Israel's anti-conversion laws, against missionaries etc.

[Muslima]

The missionaries here, as everywhere, mostly target the usual vulnerable groups- the poor, the new immigrants (especially non-Jewish ones), the high school and college students and the elderly. Although the nuttier among them can on occasion go as far as distributing copies of New Testament near the Wailing Wall.

Womble thanks,
distributing bibles near the wailing wall? what do the israeli authorities do them? I heard of this guy called David ben Ariel who dressed as a jew and went to the site of the Haykal Suleiman. He got deported by Israel and made a stink about it or so i heard, i havn't all the facts.


I've posted a couple of factual articles that detail this Messianic problem.

Does anyone know what the different denominations of Christianity (including messianics) are? and what their numbers are?

I am aware that the right of return does not apply to Messianics, but how do they get in then? Do they pretend to be Jews?



Unlike manistream Christianity, Messianics, jews for jesus, and other Armageddon sects require Jews to convert for their Armageedon.



Mediocrates thanks for the link, i've posted some too, which highlight this problem. Apparently there are only about 300,000 Messianics around the world, but they pretend to be Jews even though they believe in the god on the cross and such paganism.


A solution to this problem is this:
Israel should have a law, that whenver she gives citizen ship to someone, they should be monitored for about 5 yrs to see what their religion is. If they lied about being Jewish then their citizenship should be revoked.

By the way, how are you 2 guys? Anything new or exciting happened , i havn't been able to post much for many months but i remember all the spats and heated arguments i had here. Are all the regulars around or what? How's sharonbn, mira, newsguy, andak, minusthejihad, reffo, ygalg, achihud, toga , leon and others. Has ShimonG succeeded in his campaign to destroy Islam?

let me know if i've missed any fun))

[Muslima]

Messianic Group's Touchy Mission
Renewed D.C. Campaign of Jews for Jesus Brings Out the Counter-Leafleters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=sec-religion
By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 30, 2007; Page B09

A two-week evangelical campaign designed to bring Jews to Jesus is underway in Washington, taking this question to Metro stations, Nationals games and popular spots like U Street: Is Jesus the Jewish messiah?

That is the core belief of the international missionary organization Jews for Jesus, the best known of dozens of messianic Jewish groups that have sprung up in recent decades. Followers believe that Jesus was the messiah mentioned in Jewish scripture. The group, which has a $17 million annual budget, defines its mission as "making the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to Jewish people worldwide."


The group is loathed by many mainstream Jews. Washington area Jewish organizations and the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington have condemned the campaign, saying Jews for Jesus proselytizes too aggressively and misleads potential followers by using Jewish symbols, portraying their places of worship as synagogues and referring to Jesus by Hebrew names.

Jewish tradition does foretell of a messiah who will return Jews to their promised land and bring peace to the world, but it rejects the idea that Jesus was that person -- as Christianity teaches.

"You don't dress up fundamentalist, evangelical Christian missionaries in Jewish clothing and call it Judaism," said Scott Hillman, director of the regional office of Jews for Judaism, which works against groups trying to convert Jews to Christianity. He ran two training sessions last week for 30 people who try to be wherever the Jews for Jesus leafleters are and hand out their own leaflets.

The campaign, which began last Saturday and ends July 8, is the second push that Jews for Jesus has made in the area, which has one of the nation's larger Jewish communities with 215,000 Jews, according to a 2003 study. More than 30 Jews and Christians from Washington and across the country are participating, a far smaller number than in 2004, when 600 volunteers were trained to hand out leaflets.

Organizers say that is because 2004 was part of an unprecedented five-year, 38-city, global Jews for Jesus campaign that cost millions. The D.C. area push that year, which cost about $200,000, was also promoted heavily by the Rev. Lon Solomon, senior pastor of the McLean Bible megachurch in McLean and a member of the Jews for Jesus board of directors. This year, McLean contributed a small number of volunteers and the campaign has no advertising, as there was in 2004.

But it comes at a time when congregations of messianic Jews are growing, albeit slowly. There are about 300 such congregations in the United States, up from none around 1970, according to the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations. Jewish groups that work to oppose conversion efforts estimate that 200,000 American Jews have become believers in Christ in the past three decades.

Many others who are active in such groups as Jews for Jesus worship at biblically conservative, evangelical churches, like McLean Bible Church. Some were born Jewish; many others were born Christians. All share the belief that Jews hold a special place in the Bible but differ on what that means. Some believe that Jews must come to Jesus in order to create the conditions for his return; others believe that evangelizing Jews is simply a way to express love for a people whom God, in Exodus, called his "peculiar treasure."

The issue of missionizing to Jews is becoming more explosive as evangelical Christian groups -- the primary backers of messianic organizations -- draw closer than ever with Jewish groups over their shared support of Israel. Christian blogs lighted up last year when the

Jerusalem Post reported that Texas megapreacher and stalwart Israel ally John C. Hagee believed that Jews have a special covenant with God that allows them salvation without accepting Jesus. The Rev. Hagee is already criticized by some evangelicals because he doesn't advocate proselytizing to Jews. He disputed the newspaper report, saying he believes that Jews do need Jesus, but many messianic Jews remain angry that some evangelical leaders are willing to tone down evangelizing in order not to offend Jews.

"How can you say you love Jews if you withhold the messiah from them?" asked Stephen Katz, director of the local Jews for Jesus office, who handed out brochures to commuters at the Foggy Bottom Metro during Tuesday's morning rush hour.

Working with him was Adam Myers, 21, a junior at Liberty University, who said it bothers him that so many people at his church believe that proselytizing to Jews is unnecessary.

"It's just not politically correct to tell people that if you want to go to heaven, you have to accept Jesus. What we're saying is intolerant, just like if a doctor said you need to take this medicine, that is intolerant," he said.

While passing out brochures, Katz got the e-mail address of Michaela Curtis, a 21-year-old intern from North Carolina who grew up in a Christian household where interest in Judaism was high.

"Jews for Jesus is true Judaism, because Jesus was the king of the Jews," she said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

But nearby was Bess Lender, a Jewish George Washington University senior, who disagreed.

"They'll promote themselves as Jewish," Lender said, "but it's just silly to me to think you can be Jewish and believe in Christ as the

messiah."

[Muslima]

Why 'Jews for Jesus' is evil

By Bradley Burston
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/717574.html

We were driving in the Galilee, waiting for a red light to change, when they came up to the car. Their smiles were engagingly open as they wished us a fine trip. Then they offered us the flyer.

Jews for Jesus. Who says that evil can't be imported, and delivered, free of charge, direct to your car door?

Don't get me wrong. The members of Jews for Jesus are pure souls. They are among the most wholesome, guileless, truly well-meaning, fundamentally lovely people you will ever meet.




Advertisement

More's the pity, therefore, that there's a special place in hell just for them.

I would like to begin by saying that I have nothing personal against these people. But that would be a lie.

The reason is that, grinning all the way, they want to take something personal from me. My history, my belief system, my ancestry. The flyers say they are concerned for my soul, and I believe them with all my heart. It's precisely my soul they're after, all right, mine and as many others as possible.

They're out to harvest Jewish souls in the name of Christ. And they're out to do it right here.

Make no mistake, I believe that these Christians must have every freedom to worship Jesus as their lord and messiah, perform every ritual, celebrate every holiday that they see fit. If they want to do Born-again Kiddush and Last Supper Kneidelach and Savior Shalosh S'eudes - gezunterheit.

And if missionary activity is a commandment in their view, I wish them every success - just one thing:

Leave the Jews alone.

The world is a target-rich environment for the missionary, the Protestant Christian world in particular. There's no end of lapsed Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anabaptists, whom you're free to try to cajole into Christ.

You don't need us. Jesus doesn't need us. Leave us alone.

It's a safe bet that the Jews for Jesus who may be reading this are rolling their eyes by now, classifying me as Unbeliever Type G-639-L and writing me off.

But bear with me for one brief moment, if only to read the next sentence, which has specifically to do with you, as well as with your Jewish prey, thousands of years of Jewish history, and evil:

Proselytizing is persecution.

Granted, it's not the same as burning us at the stake for Christ's sake, firebombing our homes for Christ's sake, staging apres-church pogroms for Christ's sake, ostracizing and terrorizing and beating our children for having killed Christ, lynching Jewish adults for church-distributed blood libels, torturing Jews to force them to convert, converting entire Jewish communities on point of death, deporting entire Jewish communities on point of death for having resisted conversion, or, after eliminating the conversion option, annihilating entire Jewish communities with the complicitous blind eye of the Holy See.

But there's more than one way to wipe out a people, and poison, like gas, comes in many forms. Sometimes it looks like a leaflet. Sometimes it looks like the Internet. Sometimes it looks like a smile.

It should have occurred to you by now that Jews in the post-Holocaust era have a mission, no less than you. We have some saving to do of our own. In ways which are as individual as each Jew in the world, it has been left to us to save Jewry itself - its faith, its culture, its values, its memory, its history - from extinction.

Look around. There aren't that many of us left. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and nearly a billion and a quarter Muslims.

There are barely 14 million Jews left alive on this planet. In 1933, that number was 15.3 million. Leave us alone.

The true evil of Jews for Jesus, is the movement's readiness to take advantages of the weaknesses of Judaism in our day, in order to further weaken it. Judaism's agonizing inability to reach its estranged youth is the stuff of Jew for Jesus dreams, the fantasy that, in the end, they will succeed in converting us.

Sorry, I'm not supposed to use that word. Under the Jews for Jesus creed - which appears aimed at confusing its own adherents at least as much as it seeks to "turn" us non-believers - Jews for Jesus members do not convert you, they just get you to believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that only through Jesus can one be saved.

The faithful may well be much too busy with salvation to concern themselves with extinction. There's clearly plenty for them to do, judging by some of their Websites, where I happened upon this useful piece of instruction from the founder of Jews for Jesus, Martin (Moishe) Rosen:

"Hey, if you don't know any Jewish people, you can look in the phone book for surnames that are always Jewish: Cohen, Katz, Levy, Rosen (and anything that begins with Rosen, like Rosenberg, Rosenbloom or Rosenfeld)."

And now, here in Israel, in a venture as predictable as it is indecent, they've set themselves a new target, Russian Jewish immigrants, descendants of the Jews Hitler didn't get the chance to kill.

May they fail.

There are those who will say, and I applaud them, that we should engage and embrace members of Jews for Jesus, showing openness to them rather than the cold shoulder that drives them further away. I applaud those who say this and act accordingly, but I don't have it in me.

It really comes down to this: It's hard enough to be Jewish as it is. It's tough to be Jewish if you're secular, and it's no less difficult if you're religious. It's tough to be Jewish in the Diaspora if you live among non-Jews. It's tough to live there if you live among lots of Jews. And it's tough as nails to be Jewish in Israel, atheist, knitted kippa, Haredi, or fusion JUBU.

If you're a Jew for Jesus and you're still reading this, you may well be thinking: This guy sounds riled. He needs a friend in Jesus.

You're thinking wrong. This guy needs you to keep your salvation to yourself.

Believe whatever you want. Practice whatever you preach.

Just stay the hell away from us.

[Muslima]

Jews for Jesus:

Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception
Legal Cases Involving Jews for Jesus
http://www.adl.org/special_reports/j...egal_cases.asp

In 1998 Jews for Jesus filed suit against Steven Brodsky, an Orthodox Jew who registered the Internet domain name www.jewsforjesus.org. Brodsky's Web page described Jews for Jesus as a "cult" that was "founded upon deceit and distortion of fact." It linked out to the Web site of Outreach Judaism (www.outreachjudaism.org), a Jewish educational organization that specializes in opposing groups like Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus claimed that Brodsky's domain name infringed on its trademark. A judge issued a preliminary injunction against Brodsky, who vacated the name. It is now the group's main Web address.


In 1993 Israel's Supreme Court, in a case involving a couple affiliated with Jews for Jesus, ruled that Jews who adhere to the Christian beliefs are regarded by Israeli law as "members of a different faith," and are not eligible for the automatic citizenship that Israel grants Jews. In its summary of the ruling, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the belief that Jesus is the Messiah "cannot be reconciled with Judaism" and "marks the clear separation between Judaism and Christianity."


In 1992 New York's highest court ruled against Jews for Jesus in a suit the organization brought against the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC), an umbrella group representing 60 Jewish agencies in the metropolitan New York area. The case addressed the JCRC's 1985 warning to Long Island rabbis that Jews for Jesus was seeking a venue to conduct a Passover seder. The JCRC urged the rabbis to contact their Christians colleagues, as well as catering establishments and large restaurants, to "impress upon them how serious an affront these Hebrew-Christian groups are to the Jewish community." Subsequently, Jews for Jesus could not find a venue for the seder on Long Island, and was forced to conduct it in New Jersey. Jews for Jesus sued the JCRC for violating its civil rights; the 1992 decision upheld a lower court ruling that the JCRC communication did not "go beyond the proposal stage" and that there was no evidence that any of the Long Island rabbis had actually contacted establishments for the purpose of discriminating against Jews for Jesus.


In another lawsuit brought by Jews for Jesus against the JCRC of New York, a U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in 1992 that the efforts of the JCRC urging Jewish organizations not to patronize a New York country club because it allowed Jews for Jesus to hold its annual convention on its premises were not protected as an exercise of the JCRC's First Amendment rights.


In 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jews for Jesus in a suit it filed against the municipal agency in charge of Los Angeles International Airport. Airport officials had barred Jews for Jesus from distributing leaflets at their facility as part of a larger ban on what they described as "First Amendment activities." Jews for Jesus challenged the airport's right to institute such a sweeping ban.

[Yala]

In general, I don't like the proselytizing of any religion, b/c I think if people were meant to be of another religion than that which they were born, they would find it on their own. In any case, Jews who know and care about Judaism won't be easy to convert anyway. Maybe these people weren't meant to be Jewish if they are so quick to give up Judaism. And maybe they aren't that bright if they are falling for all this smoke and mirror nonsense. Good riddance.

Here is a video of "Messianic" Jews in Israel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2q_3sktQBY

[NewsGuy]

By the way, how are you 2 guys? Anything new or exciting happened , i havn't been able to post much for many months but i remember all the spats and heated arguments i had here. Are all the regulars around or what? How's sharonbn, mira, newsguy, andak, minusthejihad, reffo, ygalg, achihud, toga , leon and others. Has ShimonG succeeded in his campaign to destroy Islam?

let me know if i've missed any fun))

Hi! Nice to see you again.

Welcome back.

[farmall]

"Don't get me wrong. The members of Jews for Jesus are pure souls. They are among the most wholesome, guileless, truly well-meaning, fundamentally lovely people you will ever meet."

If you ever run into anyone, from anywhere, with the above characteristics, don't trust them. Those are the signs of a faith-induced lobotomy.

Those are the same sort that fall for a Jim Jones or a Charles Manson, or any/all fundamentalist religion. They are the inevitable outcome of religion because they carry it to its logical conclusion, and why modern humans view religion with contempt.

Right-wing Christians and their camp followers aren't quite as nuts as Muslims at the moment, but their fundamentalism is almost as toxic if left unchecked. The only way to make use of them is to integrate their faith with support of the US military industrial complex and teach them that Jesus was actually the first Republican. Think of them as the Brownshirts of Christianity.

[friendofisrael]

Right-wing Christians and their camp followers aren't quite as nuts as Muslims at the moment, but their fundamentalism is almost as toxic if left unchecked.

Fundamentalist Christians cannot be compared in any way shape or form to Muslims. They shouldn't even be remotely compared.

The fundamentalist term re Christians means those who take the bible very literally. They believe that Jesus was the Jewish messiah, and everybody's messiah. They obviously seek to tell others this. A simple no thanks, i'm Jewish and happy with my faith will suffice. Christians (and i mean protestants in my experience specifically) are taught to LOVE the Jews, and Israel.

The term fundamentalist re Muslims means those who want to wage jihad on non muslims everywhere. They are taught to hate and even kill Jews and Christians. Its convert or die!

We were driving in the Galilee, waiting for a red light to change, when they came up to the car. Their smiles were engagingly open as they wished us a fine trip. Then they offered us the flyer.

If that had been a Muslim outreach group you could have been dead!

When was the last Christian beheading/suicide bomb/911?

Some so called Christains have much wronged the Jews in the past, but i think its crazy to try and further drive a wedge between Christians and Jews. The so called loopy American & western evangelicals strongly support Israel economically and politically.

[bararallu]

Thats a fair assessment friendofisrael. You probably just cant fully appreciate what kind of button this pushes inside a Jew to be accosted by a missionary (of any religion). It's an over reaction no doubt about it, but people overreact on a number of subjects, this is just a very Jewish one.

[farmall]

"When was the last Christian beheading/suicide bomb/911?"

If you take note, I said "almost". Christianity is tamed lately, besides which it has considerable military force in nation-state form so it need not use unconventional methods.

Don't forget I live in the South, and anyone who tells you its not still full of (somewhat cleaned up) Jew-hating rednecks is not looking too closely.

I FAVOR Christian Fascism (Fascism is not always bad) because they are dead set against Muslims and this is necessary for cultural war, but never forget the underlying culture. Christians MUST promote Christianity because they are Christians, ditto any other religion.

No religion is capable of unbiased introspection. None of you need view your own objectively and I don't encourage that. You can, however, dissect the other fellows belief so you can plan accordingly.

I'm superstition-free and can compare beliefs coldly in terms of what I prefer.

[friendofisrael]

Originally Posted by bararallu

Thats a fair assessment friendofisrael. You probably just cant fully appreciate what kind of button this pushes inside a Jew to be accosted by a missionary (of any religion). It's an over reaction no doubt about it, but people overreact on a number of subjects, this is just a very Jewish one.

Bararallu, I think I understand the hostility to attempts at conversion. They are bound to see i as another attempt to irradicate them culturally etc. I'm going to Israel next summer (not as a missionary!!) so i'll find out a lot more then- but do you know if Jews who convert to Christ (messianics) keep their Jewish culture etc. Surely they are still Jews racially and culturally. Do they still practise any of Judaism? How are they viewed by 'real' Jews?

Originally posted by farmall

If you take note, I said "almost".

I know. But to me thats like comparing a headache to cancer.

i know a few baptists in Tenessee, and those i know are fervently pro-israel and pro-Jewish. (Sure they'd like to see the Jews they know and love turn to Christ, as thats what they believe is the truth. But they still love and support Israel and Jews generally- the Bible tells them to!)

Tell me farmall, the rednecks you refer to who hate Jews- are they practising Christians? I mean not just Christian in name only. Are there those who attend church etc who are anti-Jewish?

I'm aware that my experience of Christianity may not be the case everywhere.

[bararallu]

but do you know if Jews who convert to Christ (messianics) keep their Jewish culture etc. Surely they are still Jews racially and culturally. Do they still practise any of Judaism? How are they viewed by 'real' Jews?

Religion is also part of culture, a strong part, and for Jews religion is more about practice than anything (= belief), so when someone converts they are no longer Jewish culturally. Jewish culture is more than bagels and locks. Also, we're not a race, but rather an ethnicity or from our perspective: an old nation built on an older still tribe, which is an extended family.

Messianics, or any any other convert (they are all treated the same), are viewed by most Jews as non Jews, even by atheists such as myself. They are traitors to their ancient heritage, and potential political enemies as well, like this character. Some of the most wicked Jews that have walked this earth have been the consequences of conversion. Converts have never been viewed otherwise in fact.

We have some well defined rules when it comes to all of this. And nearly all Jews know those rules, even those raised very liberally; as a Jew you can believe what you believe, but once you declare yourself a part of another organized religion, then you are out of the fold; you leave the Jewish nation (aside from leaving it's religion). You are still ethnically Jewish, but not part of our nation/civilization. You can even come back perhaps, but you cannot be both at the same time. We've never killed them (like Muslims do, and various Christians used to do to their converts) or abused them, but we avoid them like the plague that they are.

BTW, I'm as against converting in making "new Jews", as I am against converting out, most of us are in this camp for a variety of reasons. Conversion is thus very revolting for most Jews, not only because of the past, but indeed because of the future.

[dayag]

Messianics, or any any other convert (they are all treated the same), are viewed by most Jews as non Jews, even by atheists such as myself.

Yeah, I agree 100%. When a Jew converts to another religion, they have cut themselves off from the Jewish people. They are out of the tribe.

[Dorothy]

The start of this thread shows the issue is much larger than individuals being irritated by Christian missionaries both in the US and in Israel.

Jewish groups can't accept funds and services from the Christian community without giving something in return, if only an ear and respect. While money goes to Christians through Jewish charities, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent to IFCJ, for example. As I understand it, at the beginnings of the International Fellowship of Christian and Jews, the second name of the organization, the money was channeled through the Jewish Federation in Chicago, but when Rabbi Eckstein got tired of picture opportunities as a thank you, he now makes sure the Israeli community knows where the money is coming from, Christians, by using plaques, etc.

http://www.ifcj.org/site/PageServer?...oweare_history
A History of Helping
"The Fellowship has contributed over $100 million in recent years toward Jewish immigration, resettlement and social welfare projects in Israel and has provided funding for food, housing and social services programs in the Former Soviet Union."

Jews who don't like missionaries coming through services and funds from the Christian community should just dig deeper into their own pockets to provide competing services, telling Christian groups that they can only fund Christian needs. Telling anyone that they should be doing good only out of the goodness of their hearts is silly. If they want to do that, they will do it. If they want to have other goals, our giving them advice isn't going to work. I haven't liked the tactics used by IFCJ to get money from the Christian community, but I haven't seen any Jewish organization trying to get that changed. Right now it looks as if the givers and the recipients are happy with the deal.

Jews for Jesus people here in the US are another story. I find it very suspicious that their tracts are handed out by young people who are getting a vacation out of the deal. The tracts are handed out around downtown Chicago in the summer in places where the percentage of Jews is very small. If they are out to convert, why not stay in the Jewish communities. The amount of money spent to gain a single convert is obscene. I suspect a propaganda motive of another sort.

Arguments against Christian missionizing seem to fall into certain categories:
1. The belief that Christianity is the only way "to be saved"
2. The lack of courtesy and intrusive behavior of missionaries
3. The idea that Christians are stealing Jews from the Jewish community
4. The manipulative techniques used to attract disaffiliated Jews

Solutions:
1. After centuries of persecution, Jews are just afraid to say they believe the same thing about Judaism. In a one to one encounter, you can state that you believe Judaism is your religion. If you are a Jew without a religion, just state that bluntly. Asking aggressive Christians to stop believing in Christianity never works.

2. I've told agressive Christians that I won't try to missionize them if they don't try to missionize me. Being polite doesn't work.

3. Jews are being stolen from the community by groups other than Christians and no one is worrying about that. If you believe, which I don't, that a Jew can be a Buddhist or a pagan, then you should have no trouble believing that a Jew can be a Christian. If you think that Christians are the only ones being aggressive in their outreach, look around. The booklets with the lists of donors says nothing about the "Jewish community" except that they're generous. Just what is the Jewish community that is being protected?

4. The techniques are manipulative and deceptive. Very true of many outreach Christian groups and other groups. It's not that they are just going after the vulerable. They are going after the disaffiliated whose ties to the Jewish community are very weak. That needs a lot of discussion rather than just scolding.

http://www.spcm.org/Journal/spip.php?article14079
It appears that many in the Christian community are trying to form guidelines on conversion practices among Christians, a practice that humorously seems to be called "sheep stealing." Maybe the Jewish community can pick up some new ideas by watching what guidelines are being develoed.

[bararallu]

That said, I wonder how many Israelis actually convert to a form of Christianity, rather than what I see everyday: Scientologists on every corner of down town Tel Aviv. L. Ron Hubbard and his stupid handlebars with gage seem to be a lot more effective in luring Jews than Jesus and his Apostles it seems... at least from my limited perspective.