Free Republic

Two days after the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, Vice President Pence bowed his head at a rally on Monday in Michigan as a religious leader who casts himself as a “rabbi” offered a prayer for the victims in Pittsburgh. But the man who shared a stage with Pence, Loren Jacobs, preaches Messianic Judaism, a tradition central to Jews for Jesus, a group condemned by Jewish leaders as faux Judaism that seeks to promote Christian evangelism. The major Jewish denominations join the state of Israel in viewing followers of Messianic Judaism as Christian, not Jewish. His appearance drew...

When I came to faith in Jesus in 1971 as a heroin-shooting, LSD-using, 16-year-old, Jewish, hippie rock drummer, I had no idea I was part of a worldwide spiritual happening known as the Jesus People Movement or Jesus Revolution. It even merited a cover story on Time Magazine, June 21, 1971. Interestingly, Jewish young people made up a conspicuously high number of these newly born-again hippies and rebels and radicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, a new poll commissioned by Jews for Jesus makes me wonder if we could be on the verge of a similar spiritual movement today,...

Some 15,000 Messianic Jews currently live in Israel, but if you saw one on the street you would almost certainly fail to recognize any difference. They honor Jewish circumcision, bar-mitzvah, and wedding ceremonies, but believe Jesus is the messiah. The small community of Yad Hashmona, near Jerusalem, is home to a number of Messianic-Jewish families. They believe in Jesus – or Yeshua, as they call him – and in the teachings of the New Testament as well as the old. They are Jews in every sense, but for the most part keep this side of their faith to themselves. When...

The case of the Oxford lecturer in Jewish studies who says she was sacked after she converted to Christianity has thrown a spotlight on to an acutely sensitive subject. I have no idea whether Dr Tali Argov was treated unfairly – that’s for the employment tribunal to decide – but let’s not pretend that Jews who become Christians don’t face intense disapproval from their own community. Christian anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Semitism, Christian Islamophobia, Muslim persecution of Christians – all of these are acceptable topics of debate. But not Jewish hostility to Christianity.

Opening shot You can't walk down the street in downtown Chicago without people handing you stuff. Menus, mostly, sometimes handbills ballyhooing sales or circuses or whatever. Typically, I accept the flier with a smile, give it a glance, and tuck it in a pocket to toss out later. I figure it's callous to rebuff hardy souls trying to scrape by on street corners. At least they're working. Except when someone offers a colorful brochure touting Jews for Jesus -- then I draw my hand back, the smile dying on my face, and give them what I hope is a hard,...

Moishe Rosen is the Founder and first Executive Director of Jews for Jesus. Rosen, who is listed in Who’s Who of the West, was raised in Denver, Colorado, where he, his parents and his brother attended an Orthodox synagogue. When they were both twenty-one, he and his wife Ceil (who is also Jewish) each came to a personal relationship with God through Y’shua. Four years later, in 1957, he was ordained to the ministry. Moishe has spent the following 53 years making the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to his Jewish people worldwide. Dr. Vernon Grounds, noted evangelical...

The founder of Jews for Jesus died Wednesday, leaving behind a pre-written message to members of the ministry. In the letter posted on the Jews for Jesus website after his death, Moishe Rosen encouraged members of Jews for Jesus to stay with the ministry, especially as they “stand on the edge of a breakthrough in Jewish evangelism.” “Just a little more. Just another push. Just another soul - and we will have reached critical mass where we begin generating that energy that the whole world might know the Lord,” wrote Rosen, who was 78 when he died Wednesday after a...

SAN FRANCISCO (BP)--Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews for Jesus, died May 19 around 8:30 p.m. in San Francisco after a lengthy illness, Baptist Press has learned. Rosen, who founded the evangelistic organization in 1973, was 78. Further details will be posted in an obituary later today at bpnews.net.

In a thread in “The Arts,” Superb made reference to an interview Donny Deutsch conducted last October with Ann Coulter on his show “The Big Idea.” (CNBC) During a portion of the interview, Coulter was asked to discuss her point of view on diversity in the United States. Then she got off on a bit of a tangent about how everyone should be a Christian. Coulter made several references to Christians as “perfected” Jews; she indicated that while Jews have to obey “The Law” in order to be saved, Christians have “the fast-track” to salvation through Jesus Christ’s death and...

The co-chairman of the Bilateral Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Holy See is urging Pope Benedict to state publicly that Jews need not convert to Catholicism. Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, who addressed the Synod of Bishops last October, writes: In the Second Vatican Council and the Nostra Aetate document, it was made clear that no efforts would be made by the Catholic Church to convert Jews. Rather, the Jewish people should continue the faith of its forefathers as expressed in the Bible and rabbinic literature. The Jewish people remain a people of God’s covenant, a people...

A wave of irate protest silenced a Jews for Jesus radio campaign last week on a local radio station in the north. It took just a few hours for Kol Rega, which broadcasts to the Galilee and northern valleys, to cave in to pressure from listeners who phoned in to demand that the Jews for Jesus campaign be taken off the air. "Shortly after we broadcast it, we received dozens of angry phone calls from listeners telling us they were hurt by the crudeness of the ad," said Haim Hecht, manager of Kol Rega. "The truth is that even before...

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Barack Obama has struggled for 18 months to lock down the support of a traditionally Democratic group, Jewish voters.In the past week, John McCain may have helped Obama with his Jewish problem by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.(snip)But Democrats hope Palin's social conservatism, her paper-thin record on Israel, and - perhaps most importantly - her cultural roots in evangelical Christianity may be a major turnoff to Jewish voters, just as Republicans have tried to reach women disappointed that Obama didn't choose Hillary Clinton,(snip)There is almost always an inverse proportion between a candidate's popularity among...

Barack Obama has struggled for 18 months to lock down the support of a traditionally Democratic group, Jewish voters. In the past week, John McCain may have helped Obama with his Jewish problem by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.... "There is almost always an inverse proportion between a candidate's popularity among conservative Christians and secular Jews," said Jeff Ballabon, a Republican lobbyist long active in Jewish politics who supports McCain. An illustration of that gap came just two weeks ago, when Palin's church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with...

Within the Jewish community, Jews for Jesus is viewed as just cause for a headache. But is it possible that the group’s actual effect renders the cause harmless?One thing most Jews seem able to agree on is that Messianic and other Jesus-believing Jews make us uncomfortable—which might be the understatement of the year. a Because I wrote a book titled Why the Jews Rejected Jesus (Doubleday), I have received many e-mails from Jewish Christians wanting to argue with me or just share their own experiences. More than a few complain of having been yelled at, ostracized, even spat on by...

NEW YORK - Comedian Jackie Mason on Monday dropped a lawsuit in which he claimed the missionary group Jews for Jesus damaged him when it used his name and likeness in a pamphlet. Mason appeared in federal court in Manhattan, where he accepted an apology from the group in return for dropping the lawsuit. Outside the court, Mason did a little spontaneous standup with reporters, but there was a serious tone to his wit. "There's no such thing as a Jew for Jesus. It's like saying a black man is for the KKK," the 75-year-old Mason said. "You can't be...

Comedian files lawsuit against missionary group for using his name and likeness in a pamphlet, saying he's 'as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami' Saying he's "as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami," Jackie Mason filed a lawsuit against Jews for Jesus for using his name and likeness in a pamphlet. The USD 2-million lawsuit seeks the immediate destruction of the pamphlet, which members of the missionary group have been handing out at various points around New York City. "While I have the utmost respect for people who practice the Christian faith, the fact is, as...

Among the sillier accusations made by non-Christians about those they like to describe as ''fundies'' and ''Bible-thumpers'', is the notion that Christians only support Israel because they want to bring about the Apocalypse and kill them all. This is deeply and profoundly ignorant, right up there with the asinine ''most wars are caused by religion'' assertion of which maleducated atheists are so fond. Now, there's no question Christians are rather more enthusiastic about the Jewish return to Israel than they have historically been about the Rothschild family's influence with the London Stock Exchange, but it is worth recalling that without...

Why Jews Can't Be For JesusBy Rabbi Shmuel Arkush, Head of Operation Judaism, fighting missionaries nationwide. IN BRITAIN today there are various groups energetically targeting Jews. They especially look for those who feel a lack of fulfilment in their lives. They assert that the answer to all problems is belief in Jesus, something which they claim makes you a better Jew! What's so terrible? They seem happy enough. I am not going to stop any of the Jewish things I was doing before, I may even keep a few more! Even if I end up believing in a false Messiah...

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

My parents were observant Jews in Europe who fled to the U.S. to escape the Holocaust.  I was raised as a "conservative" Jew, and was rather pious by nature and very enthusiastic about the religious instruction I received and the religious activities I participated in.  I went to my synagogue's after-school Jewish religious education program ("Hebrew School") all the way through grammer and high school.  By high school it was the main focus of my identity and activities, even though by that point there were only about a half-dozen of us who had continued in the program.  I was very...