I understand you come from a Jewish background and my understanding is that their tradition considers the suffering servant referred to in Isaiah 53 as Israel. If this is the case, how does one explain Isaiah 53:8 when it refers to him (the servant) being punished for the sins of "my people," since the author himself was Jewish? For me (and many others) this is by far the most compelling Messianic prophesy and so I am very curious what the non-Christian perspective on it is.
Excellent question. The answer mostly comes down to context: the author of the later parts of Isaiah (the scholarly idea that Isaiah 40 and on was written by a different person than Isaiah 1-39, but even if you don't accept that it's not really material to this argument) has a continuing metaphor of a servant as Israel in earlier areas. When Isaiah is talking to Cyrus in Isaiah 45, he says "For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you, though you do not know me."
Isaiah 49 is even more explicit:
Isaiah is explicitly talking about Israel in this passage and doing so in much the same language he'd use in 52-53. He calls Israel a light to the nations and says that just recovering the scattered tribes of Israel and Judah is not enough: that there is a mission for Israel to redeem the entire world. It also echoes Isaiah's language in 52-53 that the Servant will suffer and be despised and abhorred, but would one day have the rulers prostrate themselves to it.
That said, it absolutely
can be fairly read as a Messianic prediction. The rabbinic tradition had several prominent figures argue that the Servant should be read as a person, either as a Messiah or as a reference back to the life of Moses or even Isaiah himself (I don't really think that it works as a description of either of the two of them, but whatever).