|
http://www.derechemet.org/english/
Derech
Emet (Way of Truth) issues an uncompromising warning to all Jews:
“OUR RELIGION IS UNDER ATTACK! WE’VE HAD ENOUGH!”
Enough of
“missionaries fooling vulnerable Jews: Russian immigrants, college
students, seniors, and even young children!” Enough of Christians
“redefining Judaism”. Enough of “missionary blackmail”.
As part of
their counter attack, the site features an attempt to define the
Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 as the nation of Israel, and the
testimonies of four Christians who converted to Judaism.
www.jewsforjudaism.org
Jews for
Judaism claims to be “the Jewish community’s leading response to
the multi-million dollar efforts of deceptive missionary and cult
groups that target Jews for conversion”, offering “specialised
counselling services, lectures, seminars, classes and multi-media
educational materials”.
On the staff
are Mark Sanders and Julius Ciss. Mark Sanders is described as a
“former Pentecostal, fundamentalist minister who engaged in missionary
activity in Israel, working in kibbutzim
and the Israeli public school
system”. Julius Ciss was apparently a worker with Jews for Jesus. Both
“began to see many serious inconsistencies and errors in the Christian
Bible” and turned back to Judaism.
There is a
great deal of information on the site, which is challenging and should
be viewed with caution.
http://www.outreachjudaism.org/
“What Are We
Doing Wrong, and What are They doing Right? Why Have more Jews
Converted to Christianity in the Last 19 Years than in the Last 1,900
Years?” asks Rabbi Tovia Singer, the dynamic driving force behind Outreach Judaism. This youthful, highly intelligent and
widely-read rabbi stands head and shoulders above most other
anti-missionaries in terms of his understanding of the Hebrew Bible,
the New Testament and Christian theology. He is a force to be reckoned
with, and his website and recorded lectures are not for the
faint-hearted or young in the faith.
If you visit
this website, do so with care, prepared for arguments against the
faith you had probably never imagined. Remember also that for every one
of Rabbi Singer’s “answers” to Christians, there are Christian answers
to Rabbi Singer.
http://www.utexas.edu/students/cjso/Sam/Truth_page.html
Project
Truth is the work of Shmuel ben Avraham and claims to be “the first
and only World Wide Web site providing complete information on
Missionaries and Missionary subjects”. The site consists of the summary
of a book on which Shmuel is working and covers subjects such as
“Christian vs. Jewish views of atonement”, “Prophecies of Isaiah” and
“Verses showing the unity of G-d”. A page featuring “Verses showing
that there will be no ‘New Testament’ ” carries verses from many Bible
books but, curiously, none from Jeremiah 31!
http://www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/refute.html
A very
basic, no-frills page by Hayyim ben Yehoshua exposing “The Myth of the
Historical Jesus”. According to Mr ben Yehoshua, “There was [sic]
absolutely no historical evidence that Jesus, Joseph or Mary ever
existed, let alone that Joseph was a carpenter or that Jesus was born
in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth”.
http://www.drazin.com/
Their
Hollow Inheritance by Michoel Drazin is an entire book (apart from
the final chapter) which claims to be “A Comprehensive Refutation of
Christian Missionaries”. The author refers to Jesus throughout as “J”
and rips New Testament verses from their context to prove that the
apostle Paul was a self-confessed liar. Rabbi Shmuel Boteach used
material from this book/site when preparing for his 1998 London debate
with a Messianic “rabbi”.
http://www.tfmc.us
According to
their home page, The Task Force on Missionaries and Cults is “the leading counter-missionary and cult
organisation in North America and is the leader in providing
information and assistance to individuals and communities in the U.S.,
Europe, and Israel”.
The website
still carries a sensational warning from February 1999 of “Apocalyptic Dreams and Jewish Nightmares” and “Millennial Panic” by “Manic Christians” when (the
supposed) expectation of the return of Jesus by the end of the
millennium would be dashed. “Millions of American Christians” it warns,
“believe that Jesus will return to Jerusalem during the millennium, and
the Apocalypse will be upon the world. But what if that doesn’t happen?
Will those disappointed believers react violently against Jews, who
play a pivotal role in their cosmic story?”
TFMC says
that Jews around
the world, and particularly in Israel, “must take action
now to prevent a backlash by Christian apocalyptists”. No doubt the
TFMC believes they succeeded.
http://www.tll.org/
“A spiritual Holocaust [is] befalling Jews right now”,
warns the Torah Life and Living website. “When an unwitting
child or grandchild falls prey to missionaries and cults”, says the
home page, “Torah Life & Living is the place to turn”. Their Jewish
Continuity Programme has a “proven track record of success” and they
are “often the last hope for exasperated parents, clergymen, social
workers, even other Jewish educational organisations”. Over the past 13
years, their counselling services “have helped to heal families
shattered by messianics, missionaries, and cults.”
This “Emergency Room for Jewish Souls” carries stories of
those who were “caught in a web of evil” but were rescued from “the
evil forces which try to tempt our children into dark places”. One
satisfied customer describes director Aaron Schwarzbaum as “an angel
who has the strength of belief in the important work you do to help
keep our children Jewish”.
http://www.mindspring.com/~sjayg2/index.htm
This website plays the theme from Exodus while at the
same teaching “Jews how to refute Christian missionaries, by using
passages from both the Jewish and Christian Bibles”. It is essentially
an advertisement for S.J. Greenstein’s book We Are Not Going to Burn in
Hell, which can be ordered from the site. The site
features an
explanation of why Mr Greenstein wrote his book, a contents page, the
first chapter of his book plus enthusiastic reviews and comments.
http://www.yadleachim.org/default.aspx (in
Hebrew)
Yad L’achim advertises itself as “the
Foremost, Pioneer Organization Spearheading the Struggle Against
Missionaries and Cults” offering their services “in guidance, advice,
direction, and solving problems of Israeli citizens, young and old, who
have become trapped in the clutches of missionaries and mystic cults”.
According to the website, missionaries “put much emphasis
on brainwashing individual youngsters [completely untrue] who are at
the crossroads of life... Another method is through “Sunday schools”
for very young children [not true]. “Kehilat Chessed Ve’emet
[Grace and Truth Congregation] is an organization that specializes in
this type of education. It was founded by Baruch Maoz (aka Richard
Rikky) [what!] who converted in the U.S. He gains the trust of his
followers by wearing and having them wear a kippah and zitzit
[definitely not true!!!].”
The website features a lurid story, At the Last Minute, about G who discovered that his wife had been
“ensnared by missionaries” and was attempting to leave Israel with
their 3-year-old daughter, assisted by a “Christian sect that had
brainwashed her”. Following a dramatic pursuit that ended at Ben Gurion
Airport, Yad L’Achim’s activists managed to stop G’s wife and
daughter leaving the country. According to the story, the missionaries
employed a “satanic trick” to prevent G’s wife being caught by the
border police. And this, apparently, is “a typical case, among hundreds
that occur yearly, of how souls are literally being saved”.
There’s never a dull moment when you work for Yad
L’Achim!
This article first appeared in the Autumn 2000 issue
Archive List
|
