Posted on 09/15/2002 5:20:45 PM PDT by jstone78
Portland Jews Brace for Assault by 'Jews for Jesus'
By Paul Haist, Jewish Review
Portlands 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at torahatlanta.com ...
"Oh well what the hell" translates to "I don't give a rat's @**" and that is not the same thing as "tolerance".
Exactly. And there are several other scriptures which support this.
GENTILE simply means "not one of us", or "not one of our group". Mormons call non-Mormons "Gentiles", and Jews call non-Jews "Gentiles". But outside a specific context the word Gentile does not stand on it's own. When used as slang, "Gentiles" are (1) Any who are "uninitiated", as in amateurs or neophites, (2) Those who are naive, like potential victims, or clients, (3) Anyone not of our group, like competing sports teams or competing companies.
For Example: The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel are a unique sub-set of Gentiles who are Israelites, but are not Jews. Viewed from a Jewish perspective, being non-Jews they are Gentiles. But viewed from an Israelite perspective they are not Gentiles but fellow Israelites.
Matthew 10:5-6 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the Lost Sheep of The House of Israel."
We need to remember the Title House of Israel was assigned to the Northern Kingdom when the Davidic Kingdom split. The Northern Kingdom was never Jewish, therefore Jesus command to go FIRST to the Lost Sheep of The House of Israel was NOT a command to go first to lost Jews.
Jesus was both an Israelite and a Jew. He said "do not go to Israelite Gentiles." (That is, "do not go to non-Israelites.") A common misinterpretation has Him referring to Jewish Gentiles, saying "do not go to non-Jews. That is not correct.
The (post Davidic) House of Israel soon became The Lost Tribes of Israel who won their freedom from the Assyrians ~610 BC. These 5 MILLION Israelites spread quickly to the West and North as they exploded into history as The CELTS, later known as Europeans and Americans. It was to these non-Jewish Israelites in Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, etc. that Jesus first sent his 12 apostles.
These Northern Kingdom Israelites were not Jews, but were Gentiles in the Jewish sense. However they were not Gentiles in the Israelite sense because as offspring of Jacob/Israel they WERE Israelites. This huge Celtic Kingdom of Israelites was simply called the The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel.
These ISRAELITE CELTIC GENTILES made up the bulk of the early Christians and their offspring are the backbone of Christianity today. All the promises their ancestors received as Israelites are still good, for Gods inheritance has no statute of limitations.
Joseph Lieberman, Paul Newman, Ted Koppel, Harrison Ford, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Kirk Douglas, Kevin Costner, Stephen Breyer, Yitzhak Rabin, Michael Landon, Lorne Greene, Mike Wallace, Benjamin Netanyahu, William Shatner, Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Simon, Ariel Sharon, David Frost, Morley Safer, Ari Fleischer,
Jack Benny, Alan King, Casper Weinberger, Carl Reiner, George Burns, Red Buttons, Sam Levinson, Bernard Goldberg, Robert Downey Jr., Dustin Hoffman, Michael Douglas, Peter Sellers, Tony Curtis, Edward G. Robinson, Wolf Blitzer, Mel Torme, Paul Wellstone, Peter Falk, Leonard Nimoy, Jerry Springer, Arlen Spector, William Cohen,
Barry Goldwater, Robert Rubin, William Roth, Howard Metzenbaum, Hyman Rickover, Robert Reich, Russ Feinberg, Stanley Mosk, Arthur Burns, Milton Friedman, Bill Kristol, Victor Borge, William Kristol, Warren Rudman, etc., etc, etc.
That's because The Celts and the Jews are genetic cousins, and all are Hebrews, Semites, and Israelites. (...without getting into the whole Khazarite controversy...)
See My LostTribe Profile for more details...
Four Thousand years ago, Abraham (a great-great grandson of Shem, a son of Noah) and a small group of Hebrews (of which there were & are many varieties) migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan (~Palestine). Several generations later, around 1853 BC, his Grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel) and his 12 Sons and families moved to Egypt. As offspring of Shem, they were called "Shemites" or "Semites", as were his many other offspring.
~1453 BC, now as the 12 Tribes of the 12 Sons of Israel, and over 3 Million strong, these Semites bailed out of Egypt in the well-documented overland EXODUS and fled back to ~Palestine. But the Tribes couldn't all get along there, so ~922 BC these 5 Million Israelites split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.
(In actual numbers, 5 Million people is about the same size as Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Israel today, and was 10% of the estimated 50 Million world population at that time. The world population is now ONE HUNDRED TIMES as large. Compared to todays 6 Billion people, the Israelites relative population would have been over twice as large as the United States of America!)
The very large Northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of 10 of the Tribes. Inheriting the Kingly names which applied to all 12 Tribes before the split, the Northern Kingdom (alone) becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel or House of Israel, (also House of Joseph, House of Ephriam, House of Isaac, and House of Omri), and is led by the northern Tribe of Ephraim.
Two hundred years later these Northern Israelites were taken into captivity by the Assyrians (~722 BC) and relocated to the northern Fertile Crescent area of Iraq/Iran. They were not diligent in updating their eMail addresses, thus were called, by some, the "Lost Tribes", or "Lost Sheep" or "Lost Children" of the Kingdom or House of Israel. (However at ~1/12 or more of the worlds population it seems unlikely they would actually disappear, or get "lost". The global population now ~75 Million.)
A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts. These Celts mixed with (and fought against) each other, and with other scattered Israelites (proto-Celts) who had escaped from Egypt by sea nearly a thousand years earlier, before the overland Exodus. Also, with other Israelites who migrated from Palestine after the overland Exodus but before the Assyrian captivity and who had already established numerous outposts in Europe and elsewhere.
These Millions of Celts grew to become Tens, then Hundreds of Millions as they migrated in waves westward and northwest to Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, Collosse, to what is today Hallstatt, Austria and Neuchatel, Switzerland (where exist major Celtic digs and museums) and beyond, to totally dominate Northern and Western Europe. These Celts (also as Cimmerians, Scythians, Danaoi, Massagetae, Milesians, Masilia, Sarmatians, Germani, Goths, Franks, Gauls, Lombards, Belgae, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vandals, Danes, Normans, and other assorted "Barbarians") are the rootstock of todays Europeans and Americans who became the backbone of global Christianity.
The much smaller Southern Kingdom was made up of the Tribe of Judah & a mix of Levites and Benjamites. It was also known as the Kingdom of Judah or House of Judah. These Southern Israelites (aka Judeans) were taken captive in ~587 BC and removed to Babylon. Only ~50,000 Judeans returned to Palestine ~70 years later. They and their offspring are called Jews.
I agree with you. This thread is a bit distressing to watch.
I had a wonderful pastor who once did a sermon on the description of Hell. He put it very simply:
Hell is separation from God.
It doesn't matter to me if Hell is a physical place or a spiritual place. I know it is somewhere I do not want to be.
Hello! Oh, I certainly don't dispute that. The disciples you mention were all Jews, Benjamites as I recall. (I don't know about Apollos without looking it up.)
I was thinking of the people TO WHOM Jesus first sent his disciples in Galatia and other heavily Celtic lands. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.
Anglican/Episcopalian, of course ('s what I said :-)
I can overlook differences in methods of the baptism ceremony itself, since I do not believe physical baptism to be salvific in nature. Getting dunked or getting splashed or sprinkled, all are in some sense symbolic declarations of what has happened to you in Christ. However KJV's creation of a new, specialized word for "immersed" -- in my opinion -- robs other scripture verses of the impact they could have in English translation, such as references to baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Some historical perspective would show that most Jewish Christians of the New Testament held a more or less Orthodox Jewish viewpoint. So much so, that reversion to a "religion of works" (declaring the cross work of Jesus Christ to be valueless) was a perennial problem in the early church.
You neglect to mention that this definition hinges on theology that (gasp, shock) differs between rabbinic 'judaism' and New Testament Christianity.
You repeatedly ignore that if Christian Jews were to try this, it would be a most unproductive route to evangelizing Arab Muslims. A Jew is the last person they'd trust. We may wish it were otherwise but there is this little matter of a historical enmity going well back before Mohammed. There ARE Christian missionaries in Muslim countries, as well as missionaries to Muslims in highly Muslim areas of Western countries. I know some of these missionaries personally. They have the patience of Job. This is not a matter of a Billy Graham call one night in a tent, this requires relationships that are worked on for years and years.
???
>do you and your "friend"
This site is about HISTORY, both Archeological and Biblical. It is NOT about Christian or Jewish Identity, British Israelism, White Power or anti-Semitism, so if that's what you're looking for, SCRAM! Neither is it about culture or tradition; it is about HISTORY. I speak for no one else and no one speaks for me, so WYSIWYG. If you are a serious student of HISTORY, and have an open mind, read on...
>acknowledge Oral Law
This site is about HISTORY, both Archeological and Biblical. It is NOT about Christian or Jewish Identity, British Israelism, White Power or anti-Semitism, so if that's what you're looking for, SCRAM! Neither is it about culture or tradition; it is about HISTORY. I speak for no one else and no one speaks for me, so WYSIWYG. If you are a serious student of HISTORY, and have an open mind, read on...
>- Principles of Jewish Law transmitted originally to Moshe (Moses) by G-d at Mt. Sinai?
There was no "Jewish Law" since there were no Jews at that time. Moses was not a Jew, neither were any of the Israelites in Egypt. There would be no Jews for another 50 generations or so.
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