One of the certain facts about Jesus was that he was a Jew. He was a child of Jewish parents, brought up in a Jewish home and reared among Jewish traditions. Throughout his life, Jesus lived among Jews and his followers were Jews.
Jesus and his family would have been observant of Torah, paid tithes, kept the Sabbath, circumcised their males, attended synagogue, observed purity laws in relation to childbirth and menstruation, kept the dietary code etc. The Gospels record disputes about Jesus' interpretation of a few of these; the discussions about Torah commands are very Jewish. The notion of a Christian Jesus, who did not live by Torah or only by its ethical values, does not fit historical reality.
Jesus lived his life as a Jew (not as a Christian), obedient to Torah (with very few exceptions). He was called Rabbi, or Teacher, and preached in synagogues throughout Israel during His three-year ministry. He would have been considered a religious Jew by the Roman authorities and other Jewish leaders, including the Pharisees and the Essenes (Dead Sea Scroll community). The Sadducees thought his teachings were heretical.
Jesus was put to death by the Romans on the charge that he claimed to be a king. Jesus made it clear to Peter that he regarded himself as the Messiah (Mark 8:29) as he did to the High Priest (Mark 14:62). Some Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah, believing that he would redeem them from the bitter yoke of Rome and bring the messianic age. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem he was acclaimed, "blessed is the Kingdom that comes, the kingdom of our father David" (Mark 11:10). Other Jews rejected the claim.
In July 2008 a front-page story in the New York Times reported on the discovery of an ancient Hebrew tablet, dating from before the birth of Jesus, which predicted a Messiah who would rise from the dead after three days. The coming of the Messiah was fully imagined in the ancient Jewish texts. Jesus, moreover, was embraced by many Jews as this person, and his core teachings were not at all a break from Jewish beliefs and teachings. Jesus and his followers were simply Jewish.