| A Soul-Snatcher’s Guide to the Galaxy |
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| Written by Miriam Felton-Dansky | |||||
| Monday, 09 May 2005 | |||||
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Conversion Strategies from the Messianic Imagination Seeking to bag a few Jewish souls? Sick of missionaries who won't leave up on the Jews? Either way, you'll want to check out these "tips" from a "Messianic Soul-Winner's Card" (read: cheat-sheet). Do Say: Messiah Yeshua, Messiah Jesus, The Messiah – Don't Say: Jesus Christ. Sick of wondering when the Jewish Messiah will arrive? Ask a Christian missionary: motivated by the belief that Jewish conversion is a prerequisite to the Second Coming, they’ve been trying for over a century and a half to convince us that he’s already been here. Today, according to the Jewish Task Force on Missionaries and Cults, there are over 200 missionary groups in the U.S. devoted to these efforts. But they can’t just have their way with Jewish souls–not with the mammoth efforts of Jewish anti-cult organizations. To these groups—which include Outreach Judaism, the Jewish Defense League, Jews for Judaism, and more—conversion-minded Christians represent a serious danger to us Yids. And they are not about to take it. Historically, Christian missionaries have actually been flops, due mainly to the fact that Jews just don’t like Jesus. In his recent history of evangelicals, On the Road to Armageddon, Timothy Weber describes the efforts of nineteenth-century Christians to convert Jewish kids: “As soon as we expressed in the hymn the word Jesus,” reports one disgruntled missionary, “the children simultaneously, as though done by magic placed their fingers in their ears and refused to sing or listen. They were shocked, they were horrified, and some were ready even to weep and to run home.” Missionaries soon came up with a new scheme: they’d market Jesus like the Yid he was, and they’d start by using his Hebrew name, Yeshua. Do Say: Messianic Jew, Completed Jew, Fulfilled Jew – Don't Say: Convert. Missionaries had a problem. Once they scored a member of the tribe, that former Jew was suddenly a persona non grata in their own community. So, concocting the theory that Jews could accept Jesus and remain members of the tribe, the clever missionaries began to form Messianic Jewish Congregations. “We are Jewish, so we relate in a Jewish way,” explains Susan Perlman, co-founder of Jews for Jesus and current assistant to the Executive Director in J4J’s San Francisco headquarters. “We attract Jews because the idea that Jews believe in Jesus is not a discussion in the Jewish community.” You bet it’s not. And if anti-cult organizations like Jews for Judaism have any say on the matter, that’s how it will stay. Insisting that J4J and other missionaries “prey almost exclusively upon uneducated, unaffiliated and alienated Jews,” Jews for Judaism advocates Jewish education as a preventative measure. Shelley Rubin, Administrative Director of the Jewish Defense League, chimes in with similar sentiments: “We support the work of organizations such as Jews for Judaism and others that have made it their central goal to counter the efforts of various missionary groups and cults,” she says. “We do, however, stress that a solid Jewish education and a home life filled with Yiddishkeit are the best preventatives against Jewish soul-snatching.” Rubin’s organization is no slouch when it comes to Jewish souls: the JDL has been advocating armed Jewish resistance since its founding in 1968 by the extremist Zionist militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. According to Rubin, they have exposed messianic churches masquerading as synagogues, held rallies, and currently work with rabbis to protect the Jewish community. The Anti-Defamation League’s description of the JDL—whose leader, they say, “preached a radical form of Jewish nationalism which reflected racism, violence, and political extremism,” notes that over the last three decades, JDL members have struck blows at the various foes of the Jewish people through such activities as stealing the printing machines of a Philadelphia-based Arabic newspaper and pouring blood on a Soviet diplomat’s head during a 1972 party in Washington, DC. Do Say: A Bible Believer – Don't Say: A Christian. “When your students meet a Christian missionary, how will they respond?” says Rabbi Tovia Singer’s “Outreach Judaism” web site. Then, in fire-engine red, the site wonders: “Will they be moved by the missionaries’ friendly approach? Will they attend a gathering of fundamentalist Christians? Will they agree with missionaries’ views on the Tanach? WILL THEY CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY?” Indeed, two millennia of persecution have made Christianity a sticky issue for Jews. Yet Singer reports that an alarming 8,000 Jews go over to the other side each year. But Perlman insists J4J is not Christian at all: “Jesus has given us a profound understanding of our identity as Jews.” How would she explain her rather obvious departure from the central tenets of Jewish belief? (She’s been worshipping Christ since 1971.) “I know that what I believe is not in line with with mainstream Judaism,” she explains, “but what I believe is a very Jewish thing. I mean, we are coming up next month with the celebration of Passover. I’ll have a Seder in the home.” Do Say: Come to a meeting of Bible Believers – Don't Say: Come to Church. Once a cult gets you, Rabbi Singer and his colleagues believe, it’s unlikely you’ll ever escape. Beware, though: you probably won’t be picked up by a bona fide missionary right away. Most likely, a “friend” will entice you to a free concert, a dance, or a coffeehouse. Then they’ll take you to a Hebrew-Christian church. “As an exit-counselor who works with families to reclaim their Jewish family members from these churches,” says Singer, “I can testify that the cost in terms of Jewish souls is dear.” Cults, he says, use deception to advance their cause and believe gaining more followers will get them into heaven. “They have people think their cult is the light and all other groups are under the power of darkness or Satan,” he explains. “In Judaism, you are the best student if you ask a question and the rabbi doesn’t know the answer. A cult believes its truth cannot be questioned.” Perlman denies that her organization is like this. “First of all, we are not brainwashed,” she points out. “We do not have some guru kind of leader or follow like robots. If we are a cult, so is the rest of evangelical Christianity.” Either way, missionaries don’t stand a chance against Rabbi Singer. “My phone rings constantly with families who are struggling with this,” he says, “and I do about 200 lecturers a year, with 16,000 young people a year.” He gives lectures to teenagers in which he presents himself as a member of Jews for Jesus and uses their mind-controlling techniques on a room full of students. “They realize how effective it is,” he explains, “because when I am about to leave, I reveal that I’m in fact, a rabbi.” Do Say: Second Part of Bible, New Covenant – Don't Say: New Testament. Some anti-cult groups believe Jews too uneducated to know the difference between the Old and New Testaments will be irresistibly drawn in by verses extolling Jesus. Rabbi Singer reminds Jews that when it comes to being Messiah, Jesus was a slacker, pointing out that Ezekiel sets up a weighty to-do list for any contender: “the resurrection of the dead, the building of the final Temple that will stand forever in Jerusalem, the universal knowledge of God and obedience to His Torah, the restoration of the lost tribes, and the complete restoration of the Jewish people to their land all take place.” “Jesus claimed to be the messiah,” retorts Perlman, noting that Christ made this assertion in the “historical document” known as the New Testament. “People are brought up believing that it is a forbidden book—but not to read the New Testament is to have your head buried in the sand,” she explains. Perlman admits that she “did not really” know the criteria for a Jewish messiah when she became a Jew for Jesus, but allows that “there are certain prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled.” Do Say: Tree, Execution Stake – Don't Say: Cross.You won’t find a cross or a nativity scene in a Christian-Jewish “synagogue.” The “rabbi” won’t mention the name of Jesus during the service because they use the Hebrew word for Jesus, Yeshua. The congregational leader may chant the Kiddush, recite the Kaddish, and light Shabbat candles on Friday night. A major on the messianic Jewish calendar is the Messianic Seder. In 1992, the ADL reports, the New York Jewish Community Relations Council decided to keep a Jews for Jesus seder out of Long Island by warning local rabbis that the group was seeking a venue for their feast. The Hebrew-Christian congregation was forced to conduct their seder in New Jersey, whose residents apparently did not object as vociferously. Perlman doesn’t see any problem in J4J’s seder. “When Jesus celebrated the last supper,” she says, “he took the matzoh and said this is my body–he took the wine and said, this is my blood which was shed for you. If we are misappropriating Jewish symbols that charge should be leveled at Jesus as well.” This approach goes for everyday activities too, whether they are relegated to New Jersey or not. “I have a house with a mezuzah on the door,” she says. “It’s my symbol too and I don’t think I need to get permission from the pope of Judaism, whoever that is.”
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