree” is not the means by which participation in the blessings of the feast are to be appropriated.  The blessings are appropriated through faith in Him as was displayed in this instance by the Gentile Centurian on behalf of his Jewish servant.

Mattai 8:14-15 - (reiterated in Mark 1:29-31) Y'shua  heals Kifa (Peter)s mother-in-law.  This passage, incidentally, shows that not only was the first Pope Jewish, but he was married.

Mattai 8:16 - (reiterated in Mark 1:32-34) All who came to Kifa (Peter)s house to be healed by Y'shua  were Jewish.

Mattai 9:1-8 - The paralytic who was healed was Jewish.  And the Jewish crowds who saw it were amazed.  Again, in the spirit of Y'shua s’ rebuke of the “Sons of Kingdom” in Mattai (Mattai) 8:5-13, He rebukes the scribes who question His authority to forgive sins.

Mattai 9:18-26 The daughter of the synagogue official, who was resurrected from the dead by Y'shua  was certainly Jewish.

Mattai 9:27-31 - Y'shua  heals two blind men.  Interestingly, they were not the most obedient of souls.  When Y'shua  asked them not to tell anyone about the healing, they go and tell everyone.

Mattai 9:32-34 - Y'shua  heals a Jewish, mute, demon possessed man.  The crowds were “amazed” by this because according to Rabbinic thinking, exorcism of demons required vocal participation of the victim since the demon(s) was(were) required to identify him or themselves.  Y'shua  required no such precedent.  He commanded and they were compelled to obey because all creation was subject to him.

Mark 1:21-28 - Y'shua  casts out a demon from a Jewish man in the Synagogue in Capernaum.

Mark 3:1-6 - While in the Synagogue, Y'shua  Heals the Jewish man whose hand was withered.

Mark 3:7-12 - He healed multitudes of Jewish people and casts demons out of many of them.

Mattai 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48 - He heals the Jewish woman who had a chronic menstuation.  Here we see a number of specific images that define this scenario as distinctly Jewish.  The woman’s illness made her unclean uniquely in the confines of Jewish culture. Other cultures would not have seen her menses as particularly objectionable.  However, Moses had prescribed a serious injunction concerning it which left her utterly destitute. 

This ordinance is also mentioned in Deuteronomy 22:12.  Hence, in this episode we see a vivid picture of the Gospel as seen within its Jewish framework.

Luke 13:10-17 - A Jewish woman doubled over because of a spirit, was healed in a synagogue.  Here is another example where Y'shua  was criticized by Jewish leadership, in this case, the synagogue officials, but the Jewish crowd “was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Y’shua“.

Luke 17:11-19 - Nine of the ten lepers healed were Jewish.  Y'shua  had given them the directive to show themselves to the Priest.  We have no indication that they ever did, but the one who returned to Y’shua was a Samaritan.

Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43 - Blind Bartimaeus who was healed by Y’shua was Jewish.  This passage gives strong evidence that the author was writing to Gentiles about events that were taking place in the context of Jewish culture.  Since “Bar” means “son” in Aramaic, the author goes on to explain that he was the “son of Timaeus“.  If the author had been speaking to Jews, the hearers would have been hearing “Blind son of Timaeus who is the son of Timaeus”.  He would have been repeating himself.  But he said it this way because he was describing the event to Gentiles who would not have known otherwise.

John 5:1-9 - Y’shua healed the lame Jewish man at the pool of Bet Chasda.  The word has been Anglicized to be “Bethesda” but the real name is Bet Chasda (the Ch is a guttural sound produced in the back of the throat, not Ch as in Charley) which means “house of Mercy” or “house of compassion”.  Whenever you see “Beth” as the prefix to a name, the name means something.  “Beth” or (more appropriately) “Bet” means “house”.

John 9 - Y’shua heals the man born blind.  He was Jewish.  His parents were threatened to be thrown out of the Synagogue.

John 11 - Y’shua raises His friend, Lazarus, from the dead.  Lazarus was Jewish as were his sisters.  The Greek pronounces his name Lasaron.  It is derived from the Hebrew root “ezer” which means “help”.

Simon, whom He also named Peter - Simon is an Anglicanized pronunciation of the Hebrew, “Shimon” which means “to hear or listen”.  Y’shua, who may have spoken Greek, was probably more comfortable with Hebrew and Aramaic, and probably never called him Peter or Petros.  Y’shua called him “Kifa” which means “stone” who’s meaning was translated into the Greek. 

Andrew, Simon’s Brother - has no Hebrew or Aramaic name recorded for him.  This may be because Greek names were not uncommon for Jews starting from the second or third century B.C.  He was a talmid of Yochanan HaMad’bil (John the Baptizer) and apparently was a good disciple.  A good disciple follows the instructions of his teacher.  Yochanan pointed him to Y’shua and Andrew was the first to obey his mentor.  He then led his brother to Yeshua (John 1:40). He and his brother were Galilean fishermen (Matthew 4:18, Mark1:16).  I don’t know of to many Gentiles who were Galilean fishermen prior to dropping everything in order to be a talmid of Y’shua.

James - His real name was undoubtedly Yaakov which has contemporarily been called “Jacob”.  Yaakov was understandably named after his ancestor Yaakov, son of Isaac, son of Abraham.  His name is derived from the word Akav which means “heal”.  When the original Yaakov came out of the womb, when it was noticed that he’d grabbed hold of his brothers heal, he was given the name which means “one who grabs by the heal”.  “Akov” also means “deceitful” or “one who replaces another”.  Yaakov’s brother Esau was the first to attribute that meaning to Yaakov’s name.  Nevertheless it is fair to say that the original Yaakov’s character displayed both meanings to the name.  He did, after all, with the help of his mother, trick both his father and his brother.

Philip - Was another Jewish talmid with a Greek name.  He, along with Andrew and Shimon, was from Bet-Saida on the Sea of Galilee.  The Synoptic Gospels (Mattai, Luke and Mark) always list him right before Bartholomew.  Yochanon’s Gospel mentions that Philip goes to get Nathaniel.

Bartholomew - Bartholomew more likely has the full name… Nataniel Bar-Tolmai, seeing that Philip is linked to Bartholomew in the synoptic Gospels which make no mention of Nataniel, and Nataniel in the Gospel of Yochanon, which makes no mention of Bartolmai.  In all probability, the synoptics refer to this talmid in terms of his familial identity whereas Yochanon refers to him more intimately.  Yochanon reveals more about this talmid that any of the other Gospel writers, describing him as “an Israelite in whom there is no guile”.  Nataniel is a Hebrew name meaning “G-d gives”.  Bartolmai means Son of Tolmai or Talmai which was not necessarily a Hebrew name.  A similar name however is found in scripture in 2 Samuel 3:3 where Maacah, wife of King David, is described as “Bat-Talmai”, daughter of Talmai King of Geshur.

Matthew - Matthew’s real name was probably Mattai which was short for Mattyahu which is a Hebrew name meaning “Gift of G-d”.  He is also called “Levi” a common Jewish name even today which means “my heart” or “joined” as if we were of the same heart.

Thomas - Thomas is an Aramaic name meaning “Twin”.  The implication here, is that he was probably someone’s twin brother.  Scripture, however, is not clear as to who his twin might be.

James the son of Alphaeus - This is a different James than mentioned before but his name was not James.  He, like the other James, was probably called Yaakov.

Judas the son of James - This man’s name was definitely not Judas!  Such a name is an utter repudiation of his Jewish identity.  His name was Yehuda, the same name as the fourth son of Yaakov the patriarch’s wife, Leah, and ancestor of King David.  More appropriately, he was probably called Yehuda Ben Yaakov, Yehuda the son of Yaakov.

Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor - As a friend of mine used to say, “Jews are just like everyone else, only more so”.   Just like every other people group, in an overly simplistic sense, for the sake of brevity, there are good people and bad people.  And so, yes, the Jews lay claim, as well, to this talmid.  And if he is to be laid claim to, his name, too, is Yehuda.  He also has the same name as the patriarch.

Not a whole lot is said of these 12 disciples in the post resurrection account in what is known as “the Book of Acts” for the exception of Shimon Kifa, and Yochanon.  We know that they continued to worship in the temple for instance (Acts 3:9).  The best illustration of how these men, who by this time were called Sh’lichot (Apostles), kept their Jewish identity was Shaul (known today as “Paul”) who wrote to the people in Corinth while defending his credentials

Shaul identified intimately and deeply with the Jewish people.  His faith, in no way, altered his identity as a Jew.