Subscribe to Print Edition | Sat., July 12, 2008 Tamuz 9, 5768 | | Israel Time: 04:57 (EST+7) web haaretz.com   Back to Homepage Rosner's Domain Diplomacy Defense Jewish World Opinion National Print Edition Car Rental Books Peres Conference Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File

Last update - 19:42 28/05/2006 Why 'Jews for Jesus' is evil By Bradley Burston 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. Advertisement More's the pity, therefore, that there's a special place in hell just for them. I would like to begin by saying that I have nothing personal against these people. But that would be a lie. The reason is that, grinning all the way, they want to take something personal from me. My history, my belief system, my ancestry. The flyers say they are concerned for my soul, and I believe them with all my heart. It's precisely my soul they're after, all right, mine and as many others as possible. They're out to harvest Jewish souls in the name of Christ. And they're out to do it right here. Make no mistake, I believe that these Christians must have every freedom to worship Jesus as their lord and messiah, perform every ritual, celebrate every holiday that they see fit. If they want to do Born-again Kiddush and Last Supper Kneidelach and Savior Shalosh S'eudes - gezunterheit. And if missionary activity is a commandment in their view, I wish them every success - just one thing: Leave the Jews alone. The world is a target-rich environment for the missionary, the Protestant Christian world in particular. There's no end of lapsed Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists, Anabaptists, whom you're free to try to cajole into Christ. You don't need us. Jesus doesn't need us. Leave us alone. It's a safe bet that the Jews for Jesus who may be reading this are rolling their eyes by now, classifying me as Unbeliever Type G-639-L and writing me off. But bear with me for one brief moment, if only to read the next sentence, which has specifically to do with you, as well as with your Jewish prey, thousands of years of Jewish history, and evil: Proselytizing is persecution. Granted, it's not the same as burning us at the stake for Christ's sake, firebombing our homes for Christ's sake, staging apres-church pogroms for Christ's sake, ostracizing and terrorizing and beating our children for having killed Christ, lynching Jewish adults for church-distributed blood libels, torturing Jews to force them to convert, converting entire Jewish communities on point of death, deporting entire Jewish communities on point of death for having resisted conversion, or, after eliminating the conversion option, annihilating entire Jewish communities with the complicitous blind eye of the Holy See. But there's more than one way to wipe out a people, and poison, like gas, comes in many forms. Sometimes it looks like a leaflet. Sometimes it looks like the Internet. Sometimes it looks like a smile. It should have occurred to you by now that Jews in the post-Holocaust era have a mission, no less than you. We have some saving to do of our own. In ways which are as individual as each Jew in the world, it has been left to us to save Jewry itself - its faith, its culture, its values, its memory, its history - from extinction. Look around. There aren't that many of us left. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and nearly a billion and a quarter Muslims. There are barely 14 million Jews left alive on this planet. In 1933, that number was 15.3 million. Leave us alone. The true evil of Jews for Jesus, is the movement's readiness to take advantages of the weaknesses of Judaism in our day, in order to further weaken it. Judaism's agonizing inability to reach its estranged youth is the stuff of Jew for Jesus dreams, the fantasy that, in the end, they will succeed in converting us. Sorry, I'm not supposed to use that word. Under the Jews for Jesus creed - which appears aimed at confusing its own adherents at least as much as it seeks to "turn" us non-believers - Jews for Jesus members do not convert you, they just get you to believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that only through Jesus can one be saved. The faithful may well be much too busy with salvation to concern themselves with extinction. There's clearly plenty for them to do, judging by some of their Websites, where I happened upon this useful piece of instruction from the founder of Jews for Jesus, Martin (Moishe) Rosen: "Hey, if you don't know any Jewish people, you can look in the phone book for surnames that are always Jewish: Cohen, Katz, Levy, Rosen (and anything that begins with Rosen, like Rosenberg, Rosenbloom or Rosenfeld)." And now, here in Israel, in a venture as predictable as it is indecent, they've set themselves a new target, Russian Jewish immigrants, descendants of the Jews Hitler didn't get the chance to kill. May they fail. There are those who will say, and I applaud them, that we should engage and embrace members of Jews for Jesus, showing openness to them rather than the cold shoulder that drives them further away. I applaud those who say this and act accordingly, but I don't have it in me. It really comes down to this: It's hard enough to be Jewish as it is. It's tough to be Jewish if you're secular, and it's no less difficult if you're religious. It's tough to be Jewish in the Diaspora if you live among non-Jews. It's tough to live there if you live among lots of Jews. And it's tough as nails to be Jewish in Israel, atheist, knitted kippa, Haredi, or fusion JUBU. If you're a Jew for Jesus and you're still reading this, you may well be thinking: This guy sounds riled. He needs a friend in Jesus. You're thinking wrong. This guy needs you to keep your salvation to yourself. Believe whatever you want. Practice whatever you preach. Just stay the hell away from us. ________________________________ Previous blogs: Do American Jews have a homeland at all? Let their people go The need to boycott Israel Warren Buffett, dire threat to Israel Bookmark to del.icio.us   Photoshopped launch Did Iran doctor an image of its provocative missile test launch? 'Hitler was a good boss' Nazi bodyguard describes the fuhrer's last moments in a Berlin bunker.   1.   Burston does not speak for Jews 00:48  |  John Isenhower 19/05/06   2.   Amen. Couldn`t have said it better myself. 01:06  |  Karen R 19/05/06   3.   Amen. Couldn`t have said it better myself. 01:06  |  Karen R 19/05/06   4.   Buston`s got a tough job 01:20  |  Grif 19/05/06   5.   LEARN ABOUT JEWSH MOSHIACH U WON`T BE BOTHERED BY GOYISH MESSIAHS 01:40  |  -VOICE of MOSHIACH)) 19/05/06   6.   Jews for Jesus 01:42  |  Robert Ayala 19/05/06   7.   Jews for Jesus 01:53  |  Robert Ayala 19/05/06   8.   Why Jesus is "evil" 02:00  |  Eliu Moya 19/05/06   9.   crap 02:07  |  Darrell 19/05/06   10.   Jews for Jesus 02:18  |  Allan Avery 19/05/06   11.   Jesus Jesus Jesus 02:59  |  Dror 19/05/06   12.   actually they lie a lot 03:05  |  Steve 19/05/06   13.   what rock these people crawled from under 03:06  |  Dror 19/05/06   14.   preaching to Jews 03:06  |  potobac 19/05/06   15.   The tax angle 04:12  |  George 19/05/06   16.   What if ?...... 04:15  |  Joe Arens 19/05/06   17.   Finally, Burston writes something that isn`t just rubbish 04:42  |  NAAMZ 19/05/06   18.   Bradley; Islam is evil not Christianity. 04:43  |  Daisy 19/05/06   19.   Borston and the Christians 05:05  |  Isaac A Olayinka 19/05/06   20.   Good christian has to be a Good Jewish Person first 05:07  |  Michael 19/05/06   21.   Potobac 05:11  |  Tom C 19/05/06   22.   Jesus is Jewish 05:13  |  Paul 19/05/06   23.   Jesus 05:26  |  izaak 19/05/06   24.   Rid us of these meddlesome missionaries 05:33  |  Joan Stuchner 19/05/06   25.   Yahshua...YHWY `s salvation 05:55  |  Harvester 19/05/06   26.   Ahh Harvester... so much to learn 06:28  |  Dorothy 19/05/06   27.   "True Christians," the last real friends of the Jews 06:30  |  Bryan 19/05/06   28.   Jews for Jesus Slime 06:36  |  Dave 19/05/06   29.   tom c 18 06:59  |  potobac 19/05/06   30.   REDs for blue 07:07  |  Tony 19/05/06   31.   J*sus was pious?? 07:12  |  Rachamim 19/05/06   32.   #20 know your facts 07:19  |  Rob 19/05/06   33.   Jews For Atheism 07:28  |  Simon H 19/05/06   34.   Over The Top Burston! 07:33  |  Sam The Sham 19/05/06   35.   Shneerson 07:42  |  Yan 19/05/06   36.   Return 07:45  |  Ben Gurion 19/05/06   37.   No Poster Here Seems To Have A Clue! 07:57  |  Sam The Sham 19/05/06   38.   Atheists are Evil 07:59  |  Yan 19/05/06   39.   Pt. #1 Example Of The Thread I Was Talking About! 08:33  |  Sam The Sham 19/05/06   40.   Jews for Jesus 08:37  |  Hami 19/05/06   41.   Pt. 2 Example Of The Thread Between OT And NT! 08:50  |  Sam The Sham 19/05/06   42.   Let His blood be upon us.... 08:55  |  Pastor Phil 19/05/06   43.   intolerance in the name of mental feebleness 09:01  |  John 19/05/06   44.   when someone only talking to you...is persecution ? 09:06  |  Mike 19/05/06   45.   BRAVO!!! 09:13  |  Heff 19/05/06   46.   Jews for Jesus, fear not men, fear only God!! 10:37  |  Eric 19/05/06   47.   learn how to think on your own 10:43  |  loves the LORD JESUS 19/05/06   48.   i agree but don`t go overboard 10:51  |  Susan 19/05/06   49.   classical Jewish hypocrisy 10:51  |  Khalid Amayreh 19/05/06   50.   Jesus is not God or son of God. Just a prophet 11:15  |  Ahmed 19/05/06   51.   Pastor phil: God can forgive sins without blood 11:19  |  Man 19/05/06   52.   Jewish culture 11:20  |  dutch 19/05/06   53.   Jews for Jesus 11:41  |  Kem Barlow 19/05/06   54.   #to Susan: Proselytizing is Persecution 11:59  |  Anubhav 19/05/06   55.   #41:Mike their intentions are not pure 12:03  |  Anubhav 19/05/06   56.   unbelievable 12:13  |  paulo2006 19/05/06   57.   Why Jews for Jesus is evil 12:30  |  Rabi 19/05/06   58.   Lead the chosen Jews to God. 12:33  |  simon 19/05/06   59.   funny article 12:34  |  Ernst 19/05/06   60.   Jews for Jesus 12:36  |  Des 19/05/06   61.   J`accuse Haaretz of being evil. 12:39  |  Steven 19/05/06   62.   Why `Jews for Jesus` is evil 12:45  |  Simon 19/05/06   63.   ALOT WORSE THAN... 13:03  |  indrajaya 19/05/06   64.   Ernst #54 response 13:09  |  Eric 19/05/06   65.   conversion 13:09  |  shimon yosef leib 19/05/06   66.   Pastor Phil # 40 - You judge him with your beliefs 13:13  |  Ariel 19/05/06   67.   The real problem is ... 13:23  |  Gee 19/05/06   68.   rejection of identity is abhorant 13:34  |  KY 19/05/06   69.   Why are there no laws against these people? 13:36  |  Yaakov