PORTLAND
As part of our nationwide effort to educate Jews on how to deal with the efforts of missionaries in their communities, we recently visited Portland, Oregon. They are slated to be hit by Jews For Jesus in June 2002. Rabbi Efraim Davidson traveled to Portland, and met with various segments of the Jewish community there. Through his talks, he successfully rallied the community, which led to several volunteers stepping forward to meet JFJ when they arrive. This effort will be carried over to other communities as well.
Assault
by 'Jews for Jesus'
By
May 15, 2002
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Portland’s Jewish community has mobilized to resist a two-week assault by Jews for Jesus who will unleash a sizeable squad of trained proselytizers on the city at the beginning of June. A former Eugene rabbi who now specializes in combating Jews for Jesus returned to Oregon May 7 and 8 to help the Jewish community here prepare for the assault. The campaign is planned to coincide with the annual Portland Rose Festival when thousands of people will be on the streets and accessible by pamphleteers.
Rabbi Efraim Davidson is the director of Torah Atlanta, a counter-missionary group that serves the southeast United States. Davidson, who lives in Atlanta now, was a founder and the spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavas Torah in Eugene.
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Davidson said that the Portland campaign is part of a JFJ five-year program called “Behold Your God.” He has confronted similar JFJ campaigns in other cities, including Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta.
“Behold Your God,” is, according to Davidson, “a very well coordinated, multi-million-dollar campaign” focusing on 66 cities worldwide with Jewish populations of 25,000 or more.
He said that the Jews for Jesus use aggressive proselytizing to target disenfranchised or unaffiliated Jews, Russian immigrants and college students. He said their techniques are manipulative, deceptive and anti-Semitic.
Jews for Jesus have had some success in recent years. Davidson cited figures that show the group has grown from a mere seven U.S. congregations in 1975 to 478 today. There already are at least five so-called messianic congregations in Portland, according to the Web site www.missionportland.org, although Davidson identifies only three messianic congregations here.
Davidson added that in 1973 there were an estimated 10,000 born Jews in the United States who were practicing Christians. Today, 29 years later, he put that figure at about 250,000.
Davidson said the JFJ typically names a coordinator for a particular city that is part of its campaign plan. That person, who he identified as Sue Pearlman in Portland, does the groundwork for the upcoming campaign.
That groundwork includes, said Davidson, “hooking up with a messianic congregation and using it as the physical base for training.”
The coordinator also usually contacts local Baptist churches to recruit lay Christian volunteers. Davidson said the JFJ relies on the Baptists because they are “very motivated evangelicals.”
About a week before the launch of the JFJ effort in any city, additional JFJ workers are brought in to augment local workers.
The JFJ campaign outwardly consists of little more than handing out pamphlets at large gatherings.
Davidson thought the pamphleting itself might not be a highly successful technique.
“It’s very difficult for us to know how many convert. Probably very few convert just from receiving a pamphlet,” he said.
But the campaign is more insidious than the mere distribution of literature.
Their real goal, said Davidson, is to collect the names and contact information of persons they deem potential converts.
“The workers will leave,” said Davidson. “But they get the names, phone numbers and e-mails; that’s their job. They hand that list to the local church workers and then they take over.”
While in Portland, Davidson led educational sessions at a public meeting at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center where about 50 people attended, with the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Portland, with the Oregon Board of Rabbis, Jewish education directors from the synagogues and Portland Jewish Academy, and with Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, a consortium of Christian leadership that has worked closely with the Jewish community on issues of mutual concern.
Davidson said that it can be difficult to work with Christian groups such as the Baptists and elicit their understanding and cooperation.
“It’s difficult to convince them about something that is such an important part of their theology,” said Davidson. “Ideologically, they believe they must convert everyone — and especially Jews — to Christianity.”
Davidson said he had “some success” in Atlanta when he contacted Baptist congregations during the JFJ campaign there. He sent letters to all the Baptist congregations that planned to take part in the “Behold Your God” campaign explaining what the JFJ is and asking them to cancel their programs.
In Portland, Davidson met with officials of Ecumenical Ministries because of its good relations with the Jewish community.
He explained to them that the Jews for Jesus, “by targeting Jews for conversion, threaten the good relationship between the two communities.”
With Jewish educators Davidson’s goal was to make them, their students and the students’ parents aware of the threat.
“We’re educating with posters and fliers to students and their families,” he said. “We’re asking them not to give out their contact information.”
That, he stressed, is a critical short-term goal in combating Jews for Jesus.
“Our main emphasis is for the community to know what is happening and don’t give up your contact information,” said Davidson.
Longer term, he added, the solution is different.
“Become as educated and as comfortable in your Judaism as possible, so it’s not an issue at all,” he said.
Davidson also met with representatives of Jewish Family and Child Service to address concerns over the vulnerability of the Russian immigrant community. He met too with representatives of the University of Oregon Hillel to address concerns over Christian proselytizing on campus.
While Davidson’s central message, which he stressed repeatedly, was to ignore the proselytizers and to guard one’s contact information, he did issue a call for volunteers “to go head to head with these guys on the street.”
“If they are handing out pamphlets,” he said, “we should hand our own next to them.”
He also urged local Jews to display posters warning about the campaign. The posters are available from the CRC at the Jewish federation. “An educated Jew is their worst customer,” said Davidson.
He cautioned against engaging in debate with the Jews for Jesus, whose techniques he called “insidious,” although in his call for volunteers he suggested that some well informed individuals can confound them.
For more information or to volunteer, contact Jewish Federation of Portland CRC Director Robert Horenstein at 503-245-6219, Ext. 308.
Horenstein said immediate needs include volunteers to distribute counter literature during the Rose Festival. He also wants to recruit people who can talk to or arrange for a CRC representative to talk to various groups about Jews for Jesus, including youth groups, students and Russian immigrants.
The CRC plans to draft a policy on the Jews for Jesus for the entire
organized Jewish community.
2002, the Jewish Review
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