The office off Park Avenue in New York City.

Aims and organization

Jews for Jesus is based in San Francisco, California. Jews for Jesus official mission statement is "to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide." They say that belief in Jesus as Messiah is a fulfillment of the prophecies of Hebrew scripture. Through media advertisements, production and distribution of literature, producing music and organizing person-to-person evangelism, the organization asserts that "a specifically Jewish mission" is necessary, saying "Jewish people tend to dismiss evangelistic methods and materials that are couched in Christian lingo, because they reinforce the assumption that Jesus is for 'them' not 'us.'"^[10]

Jews for Jesus promotes awareness of the Jewish heritage of the Christian faith. Their website contains brief descriptions of Jewish festivals,^[2] and also runs programs explaining the significance of Passover, Sukkot and Hanukkah, explaining supposed messianic elements and how they believe these festivals are related to Jesus.

Beliefs

Jews for Jesus take mainstream Christian positions that Jesus was the Messiah, that his coming was prophesied in the Tanach, and that Jesus is the son of God and the second person of the Trinity.

A summary of Jews for Jesus beliefs:^[11]

• in the divine inspiration and inerrancy of the Old and New Testaments, as originally written.
• God the creator exists as a Trinity, is perfect, all wise, all powerful and all loving.
• Jesus is the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity, was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died for the sins of all humanity, rose again, and is co-equal with God. Jesus will return to earth in the near future.
• People are saved through a belief in Jesus as savior and an acknowledgment of their sins; not by their achievements.
• Heaven is a reward for those who are saved; Hell is a place of "everlasting conscious punishment" for the lost.

According to an article on Jews for Jesus by B. Robinson of Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance,

Their doctrinal statement is basically indistinguishable from Evangelical and other conservative Christian groups. ... They differ from some Evangelical Christian groups in their belief that Israel continues to exist as a "covenant people." They also integrate some Jewish customs and use Hebrew and Yiddish in some literature.^[9]

Background

One of the most important Jewish principles of faith is the belief in one God and one God only with no partnership of any kind (see Deuteronomy 6:4), and belief in Jesus as deity, son of God, or Christ, is held as incompatible with Judaism.^[5][12]

In his book A History of the Jews, Paul Johnson describes the schism between Jews and Christians caused by a divergence from this principle:

To the question, Was Jesus God or man?, the Christians therefore answered: both. After 70 AD, their answer was unanimous and increasingly emphatic. This made a complete breach with Judaism inevitable.^[13]

Jews for Jesus believes it is entirely compatible with the view of God presented in Jewish scriptures^[14] and that the doctrine of the Trinity, fundamental to the Christian faith, is not entirely alien to Judaism: "While it is true that the Old Testament portion of Scripture does not present as clear a picture of the three-in-one/one-as-three Godhead, there are indications of the plurality of the Godhead in the Hebrew Scriptures."^[15]

According to a common belief in Judaism, these "indications" are based on mistranslations^[16][17][18] and Jesus did not fulfill the qualifications for Jewish Messiah. The vision of God as a trinity is seen by Judaism as a deviation from monotheism and therefore is rejected.^[19]

America's Religions. An Educator's Guide to Beliefs and Practices contains "[a] note about Jews for Jesus, Messianic Jews, Hebrew Christians, and similar groups: Jews in these groups who have converted to Christianity but continue to observe various Jewish practices are no longer considered part of the Jewish community in the usual sense."^[20]

Core values

Jews for Jesus describes its core values in the following way: They commit to:

• Direct Jewish evangelism as their priority
• An apostolic lifestyle of availability, vulnerability and mobility
• Striving for excellence in all that they do
• Deploying only front-line missionaries who are Jewish or married to Jews
• Principle-based operations and practice
• Accountability to their mission family and the body of Messiah
• Integrity and faithfulness
• Creativity in their staff
• Stepping out in courageous faith and taking risks for God.^[21]

Understanding that they:

• are under the authority of God and His word
• desire to honor Messiah Y'shua and
• are dependent upon the enabling power of the Holy Spirit

Leadership, funding and outreach

The organization was founded under the name Hineni Ministries in 1973 by Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister^[22] who was born Jewish and converted to Christianity at the age of 17.^[23] Rosen remained its executive director until May 1996 when he was replaced by David Brickner,^[9] who, though having some Jewish ancestry, is not Jewish according to Jewish Law.^[24]

Jews for Jesus is funded by donations from Christians.^[25] It has a full-time staff of 150 employees running branch offices in nine cities across the United States.^[9] There are also branch offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada (in Montreal and Toronto), France, Germany (in Essen), Israel, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Ukraine (in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa). In addition its English-language website, the group has websites in Hungarian, Persian, Italian, Spanish and Korean.^[26]

According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the group's total income in FY 2005 was $17,523,386.^[27]

Methods of evangelizing

The majority of evangelism used by Jews for Jesus consists of large mailings and pamphleteering. The organization uses colorful pamphlets and T-shirts to get their message across and is known for targeting populations of Jews which they see as receptive to their message,^[28] such as recent immigrants, college students, senior citizens and interfaith couples.

Stephanie Persin writes, "Evangelists in the organization have been trained to recite phrases from the Old Testament and to use Yiddish words so as to convince potential converts that Jews for Jesus maintain Jewish traditions." ^[23][29]

On their official website, Jews for Jesus says that they give out 8 million pamphlets a year.^[30] They use college-age volunteers for much of their evangelism. Each July they send a team of 20 to 30 to New York City, which they say has the world's largest and most diverse Jewish population.^[31]

Opposition and criticism

One of the criticisms of Jews for Jesus surrounds the tactics they employ in their missionary and outreach programs. Critics say that the organization uses vague and misleading language along with deceptive tactics in its attempt to convert Jews to Christianity.^[32] These tactics include statements that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish prophecy of Messiah and attempts by Jews for Jesus to interpret core principles of Judaism in an effort to bring these Jewish principles into accord with Christian doctrines.^[33] To this end, critics say that Jews for Jesus uses the ambiguity in the definition of "Jew" and "Jewish" to confuse their prospective converts into believing there is a possibility of one being a follower of both Christianity and Judaism simultaneously.^[34] However, belief in Jesus as deity, son of God, or Christ, is held as incompatible with Judaism. ^[12]

Although Jews for Jesus believes their views of the Messiah are entirely compatible with the view of God presented in Jewish scriptures,^[14] and that the doctrine of the Trinity, fundamental to the Christian faith, is not entirely alien to Judaism,^[35] these interpretations by Jews for Jesus are rejected by Judaism.^{[16][36][37][38]} Jews for Jesus responds to these allegations by stating that their allusions to "Jewishness" refer to ethnic descriptions and not religious ones.^[39]

Jewish opposition

In 1993 the Task Force on Missionaries and Cults of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRCNY) issued a statement which has been endorsed by the four major Jewish denominations: Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism, as well as national Jewish organizations.^[7] Based on this statement, the Spiritual Deception Prevention Project at the JCRCNY stated:

On several occasions leaders of the four major Jewish movements have signed on to joint statements opposing Hebrew-Christian theology and tactics. In part they said: "Though Hebrew Christianity claims to be a form of Judaism, it is not ... It deceptively uses the sacred symbols of Jewish observance ... as a cover to convert Jews to Christianity, a belief system antithetical to Judaism ... Hebrew Christians are in radical conflict with the communal interests and the destiny of the Jewish people. They have crossed an unbridgeable chasm by accepting another religion. Despite this separation, they continue to attempt to convert their former co-religionists."^[40]

The director of a counter-missionary group Torah Atlanta Rabbi Efraim Davidson stated that "the Jews for Jesus use aggressive proselytizing to target disenfranchised or unaffiliated Jews, Russian immigrants and college students" and that "their techniques are manipulative, deceptive and anti-Semitic."^[41]

In his 1997 book The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century Alan Dershowitz wrote: "In America, and in other nations that separate church from state, one's Jewishness is a matter of self-definition ..." but notes: "I do not mean to include former Jews who practice Christianity under the deliberately misleading name Jews for Jesus. A Jew for Jesus already has a name: a Christian."^[42] However, it should be noted that Dershowitz was not speaking as a rabbinical authority, most of whom hold that a Jew who is an apostate is still a Jew.

In an interview for Beliefnet, Orthodox Rabbi Irving Greenberg, the author of For the Sake of Heaven and Earth, said:

"But I have to recognize that there are people of ill will; there are Christian missionaries who still believe that Christianity is the only valid religion. There are Jews for Jesus who use the trappings of Judaism to bring people into a religion that teaches that Judaism is finished. Jews for Jesus are worse theologically than the mainstream of Catholicism or Protestantism, which now affirm that Judaism is a valid religion. Jews for Jesus say that it is not. They use the Jewish trappings, but de facto, they are teaching the classic Christian supersessionism--that Judaism was at best a foreshadowing of Christianity".^[43]

The author of the book Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History David Klinghoffer expressed his concern in The Jewish Journal: "When Jews accept Jesus, they marry other Christians or their children do, thus disappearing into the Christian population."^[24]

Concerning Christian-Jewish reconciliation and Christian missions to the Jews, Emil Fackenheim wrote:

"... Except in relations with Christians, the Christ of Christianity is not a Jewish issue. There simply can be no dialogue worthy of the name unless Christians accept — nay, treasure — the fact that Jews through the two millennia of Christianity have had an agenda of their own. There can be no Jewish-Christian dialogue worthy of the name unless one Christian activity is abandoned, missions to the Jews. It must be abandoned, moreover, not as a temporary strategy but in principle, as a bimillennial theological mistake. The cost of that mistake in Christian love and Jewish blood one hesitates to contemplate. ... A post-Holocaust Jew can still view Christian attempts to convert Jews as sincere and well intended. But even as such they are no longer acceptable: They have become attempts to do in one way what Hitler did in another."^[44]

Outreach Judaism

Outreach Judaism, is an international organization that responds directly to the issues raised by missionaries and cults, by exploring Judaism in contradistinction to fundamentalist Christianity.

The organization was founded by Rabbi Tovia Singer. Rabbi Singer's program aims to provide educational resources to individuals targeted by organizations such as Jews for Jesus. As a world renowned public speaker and as one of the top counter-missionaries in the world, Rabbi Singer addresses more than 200 audiences a year. He is the author of the book and accompanying audiotape series entitled Let's Get Biblical.

Jews for Judaism

Jews for Judaism, established by Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz in 1985, is the largest Counter-Missionary organization in existence.^[45] The name Jews for Judaism is a deliberate parody of Jews for Jesus, as Jews for Jesus is one of the primary missionary organizations that Jews for Judaism was founded to counter.

Messianic Judaism opposition

Some Messianic Jews^[46][47] who self-identify as Torah observant object to perceived associations with Jews for Jesus,^[48] as encouraging the celebration of traditional Christianity, including potentially not keeping kosher,^[49] observing Sabbath on Sunday (or not at all), or celebrating non-Jewish holidays such as Easter^[50] and Christmas.^[51]

Christian opposition to Jews for Jesus and to efforts to evangelize Jews

Some Christian churches see Jewish religious practice as valid in and of itself and thus object to evangelizing Jews.^[52]

The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, an umbrella organization that includes Muslims, Jews, and church groups from the Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, has condemned Jews for Jesus as promoting activities "harmful to the spirit of interreligious respect and tolerance." The conference is also opposed to religious proselytizing in general, though evangelism is an important tenet of Christian theology due to the Great Commission. The conference also denounces the group's "deceptive proselytizing efforts", stating that when practiced on "vulnerable populations" such as the young or the elderly, these efforts are "tantamount to coerced conversions." The Rev. Clark Lobenstine, a Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister and executive director of the Conference, has stated that his group condemns Jews for Jesus and other messianic Jewish groups by name because they "go beyond the bounds of appropriate and ethically based religious outreach."^[53]

The Board of Governors of The Long Island Council of Churches, a group that is opposed to proselytizing of Jews in general, voiced similar sentiments in a statement that "noted with alarm" the "subterfuge and dishonesty" inherent in the "mixing [of] religious symbols in ways which distort their essential meaning", and named Jews for Jesus as one of the three groups about whom such behavior was alleged.

Roman Catholic leaders have also spoken out against singling out Jews for conversion. In August 2002 the U. S. Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs declared that the "evangelizing task no longer includes the wish to absorb the Jewish faith into Christianity and so end the distinctive witness of Jews to God in human history. Thus, while the Catholic Church regards the saving act of Christ as central to the process of human salvation for all, it also believes that Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God. "... The distinctive Jewish witness must be sustained if Catholics and Jews are truly to be, as Pope John Paul II envisioned, ?a blessing to one another.?"^[54]

Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, stated in November 2002: "This does not mean that Jews in order to be saved have to become Christians; if they follow their own conscience and believe in God?s promises as they understand them in their religious tradition, they are in line with God?s plan, which for us came to its historical completion in Jesus Christ."^[55]

Christian denominations that have issued statements criticizing evangelism of Jews include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA, which said in 1988 that Jews have their own covenant with God. In 1996, Pope John Paul II said Jews shouldn't be targeted for conversion.^[56]

Others

There are also several other organizations that oppose identification of Jews for Jesus as Jewish group.^[57][58][59]

Rick Ross, a self-declared "cult expert", has been critical of the organization as well and has included them on his website.^[60][61]

Affiliations and support

Jews for Jesus defends its actions against these charges, stating:

"If a person believes the Bible and believes that Jesus is the only way of salvation (John 14:6, Acts 4:12, Romans 10:9,10) and then that person declines to tell a Jewish friend about Christ, it indicates one of two things. Either that person has decided that the Jews are not worthy of the gospel, in which case he would be a racist, an anti-Semite and a hater of people instead of the lover of people that God wants him to be. Or perhaps he has judged the gospel as being unworthy of the Jews in which case he has trivialized the passion of Calvary and the awesome significance of Christ's resurrection."^[62]

Jews for Jesus is a member of numerous evangelical Christian groups, including The World Evangelical Alliance,^[63][64] the National Association of Evangelicals,^[63][65] the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability,^[63][27] the World Evangelical Fellowship, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada,^[66] the Canadian Council for Christian Charities, the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa, the Fédération Evangélique de France, (Evangelical Federation of France), the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism.^[67]

Jews for Jesus also notes the lack of consensus on many issues in Judaism, and says that due to the seemingly unusual assuredness of many Jewish groups that Jews for Jesus beliefs are incompatible with Judaism, that this represents a double standard.^[33] Jewish groups, however, regard their united opposition to the beliefs promulgated by Jews for Jesus as proof that the two religions are irreconcilable, belief-wise, since it is one universal area where Jews of varying beliefs agree.

Litigations

1987 - Jews for Jesus sues for freedom of speech

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Jews for Jesus in a 1987 suit it filed against the municipal agency in charge of Los Angeles International Airport that had barred the group from distributing leaflets at the airport 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.^[68]

1992 - Jews for Jesus sues for civil rights violations

In 1992 the New York Court of Appeals ruled against Jews for Jesus in a suit the organization brought against the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRCNY), an umbrella group representing 60 Jewish agencies in the metropolitan New York area. The case addressed the JCRCNY's 1985 warning to Long Island rabbis that Jews for Jesus was seeking a venue to conduct a Passover seder. Jews for Jesus sued the JCRCNY for violating its civil rights; the decision upheld a lower court ruling that the JCRCNY 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.^[69]

In a 1992 lawsuit brought by Jews for Jesus against the JCRCNY, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the efforts of the JCRCNY 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.^[68]

1993 - Israel refuses citizenship to couple affiliated with Jews for Jesus

In 1993 the Supreme Court of Israel, 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. This is done not to try to change Jewish Law, but to preserve the Jewish character of the State of Israel - i.e., that allowing in people whose sole mission is to get Jews to become Christians in inimical to one of the core ethics of the country (to be a haven for 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."^[68]

1998 and 2005-2006 - Jews for Jesus name online

Jews for Jesus has been involved in litigation regarding Internet use of its name. In 1998 they successfully sued Steven Brodsky for cybersquatting ? registering the domain name jewsforjesus.org for a site criticizing the organization.^[68] The domain now belongs to Jews for Jesus and is used for their main site.

In 2005 Jews for Jesus sued^[70] Google for allowing a Blogspot user to put up a site at the third-level subdomain jewsforjesus.blogspot.com. In September 2006 Christianity Today reported that "Jews for Jesus settled out of court with a critical blogger identified as 'Whistle Blower' on jewsforjesus.blogspot.com. The evangelistic ministry assumed control of the site."^[71]

2006 - Comedian Jackie Mason sues Jews for Jesus for misusing his name

In 2006 comedian and actor Jackie Mason filed a lawsuit against Jews for Jesus, alleging that they unlawfully distributed a pamphlet which used his name and likeness in a way that suggested he was a member of the group. In fact, Mason is a member of the Jewish faith and not associated with Jews for Jesus.^[72] Jews for Jesus has issued a detailed response to the allegation on their website.^[73]

A judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a preliminary injunction against Jews for Jesus over the pamphlet, finding the distribution of the pamphlet to be protected by the First Amendment, and also stated that the pamphlet did not suggest that Mason was a Christian.^[74]

In December 2006, Jackie Mason dropped the lawsuit against Jews for Jesus after they issued a letter of apology to Mason. The group's executive director, David Brickner, stated in the letter to Mason that he wanted "to convey my sincere apologies for any distress that you felt over our tract." Brickner continued that he believed its publication was protected by the Constitution, but the group was willing in the interest of peace and love for Israel to retire the pamphlet. Mason replied in front of the federal court in Manhattan where he accepted the apology, "There's no such thing as a Jew for Jesus. It's like saying a black man is for the KKK. You can't be a table and a chair. You're either a Jew or a gentile."^[75]

2008 - Israeli Citizenship and Messianic Jews

The state of Israel grants Aliyah (right of return) and citizenship to Jews, and to those with Jewish parents or grandparents who are not considered Jews according to halacha, e.g. people who have a Jewish father but a non-Jewish mother. Specifically excluded were any ?person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.? An Israeli Supreme Court decision in 1989 ruled that Messianic Judaism constituted another religion.^[76] The Israeli government therefore rejected as a matter of course applications from Messianic Jews under the Law of Return.

On April 16 2008 the Supreme Court of Israel ruled in a case brought by a number of Messianic Jews with Jewish fathers and grandfathers. Their applications for Aliyah had been rejected on the grounds that they were Messianic Jews. The argument was made by the applicants that they had never been Jews according to halacha, and were not therefore excluded by the conversion clause. This argument was upheld in the ruling.^[77][78]

See also

• Christian-Jewish reconciliation
• Christianity and Judaism
• Dispensationalism
• Judaism's view of Jesus
• Jewish Messiah
• Jews for Judaism
• Messianic Judaism
• Outreach Judaism
• Supersessionism
• Who is a Jew?

References

Further reading

• Sentenced for Life: A Story of an Entry and an Exit into the World of Fundamentalist Christianity and Jews for Jesus by Jo Ann Schneider Farris (Writers Club Press, 2002) ISBN 0-595-24940-X
• Hawking God. A Young Jewish Woman's Ordeal in Jews for Jesus by Ellen Kamentsky (Sapphire Press) An excerpt
• Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880 - 2000 by Yaakov Ariel (The University of North Carolina Press, 1999) ISBN 0-8078-2566-2
• Smashing the Idols: A Jewish Inquiry into the Cult Phenomenon by Gary D. Eisenberg (Jason Aronson, 1988) ISBN 0-87668-974-8

External links

• Jews for Jesus Official website
• Ex-Jews for Jesus website of former members of Jews for Jesus
• Outreach Judaism The Jewish Response to Jews for Jesus
• Jews for Judaism Jews for Judaism website, an answer to Jews for Jesus
• Jews for Jesus: Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception - the view of the Anti-Defamation League
• The Real Jews for Jesus By Jason Levinson (Torah Atlanta)
• Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus
• Who is financing "Jews for Jesus"? (faqs.org)
• Why don't Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah? by Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner (about.com)
• County Jewish organizations protest evangelical attempt by Steven Reiskind (Boca Raton News) November 5, 2003
• Jews for Jesus campaign targets NY Jews by Gal Beckerman (July 10, 2006) Jerusalem Post
• Holy Hell Over Subway 'jesus' Ad Blitz Targets Jews By Jeremy Olshan (New York Post) July 7, 2006

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