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Jews for Jesus is a Christian Evangelical organization based in the United States. It was founded in 1973 by Martin Rosen, also known as Moishe Rosen, an ordained Baptist minister of Jewish heritage who self-identifies with the Judaic tradition. The long-term goal of Jews for Jesus is one of conversion of all Jews to accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah — a position which is usually characterised as Christianity (see Schism between Jews and Christians, Anti-Judaism, Supersessionism). The organization claims to be "one of the most extensive evangelistic outreaches to Jewish people in the world today." While Jews for Jesus is based in the United States, they have also sent their branches as far afield as Ukraine, Germany, France, England, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Russia, and South Africa.

Aims and organization

Jews for Jesus' official mission statement is "to make the Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide." They claim that belief in Jesus as Messiah is a fulfillment of the prophecies of Hebrew scripture. Moishe Rosen argues that Christianity is the fulfillment of scriptures. 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, as "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.'"(1)

According to its Executive Director, Jews for Jesus employs "only front-line missionaries who are Jewish or married to Jews." Stan Telchin, formerly associated with Jews for Jesus, wrote in A Loving Call to Unity that 80 percent of those who attend Messianic Synagogues are not Jewish. An official figure quoted to counter it pegged the number at 50 percent.

Meanwhile, Jews for Jesus actively seeks financial support from Christians to fund their organization, and they specifically recruit Christians to work in administrative positions.

Critical responses

Jews for Jesus is widely opposed by both Jewish groups (secular and religious) and Christians who oppose attempting to convert Jews. Many Jewish groups see Jews for Jesus as a thinly-veiled attack on their faith, while many Christian churches, particularly the more liberal denominations, see Jewish religious practice as valid in and of itself and thus object to evangelizing Jews.

Another criticism of the group is, that by some definitions, a “Jew ” in essence means to believe in one god and one god only with no partnership of any kind heavenly or earthly, and it is therefore technically imposible to be a Jew and believe in Jesus at the same time. In this view, Jews for Jesus would be analoguous to a fictional group called “vegetarians for meat”.

The Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, an umbrella organization that includes Roman Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Presbyterian church groups, has condemned Jews for Jesus as promoting activities "harmful to the spirit of interreligious respect and tolerance." The conference is opposed to religious proselytizing in general. 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." (2)

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." (3)Rick Ross, an alleged "cult expert", has been critical of the organization as well and has included them on his website.(5)

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 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.

The Christian Scholars Group on Christian-Jewish Relations (an organization consisting of 22 Christian scholars, theologians, historians and clergy from six Christian Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church) issued a statement in September 2002, "A Sacred Obligation: Rethinking Christian Faith in Relation to Judaism and the Jewish People", offering ten positions "for the consideration of our fellow Christians." Among them the following are listed: "Christians should not target Jews for conversion. Christian worship that teaches contempt for Judaism dishonors God."

Finally, the Boca Raton News newspaper County Jewish organizations protest evangelical attempt wrote in a November 2003 article:

The JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council) is deeply disturbed and distressed, however, with the practices of these so-called ‘Hebrew Christians’ that demean Judaism by suggesting it is not as valid a faith as that of the proselytizer. These groups have undertaken an aggressive and deceptive campaign of proselytizing to the Jewish community, targeting our most vulnerable members, including the frail elderly and college students, with the intent to convert them to Christianity.

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." (4)

Jews for Jesus is a member of numerous evangelical Christian groups: The World Evangelical Alliance, Canadian Council for Christian Charities, Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain, Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism, National Association of Evangelicals, The Internet Evangelism Coalition, and the World Evangelical Fellowship.

Litigation

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

In 2005 they sued Google for allowing a Blogspot user to put up a site at the third-level subdomain jewsforjesus.blogspot.com.

See also

External links

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