Portland Jews Brace for Assault by 'Jews for Jesus' (anti-Christian Bigotry Alert!)

Torah Atlanta ^ | 2002 | Paul Haist

[jstone78]

Portland Jews Brace for Assault by 'Jews for Jesus'

By Paul Haist, Jewish Review

Portland’s Jewish community has mobilized to resist a two-week assault by Jews for Jesus who will unleash a sizeable squad of trained proselytizers on the city at the beginning of June. A former Eugene rabbi who now specializes in combating Jews for Jesus returned to Oregon May 7 and 8 to help the Jewish community here prepare for the assault. The campaign is planned to coincide with the annual Portland Rose Festival when thousands of people will be on the streets and accessible by pamphleteers.

Rabbi Efraim Davidson is the director of Torah Atlanta, a counter-missionary group that serves the southeast United States. Davidson, who lives in Atlanta now, was a founder and the spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavas Torah in Eugene.

ANTI-'JEWS FOR JESUS' FLIER

The Jewish Federation of Portland and its Community Relations Committee have been aware for several months of JFJ plans to bring their crusade here now to take advantage of the large public gatherings that will occur during the Rose Festival.

Davidson said that the Portland campaign is part of a JFJ five-year program called “Behold Your God.” He has confronted similar JFJ campaigns in other cities, including Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta.

“Behold Your God,” is, according to Davidson, “a very well coordinated, multi-million-dollar campaign” focusing on 66 cities worldwide with Jewish populations of 25,000 or more.

He said that the Jews for Jesus use aggressive proselytizing to target disenfranchised or unaffiliated Jews, Russian immigrants and college students. He said their techniques are manipulative, deceptive and anti-Semitic.

Jews for Jesus have had some success in recent years. Davidson cited figures that show the group has grown from a mere seven U.S. congregations in 1975 to 478 today. There already are at least five so-called messianic congregations in Portland, according to the Web site www.missionportland.org, although Davidson identifies only three messianic congregations here.

Davidson added that in 1973 there were an estimated 10,000 born Jews in the United States who were practicing Christians. Today, 29 years later, he put that figure at about 250,000.

Davidson said the JFJ typically names a coordinator for a particular city that is part of its campaign plan. That person, who he identified as Sue Pearlman in Portland, does the groundwork for the upcoming campaign.

That groundwork includes, said Davidson, “hooking up with a messianic congregation and using it as the physical base for training.”

The coordinator also usually contacts local Baptist churches to recruit lay Christian volunteers. Davidson said the JFJ relies on the Baptists because they are “very motivated evangelicals.”

[gcruse]

Actually that says it pretty well. Like homosexuality, you must think someone else's beliefs are pretty odious if you are going to go to such offensive lengths to drive it out of them.

[NativeNewYorker]

...a certain paranoia and insecurity....

Folks like you make it very hard to explain to my Jewish friends how I can have Christian friends. Keep up the Good Work. /sarcasm

[NativeNewYorker]

How would you like it, if the homosexual community made it a practice to gather in large numbers in your neighborhood, and handed out pro gay literature to everyone they saw?

We call them DEMOCRATS hereabouts.

[onedoug]

One God. One morality. Decency toward others. Deed more than creed.

[OldFriend]

As a jewish woman I get the feeling that some won't be happy until there are NO jews left in the world.

[drlevy88]

If their souls are to be saved they will have to accept Jesus at SOME point. (The passage you refer to is probably an end time event referring to surviving Jews living on earth.) There is nothing wrong (and everything right) with sharing a Jewish gospel message in a suitable manner at a suitable time. Many Jews only know a caricature of the gospel claims.

[jstone78]

{....But please have some sympathy for a people who've seen this all before (many times) and simply want to be left alone....}

They can always say - No, thanks. And the missionary will move on to the next person.

I am not insensitive to the concerns of the Jewish community.

But if Christians preach the gospel to all of humanity, but decide to single out Jews as the only group of non-Christians to whom we should not share the gospel, that would be DISCRIMINATION. And it would be against our faith.

[drlevy88]

My guess is that there won't be any religious Jews on tonight. It's Yom Kippur.

[NativeNewYorker]

They can always say - No, thanks. And the missionary will move on to the next person.

Works for me.

[pocat]

That's EXACTLY what I don't understand. It also works the other way.

I remember when Pat Robertson (I know - he's a goof) was having those fundraisers for Russian Jews to move to Israel after the USSR dissolved. I thought "Wow - the Jews must really like this guy." About a week later, I heard someone on TV calling him "anti-semitic" for one reason or another.

Call me critical or un-PC, but you just can't win with liberal Jews. Some Christians bend over backwards for them, only to be slapped in the face.

[sfwarrior]

Most Jewish organizations and most Jews dislike Christians, This is a fact. I know, I'm Jewish.
There is one conservative organization of Jews, that has their heads screwed on right. That organiztaion is Towards Tradition, and its leader is Rabbi Daniel Lapin. He's great.
Go read his latest press release on how Jews should be thankful for the Christians:
http://www.towardtradition.org/press/ajc.asp

[MoJo2001]

I do apologize, but I think the entire point is being missed. Israel and America are in a fight against Terrorism. My support for Israel or Jews isn't a political one, but of the Christian background from which I was raised. Jews for Jesus has the right to exist. However, they don't have the right to force their beliefs on anyone. I'm not stating that they are, but those opposed to their "preaching" can always close the door or ignore them. We still have that right in America.

I pray for the Jewish community during these days and I pray that God will protect them as well as Israel. May God protect America and keep all her citizens free from tyranny.

Please remember what unites us.

[Jorge]

Saying that Jews must accept Jesus now or go to hell is also religious bigotry and totally against what the bible says about it. Romans 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

Whip out your Strong's concordance and look it up. There are many more scriptures to prove my point.

Anyone who's read the Bible knows that you distorting scripture to support a false teaching.

Jesus said "NO MAN cometh unto the Father but by Me" (John 14:6)

Jesus told the religious Jews that didn't accept Him as Messiah;
"You shall die in your sins. If you believe that I am not He, you shall die in your sins" (John 8:24)

"Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given unto men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12)

Jesus also told the religious Jews who rejected Him;
"If God were your father you would love me".
"You are of your father the Devil"
( John 8:42-44)

Like it or not the scriptures clearly teach the Jews must accept Jesus to be saved.

[jstone78]

{".....But when Jews here in the U.S. evince a distrust of these same evangelicals' proselytizing efforts, suddenly they're "anti-christian bigots"!...."}

Explain one thing to me. One can be an atheist (like Einstein), but still be considered Jewish. One can even be anti-Israel (like Chomsky), but still be considered Jewish. There are some people born to Jewish parents, and dabble in New Age religions, but are still recognized as Jews.

Why is it that Messianic Jews are uniquely singled out, and denied the right by some Jewish groups, to call themselves Jews?

[OldFriend]

You are probably right.

[ru4liberty]

Excellent observation.

[OldFriend]

You have identified the problem between jewish groups and christian groups exactly. Liberal groups hate the religious right and that includes the jewish religious right as well.

[Jorge]

Folks like you make it very hard to explain to my Jewish friends how I can have Christian friends. Keep up the Good Work. /sarcasm

Thank you for illustrating my point. This sort of hostility toward Christians and their beliefs is exactly what I was talking about.

[OldFriend]

Like it or not, the Old Testament says no such thing.

[nmh]

Wonder what they fear? Seems like an all out war. Jews and others can continue to reject Jesus but they do it at their own peril. If they don't want to listen to truth, then don't listen.