Jews for Jesus

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
(Redirected from Jews For Jesus)
Jump to: navigation, search

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Jews For Jesus logo.png

Jews for Jesus is a Messianic Jewish evangelical organization that focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity.

Beliefs

A summary of Jews for Jesus' beliefs:[1]

  • The Old and New Testaments, as originally written, are divinely inspired and inerrant.
  • Recognition of the value of traditional Jewish literature, but only where it is supported by the Bible.
  • 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 eternal separation from God for the lost.
  • Israel exists as a covenant people through whom God continues to accomplish His purposes and that the Church is composed of both Jews and Gentiles who acknowledge Jesus as Messiah and Redeemer.

Jews for Jesus takes the mainstream Christian positions that Jesus is the Messiah, that his coming was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible, and that Jesus is the son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Jews for Jesus believes that their views of the Messiah are entirely compatible with the view of God presented in Jewish scriptures,[2] and that the doctrine of the Trinity, fundamental to the Christian faith, is not entirely alien to Judaism.[3]

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.[4]

Stated core values

Jews for Jesus describes its core values in the following way:[5]

<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />

Understanding that we at Jews for Jesus:

  • 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

We commit to the following core values:

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

Leadership, funding and outreach

Jews for Jesus is funded by donations from like-minded Christians.[6][7] It has a full-time staff of more than 200 employees[8] running branch offices in nine cities across the United States. There are also branch offices in Australia, Brazil, Canada (in Montreal and Toronto), France, Germany (in Essen), Hungary, Israel, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Ukraine (in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa). In addition to its English-language website, the group has websites in Hebrew, Portuguese, Polish, Persian, Italian, Spanish and Korean.[9]

According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, the group's total income in FY 2010 was US$20,728,530.[10]

Evangelizing

The majority of evangelism used by Jews for Jesus consists of handing out literature on the streets, one-on-one Bible studies, full-page ads in leading newspapers and magazines, ISSUES (an eight-page evangelistic publication for Jewish seekers) and internet evangelism.[11] 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,[12] such as recent immigrants, college students, senior citizens and interfaith couples. Regarding "targeting," Jews for Jesus says this on its website: "The term 'targeting' brings to mind darts or firearms. We can't imagine throwing the gospel at people or aiming to harm them with it. Actually, targeting is a propaganda term that has been misappropriated from the marketing profession. . . . Those who are not Christians use it to disparage evangelism. To scoffers and unbelievers it has a negative connotation. We avoid the term 'targeting' because we see the gospel as something to be presented freely rather than something to be sold. We don't throw our tracts at people; we hand them to those who want to take them."[13] 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."[14][15] Regarding Jewish traditions, Jews for Jesus says on its website: "As for the accusation that we 'fraudulently use Jewish symbols and Jewish holidays,' we have a right to use Jewish symbols by virtue of our ancestry, and we have a right to celebrate Passover and other Jewish holidays and interpret them according to the teachings of Scripture. The accusation would only be valid if the New Testament were false."[16] On their official website, Jews for Jesus says that they give out 8 million pamphlets a year.[17] They use college-age volunteers for some of their short-term evangelism campaigns.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20] 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.[21] 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.[22]

On its website in answer to a frequently asked question,"How can I respond to the accusation that Jews for Jesus distorts Jewish religious symbols?," Jews for Jesus says, "Regardless of what anyone says, we are Jews in that we are physically descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. At the same time we are also Christians—those who believe in and follow Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. One classification does not cancel out the other, even though rabbis like to teach that Judaism and Christianity are mutually exclusive categories and hence are antithetical to one another.".[16]

In disagreement with Jews for Jesus, some[who?] claim that Jews who convert to Christianity are no longer Jews, because (it is claimed) later generations often lose their connection to traditional Judaism.[citation needed]

In 2014, Jews for Jesus published a three-minute YouTube video called That Jew Died for You, to coincide with Passover, Holy Week and Holocaust Remembrance Day on 28 April.[23] A long-haired Jesus dragging a large wooden cross appears in the film until an Auschwitz extermination camp guard sends him to the gas chambers and says "just another Jew" in German.[24] Jews for Jesus said that the objective of the film was for Jesus to be identified with the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Holocaust and that "the Holocaust has been used – perhaps more than any other event or topic – to prevent Jewish people from considering the good news of Jesus."[23] Jay Michaelson, writing in The Jewish Daily Forward, described it as "the most tasteless YouTube video ever" and wrote "not to state the obvious, but it desecrates the memory of six million Jews to use their suffering as a way to convert Jews to Christianity."[25] Fox News and the History Channel refused to play an advert for the film.[24][24]

Mainstream Judaism

Belief in Jesus as deity, son of God, or even a non-divine Christ/Messiah or Prophet (as in Islam), is held as incompatible with Judaism by all Jewish religious movements.[26][27]

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.[28] 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."[29]

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."[30]

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."[31]

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

"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".[32]

Outreach Judaism

Outreach Judaism, a Jewish counter-missionary organization founded by Rabbi Tovia Singer, aims to provide educational resources to individuals targeted by organizations such as Jews for Jesus.[33]

Jews for Judaism

Jews for Judaism, established by Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz in 1986, is a Jewish organization aiming "to strengthen and preserve Jewish identity through education and counseling that counteracts deceptive proselytizing targeting Jews for conversion".[34] The name Jews for Judaism is a deliberate parody of Jews for Jesus, because Jews for Jesus is one of the missionary organizations that Jews for Judaism was founded to counter.[citation needed]

Christian

Some Western Christians object to evangelizing Jews because they see Jewish religious practice as valid in and of itself.[35] Some Liberal Protestant denominations that have issued statements criticizing evangelism of Jews include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,[36] the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA,[37] which said in 1988 that Jews have their own covenant with God.[38] The Board of Governors of the Long Island Council of Churches opposes proselytizing of Jews, and voiced these 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.[39]

In 2003, the sponsorship of Jews for Jesus by All Souls Church, Langham Place, a Conservative Evangelical Church in London, with a launch event on Rosh Hashanah launching a UK mission targeting the Jewish community led to the Interfaith Alliance UK, a coalition of Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, issuing a letter of protest to the Archbishop of Canterbury.[40]

Islamic interfaith conference

The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington includes Muslims, Jews, and liberal church groups.[41] The Conference states that they "support the right of all religions to share their message in the spirit of good will;"[42] however Rev. Clark Lobenstine, has condemned the "proselytizing efforts" of "Jews for Jesus and other messianic Jewish groups."[43] His wording matched the Conference's 1987 "Statement on Proselytism,"[42] which makes claims against "groups that have adopted the label of Hebrew Christianity, Messianic Judaism, or Jews for Jesus,"[44] so it is unclear which claims are directed at Jews for Jesus in particular.

An opposition has emerged from Muslim imams and leaders in the light of the emergence of "Messianic Muslim" Evangelical missions directed at the Muslim community modeled on Jews for Jesus, with the presentation of Evangelical beliefs in Arabicised terms and encouragement of Muslims to become "followers for 'Isa",[45] and on 10 December 2003, a joint Jewish-Muslim Delegation supported by the Office of the Chief Rabbi in Great Britain together with Muslim imams presented a protest to the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres.

Other

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."[46]

There are several other organizations that oppose identification of Jews for Jesus as a Jewish group.[47][48]

Litigation

1987 – freedom of speech

In the case of Board of Airport Commissioners of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc., 482 U.S. 569 (1987), The Supreme Court held that a law which banned "First Amendment activities" within the Central Terminal Area at L.A. International Airport to be invalid as substantially "over broad," and therefore, invalid on its face. As Justice O'Connor stated, in her opinion, such a law could even be construed to prohibit a traveler from approaching a ticketing booth and asking when the flight from Des Moines was scheduled to arrive. The municipal agency in charge of Los Angeles International Airport 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."[49][50]

1992 – 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.[51]

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.[49]

1993 – refusal of automatic citizenship in Israel

In 1993 the Supreme Court of Israel, in a case involving a couple affiliated with Jews for Jesus, ruled that Jews who adhere to 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 is inimical to one of the core ethics of the country (to be a haven for Jews; see Israeli Declaration of Independence). 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."[49]

1998 and 2005–2006 – online name

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.[49] The domain now belongs to Jews for Jesus and is used for their main site.

In 2005 Jews for Jesus sued[52] 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."[53]

2006 – misuse of Jackie Mason 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 Jewish and not associated with Jews for Jesus.[54] Jews for Jesus has issued a detailed response to the allegation on their website.[55]

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.[56]

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."[57]

See also

<templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>

2

References

  1. Statement of Faith (Jews for Jesus) written January 1, 2005
  2. Don't Christians Believe in Three Gods? (Jews for Jesus) January 1, 2005
  3. "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." The Trinity in the Old Testament by Catherine Damato. (Jews for Jesus) June 1, 1987
  4. "Their doctrinal statement is basically indistinguishable from Evangelical and other conservative Christian groups."
  5. Core values (Jews for Jesus) January 1, 2005
  6. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. The Real Jews for Jesus. Christian Dollars at Work by Jason Levinson (Torah Atlanta)
  8. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. Jews for Jesus. Financial information for FY2010 (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability)
  11. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. Targeting vulnerable population groups:
    • "The organization is also known for targeting vulnerable populations of Jews. New Jewish immigrants and college freshman as well as senior citizens and interfaith couples are easy targets for the organization." (Jews for Jesus by Stephanie Persin. Jewish Virtual Library)
    • "Since people are most vulnerable at times of personal change and transition, the missionaries center their efforts on a number of vulnerable Jewish populations, including high school and college students, senior citizens, and recent immigrants." (Frequently Asked Questions About Hebrew-Christian Missionaries & "Jews for Jesus" New York Board of Rabbis)
    • "Such congregations are designed to appear Jewish, but they are actually fundamentalist Christian churches which use traditional Jewish symbols to lure the most vulnerable of our Jewish people into their ranks."
    (Messianic congregations target Jews by Rabbi Tovia Singer)
    • "Young men and women are particularly vulnerable to evangelicals because so often these adolescents are unsure of themselves, the world around them, and the adulthood that awaits them. ... The elderly are also perilously vulnerable..." (Evangelizing the Jews, Part 2: Who is Most Vulnerable? by Rabbi Tovia Singer (outreachjudaism.org). Also at Aish)
    • "Deceptive proselytizing is practiced on the most vulnerable of populations – residents of hospitals and old aged homes, confused youth, college students away from home. These proselytizing techniques are tantamount to coerced conversions and should be condemned." (Soc.Culture.Jewish Newsgroups. Frequently Asked Questions and Answers)
    • "Individuals are most vulnerable to these groups and their tactics when they are lonely and hurting, overwhelmed or confused, away from their support system or have lost a loved one or a close friend." (College Programs. Got Friends? by Scott Hillman, Jews For Judaism)
    • "Their efforts here have drawn criticism from mainstream Jews and some Christians, who accuse Jews for Jesus of leading the vulnerable – the young, the old, recent immigrants..." (Jews for Jesus missionaries find warmth, hostility By Matthew Hay Brown (Baltimore Sun) August 27, 2005
    • "Nonetheless, JFJ continues to make this contradictory claim, purposefully focusing on young, naïve, or socially vulnerable populations with their campaigns. College students, recent immigrants (most notably Russian Jews), and the elderly are targets for conversion." (Jews for Jesus offends Jews and Christians By Ethan Frenchman and Seth Mayer, Chicago Maroon. October 4, 2005)
  13. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. Jews for Jesus: Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception. Methods (Anti-Defamation League)
  15. Jews for Jesus by Stephanie Persin (Jewish Virtual Library)
  16. 16.0 16.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. Jews for Jesus – Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception (archived March 23, 2015 at [1])
  21. Judaism Teaches... or Does It? by Moishe Rosen (Jews for Jesus) March 1, 1997
  22. Jews for Judaism, The Challenge of Missionaries and Cults
  23. 23.0 23.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. 24.0 24.1 24.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. "For most American Jews, it is acceptable to blend some degree of foreign spiritual elements with Judaism. The one exception is Christianity, which is perceived to be incompatible with any form of Jewishness. Jews for Jesus and other Messianic Jewish groups are thus seen as antithetical to Judaism and are completely rejected by the majority of Jews". (Kaplan, Dana Evan. The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism, Cambridge University Press, August 15, 2005, p. 9).
  27. A belief in the divinity of Jesus is incompatible with Judaism:
    • "The point is this: that the whole Christology of the Church – the whole complex of doctrines about the Son of God who died on the Cross to save humanity from sin and death – is incompatible with Judaism, and indeed in discontinuity with the Hebraism that preceded it." Rayner, John D. A Jewish Understanding of the World, Berghahn Books, 1998, p. 187. ISBN 1-57181-974-6
    • "It has always been recognized, for instance, after the rise of Christianity and Islam, that these two religions are incompatible with Judaism and that no Jew can consistently embrace them while remaining an adherent of Judaism." Neusner, Jacob & Avery-Peck, Alan Jeffery. The Blackwell Reader in Judaism, Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 8. ISBN 0-631-20738-4
    • "Aside from its belief in Jesus as the Messiah, Christianity has altered many of the most fundamental concepts of Judaism." Kaplan, Aryeh. The Aryeh Kaplan Anthology: Volume 1, Illuminating Expositions on Jewish Thought and Practice, Mesorah Publication, 1991, p. 264. ISBN 0-89906-866-9
    • "...the doctrine of Christ was and will remain alien to Jewish religious thought." Wylen, Stephen M. Settings of Silver: An Introduction to Judaism, Paulist Press, 2000, p. 75. ISBN 0-8091-3960-X
    • "For a Jew, however, any form of shituf is tantamount to idolatry in the fullest sense of the word. There is then no way that a Jew can ever accept Jesus as a deity, mediator or savior (messiah), or even as a prophet, without betraying Judaism. To call oneself, therefore, a 'Hebrew-Christian,' a 'Jew for Jesus,' or in the latest version a 'messianic Jew,' is an oxymoron. Just as one cannot be a 'Christian Buddhist,' or a 'Christian for Krishna,' one cannot be a 'Jew for Jesus.'" Schochet, Rabbi J. Immanuel. "Judaism has no place for those who betray their roots", Canadian Jewish News, July 29, 1999.
    • This July, Hebrew-Christian groups such as Jews for Jesus will work to convert Jews to another religion. The Jewish Response to Missionaries (NY Board of Rabbis)
    • Judaism and Jesus Don't Mix (foundationstone.com)
    • Jews believe that "Jews for Jesus," "Messianic Jews," and "Hebrew Christians" are no longer Jews, even if they were once Jews (whatjewsbelieve.org)
    • "If you believe Jesus is the messiah, died for anyone else's sins, is God's chosen son, or any other dogma of Christian belief, you are not Jewish. You are Christian. Period." (Jews for Jesus: Who's Who & What's What by Rabbi Susan Grossman (beliefnet – virtualtalmud) August 28, 2006; archived 2006-11-23 at [2])
    • "For two thousand years, Jews rejected the claim that Jesus fulfilled the messianic prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the dogmatic claims about him made by the church fathers – that he was born of a virgin, the son of God, part of a divine Trinity, and was resurrected after his death. ... For two thousand years, a central wish of Christianity was to be the object of desire by Jews, whose conversion would demonstrate their acceptance that Jesus has fulfilled their own biblical prophecies." (Jewish Views of Jesus by Susannah Heschel, in Jesus In The World's Faiths: Leading Thinkers From Five Faiths Reflect On His Meaning by Gregory A. Barker, editor. (Orbis Books, 2005) ISBN 1-57075-573-6. p.149)
    • "... there are limits to pluralism, beyond which a group is schismatic to the point where it is no longer considered Jewish. For example, everyone considers Messianic Judaism and belief in Buddha as outside of the Jewish sphere." (Why did the majority of the Jewish world reject Jesus as the Messiah, and why did the first Christians accept Jesus as the Messiah? by Rabbi Shraga Simmons)
    • "No Jew accepts Jesus as the Messiah. When someone makes that faith commitment, they become Christian. It is not possible for someone to be both Christian and Jewish." (Why don't Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah? by Rabbi Barry Dov Lerner)
  28. Meeting the Challenge: Hebrew Christians and the Jewish Community
  29. Frequently Asked Questions About Hebrew-Christian Missionaries & "Jews for Jesus" PDF Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Spiritual Deception Prevention Project
  30. Portland Jews Brace for Assault by 'Jews for Jesus' By Paul Haist (Jewish Review) May 15, 2002
  31. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  32. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. Rabbi Tovia Singer interviewed by Way of the Master Radio. See Flash Video for information on how to play this recording.
  34. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. Pluralistic opposition:
  36. Guidelines for Lutheran – Jewish Relations, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America . Retrieved July 5, 2009.
  37. Spector, S. Evangelicals and Israel, 2008, Oxford University Press: Oxford, p. 114
  38. A Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews, 199th General Assembly (1987) of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
  39. Jews for Jesus: Targeting Jews for Conversion with Subterfuge and Deception, Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved July 5, 2009.
  40. The Guardian Imams join plea for gay tolerance 26 September 2003
  41. IFCMW membership
  42. 42.0 42.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  43. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  44. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  45. See for example Messianic Muslim Followers of Isa
  46. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  47. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  48. Balmer, Randall. Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, Baylor University Press, November 2004, p. 448
  49. 49.0 49.1 49.2 49.3 Legal Cases Involving Jews for Jesus (ADL)
  50. Airport Comm'rs v. Jews for Jesus, Inc. 482 U.S. 569 (1987)
  51. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  52. Google Sued for Trademark Infringement Based on Third-Level Subdomain by Eric Goldman (CircleID) December 30, 2005
  53. Christianity Today News Briefs September 1, 2006
  54. Comic sues Jews for Jesus
  55. Press Release: Jews for Jesus and Jackie Mason (Jews for Jesus) August 25, 2006
  56. Jackie Mason Charges Against Jews For Jesus Denied By U.S. District Court, November 8, 2006
  57. USA Today, nymag.com (and many others) quoting an Associated Press release, December 4, 2006.

Further reading

  • Called to Controversy: The Unlikely Story of Moishe Rosen and the Founding of Jews for Jesus by Ruth Rosen (Thomas Nelson, 2012) ISBN 978-1-59555-491-8
  • Not ashamed: The story of Jews for Jesus by Ruth Tucker (Multnomah Publishers, 2000) ISBN 978-1-57673-700-2
  • 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
  • Messianic Judaism: A rabbi's journey through religious change in America by Carol Harris-Shapiro (Beacon Press, 1999) ISBN 978-0-8070-1040-2
  • 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
  • Hawking God. A Young Jewish Woman's Ordeal in Jews for Jesus by Ellen Kamentsky (Sapphire Press, 1993) An excerpt
  • Jews for Jesus: An Anthropological Study by Juliene G. Lipson (AMS Press, 1990) ISBN 0-404-62605-X
  • Smashing the Idols: A Jewish Inquiry into the Cult Phenomenon by Gary D. Eisenberg (Jason Aronson, 1988) ISBN 0-87668-974-8

External links