Expert Analysis
“The war against the Mission – The Lodge initiated activities against the damaging effect of the Mission by establishing evening classes for youngsters and adults, to teach them knowledge and understanding and to prevent them from attending the Mission classes. One of the regulations that was adopted at the start was that candidates who sent their children to Mission schools would not be accepted as lodge members.” (News of the Grand Lodge of Eretz Israel, 1929)
The above section from an essay by Yeshayahu Press, a founding member of the B’nai B’rith Jerusalem Lodge, established in 1888—hints to the threat posed by the Christian Mission to the integrity of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel at the turn of the 20th Century. Press lists battling the missionaries as the second “important activity” undertaken by the lodge, preceded only by the lodge’s significant efforts to revive the Hebrew language. Historian Natan Efrati, writing in the leading historical journal “Cathedra” on the protocols of the B’nai B’rith Jerusalem Lodge from 1888 to 1919, includes “undertaking a constant, consistent and uncompromising war against the Mission and against the registration of Jewish children in Christian schools” as among the top initiatives of the lodge to advance the interests of the entire Jewish community of the time. In addition to providing alternatives to Christian schools, B’nai B’rith established clinics and hospitals to offer alternatives to health facilities operated by the churches.
Fast forward over 100 years to the present day and we find Jewish-Christian relations very different from what they were in the time of Yeshayahu Press. The Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, Vatican II and the rise of “Christian Zionism”—faith-based support for the State of Israel among Christian Evangelicals—have had a profound impact on Jewish and Israeli attitudes toward Christians that have gone from “trust but verify” to nearly universal and unencumbered embrace in just a few decades. The Christian faith of Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Mike Pence and other officials in the U.S. government as well as popular support from his voter base is believed to have led the Trump administration to make unprecedented gestures toward Israel, including moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as sovereign Israel territory and declaring that settlement activity in the occupied territories was not illegal. Evangelical Christian support for Israel is held at such a premium that there was concern among some Jewish Diaspora leaders that the government of Israel might redirect its attention from Diaspora Jewry to the U.S. evangelical community.
Yet alongside this support the Christian mission to the Jews—always here but mostly invisible to all except those who followed it closely—is back again with a vengeance, promoted by Messianic Jews and by some in the evangelical community and enabled by some Israelis who promote—naively or sinisterly—a false Judeo-Christian narrative. The incremental, hushed infiltration of Israel by aggressive Christian missionaries posing as Jews, Zionists or both might have continued under the radar, unnoticed except by a handful of courageous and dedicated Don Quixotes. Missionaries felt protected by the common misconception among Israelis that Evangelical support in the United States for Israel would evaporate–or even turn against Israel—unless they were allowed free reign to promote the conversion of Jews in Israel. It was difficult, or impossible to get the attention of Israeli leaders—overburdened by so many political, security, social and economic challenges—to focus on this threat coming, ostensibly, from some of Israel’s staunchest supporters, despite the fact that they claim to have converted 30,000 Jewish Israelis to Christianity. The pattern, since the advent of the “Jews for Jesus” movement in the United States in the 1960s, has stayed the same: arguing that one could remain Jewish while adopting the most contradictory beliefs of Christianity, and “provoking Jews to jealousy” through political and diplomatic support for the State of Israel and extroverted humanitarian assistance programs. Some of the theology underpinning the effort to evangelize the Jews in Israel took odd deviations, for example the expectation that the situation in Israel would become so dire that Jews would seek salvation in Jesus en mass.
On May 28—in the midst of some of the the many peaks in the judicial overhaul crisis in Israel–this nature of the problem changed dramatically when a consortium of Messianic and Evangelical organizations held a provocative outdoor event on the southern steps of Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
As described in Christian-oriented website Israel365, the May 28 event was the culmination of a three-week-long Christian revivalist fast in which “millions of Christians around the world [joined] in an unprecedented event, praying and fasting for Israel…The organizers believe the event has end-of-days implications.”
Tommy Waller, head of “Hayovel,” an American Evangelical organization that has planted a community in the Har Bracha settlement in the northern Shomron and who was involved in preparations for the event, told Israel365, “We’ve been working with organizations trying to get them to see Israel differently outside the typical missionary mindset…It can’t be said that the Church has entirely turned around in this regard…It is impossible to say that all of them are not missionaries…Many say they have [rejected the replacement narrative] but they really haven’t changed their definition of Israel’s salvation in the last 500 years.”
Edward Cwierz from Kielce, Poland, who would take part in the event, told the publication “The prayer for the salvation of Israel is deeply related to the second coming of Yeshua and the revival of the whole earth. We are talking about a revival, an awakening for the world. Without the Jews, we do not share in the fullness of God’s properties…The current upheavals in Israel are not just political.”
Other spokesmen said, “We believe God is raising up 100 million intercessors for Israel to be restored and saved.”
And FIRM (Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries)—one of the dozens of organizations affiliated with the event—released a video seeking donations to “see people in Israel come to know Jesus as their Messiah until all Israel believes.”
Addressing the event, Dr. William Wilson, president of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, boasted that “In December, we gathered in New York, about 20-23 leaders from across the kingdom of God—Catholics, Protestants, Alpha, the World Evangelical Association, Lausanne, Baptist, Methodist, the Assemblies of God, leaders from all these different movements, top leaders—and together we crafted and signed a commitment—it’s called the 2033 Commitment…saying that we are committing our own lives and our energy for the next ten years to work together, to collaborate together, to reach every person on earth with the good news of Jesus Christ…We are going to commit our lives to make this the most significant decade of great Commission effort in history.”
Another very disturbing invocation—perhaps criminally actionable under Israel’s anti-missionary law that proscribes proselytizing of minors without the consent of their parents, was rendered by Anja Letsatsi, who prayed for a “a mighty, mighty move of children across this land, children under the age of 15, making a difference in schools, making a difference on their campuses, in their families; that we will see a revival being poured out through our children in every nation, in every town, in every city.”
The Southern Steps event was just the launching pad of a decade of world evangelization announced in February 2023 when 110 Christian leaders, representing 79 Catholic and Evangelical organizations in 22 countries, met in Rome and established the Global 2033 Initiative that will run from the Day of Pentecost 2023 to the Day of Pentecost in 10 years, described as the 2000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus. “The objective is to create a synergy between the different Christian missions, particularly Catholic, but not only, around evangelization.” According to a working paper, at the center of their “evangelistic strategy” is to mobilize and train “all baptized Catholics to be missionary disciples”—despite the fact that the Catholic Church has sworn off any targeted efforts to convert Jews. “We need to train people to be authentic witnesses in the workplace” and “We need a special focus on missionary disciple-making among youth” the paper states.
Unfortunately, many Israeli leaders got the narrative wrong and referred to the 200-300 participants who took part in the Southern Steps event as innocent “pilgrims,” “tourists” or “worshipers,” saving their criticism for a group of mainly rabbis, yeshiva and seminary students who issued a call only days earlier to protest the call for conversion of the Jews. Leaving aside the issue of whether it was appropriate for Jerusalem municipal authorities to approve a Christian prayer event practically on Temple Mount when Jews are prevented from praying on their holiest site, the event served as a wake-up for traditional Jews that the missionary threat can no longer be overlooked. One of those who took up the mantle was Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Arie King. Writing to Christian friends after the counterdemonstration, he wrote: “I will never give up in protecting my brothers and sisters from following other religions. These provocations should not happen ever, and in particular not at a Jewish holy site. As tourists or as pilgrims we welcome everyone, but not as missionaries. You keep your religion and faith for yourself and for your family and community. We will keep Judaism for Jews, and no one will interfere with someone else’s faith.”
It is worth pointing out that no other religious group in Israel has been engaged in open conversionary efforts, a development that could upset the delicate relationships between the many different religions and denominations—alongside ardent secularists—that maintain a delicate coexistence in Israel. An example of the callousness with which some Christian leaders’ approach this can be seen in this quote from Oral Roberts University’s Wilson, shortly after participating in the third Christ at the Checkpoint conference in Bethlehem in 2014, a major platform for anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian Christian activists: “The gospel is for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. While we don’t embrace replacement or fulfillment theology, neither should we embrace a non-evangelism position for today’s Jew. God is moving in “The Land” and we are called to pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into the amazing harvest before us. One of the greatest moves of the Holy Spirit in history is coming to Israel and the Middle East. Our Palestinian brethren could be one of the bridges God will use to further extend His Kingdom into predominantly Muslim influenced countries. Synthesizing a proper position on the Jewish people, Israel and the work of Christ in our generation will be critical to their success in becoming God’s ambassadors beyond Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”
It cannot be ruled out that these well-publicized events and the massive appropriation by Evangelical Christians of Jewish traditions have contributed to the recent uptick in incidents of Jews targeting Christian clergy in Jerusalem and demands by fringe Jewish elements to pray at the Stella Maris Monastery—where the tomb of Prophet Elisha is believed to be located—which have engendered general outrage and the intervention of President Isaac Herzog and Chief of Police Yaakov “Kobi” Shabtai.
All this fits into the age-long efforts of Christians to convert Jews–with the Jews in Eretz Israel set as a prime target. A plethora of organizations and umbrella groups are engaged today in a multi-million-dollar campaign to convert Jews in Israel and around the world. Just one of these nefarious organizations is The Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism—an offshoot of the Lausanne Movement established in the 1970s by Billy Graham to ”unite all evangelicals in the common task of the total evangelization of the world.” For the Lausanne Movement, Jews are one of 17 identified “unreached people groups” targeted for aggressive evangelizing—not representatives of a great world religion to be engaged with in respectful dialogue.
Even organizations that denied for decades their conversionary intentions now share it openly. In a recent online interview, Dr. Juergen Buehler, president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem—which for four decades has been deeply involved in humanitarian projects in Israel and building faith-based support groups around the world—said approvingly about a report on the spread of Messianism in Israel: “That is an exciting report. There is a new openness even in Israel. We speak about the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast. Albert Wexler is actually a Jewish-background believer leading that, opening doors into the Knesset, inviting people to meet with members of parliament. Our own Calev Mayers, our lawyer—he is invited by government ministries right now to help them and consult and work with them.….There is a new openness.” Buehler also orchestrated ICEJ’s partnership in the Amsterdam 2023 conference, convened in June 2023 to take the Gospel “Not just to every people group or every country, but [to] every person on earth” in the next decade. Other organizations, such as One for Israel, train Messianic youth to evangelize Jewish cohorts they will encounter in the army, while Altar of Prayer promotes a pro-life agenda from a Christian perspective to Israeli women
Unfortunately, there are many Israeli Jewish enablers who provide cover to the missionaries. Some are motivated by a true, albeit naive belief, that the Messianic promise of prophet Isaiah–“for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people” —is upon us and encourage the Christians in moving forward the Messianic era, with, for example, the cultivation and identification of the Red Heifer—a prerequisite for the restitution of ritual animal sacrifice; others believe evangelical support in the United States is a requisite for continued American diplomatic and military support of Israel, while others are on the receiving end of much needed financial benefits through donations, volunteers and salaries.
This is just one of the forms the mission has taken in Israel. Others include the erecting of Messianic monuments in the public space, establishing projects to benefit the poor, aged, lone soldiers, new immigrants, sex workers and other vulnerable populations as well as “planting” congregations—especially among Ethiopian immigrants—and more.
Writing in a recent issue of Vision Magazine, Donald Zev Uslan, a U.S.-licensed medical and rehabilitation psychotherapist concludes that “Missionizing in Israel is not ‘freedom of religion’. It is the historical continuation of social and geographic predatory expansionism of Christianity. We are beguiled fools if we don’t deal with this swiftly and decisively.”
A group of concerned Israelis who have followed these developments for over a decade has developed a level-headed declaration they hope will serve as model for both Christians and Jews to set right their relationship in the Jewish state and beyond. Among other things, the declaration rightly defines the proselytizing of Jews as a form of anti-Semitism. Influential rabbis and government ministers are being approached to support this initiative. Indeed, the government seemed to be waking up to the threat posed by these organizations, as reported by Haaretz, Israel’s Interior Ministry had stopped issuing clergy visas to some evangelical Christian organizations based in Israel, including to ICEJ and Christian Friends of Israel.
With Sukkot quickly approaching, the next flash point in this battle is likely very close: ICEJ’s annual Feast of Tabernacles Celebration (Sept. 29 to Oct. 6) that it claims to be the largest annual Christian gathering in Israel, with 5,000 pilgrims converging on Jerusalem from 100 countries. ICEJ President Buehler announced that this year’s theme—King of all the Earth—will “proclaim Jesus as king of all creation.” The pretense that the Celebration—that began in 1980–is no more than a show of Christian support for Israel has now fallen away, with the ICEJ website noting that it is, rather, “a prophetic statement that our Lord is indeed coming soon. It declares to Israel and the Nations that a new day is dawning. The King is coming, and we are here to rejoice in his transforming power and soon arrival.” This theme will be on parade when the participants engage in the seemingly innocuous annual march through the streets of Jerusalem, that in the past has been the stage for massive distribution of missionary messaging and materials, including to minors (which, as noted, is illegal under Israeli law). Rabbis and other concerned Jews have issued statements calling on Jews to stay clear of the march and the celebration, that is likely to be picketed.
Well over 100 years ago and under significantly disadvantageous conditions, B’nai B’rith successfully countered missionary activity and fought for Jewish integrity in Israel. It is a battle that has to be refought again today. We ignore this challenge at the peril of the Jewish people.
Alan Schneider is the director of B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, which serves as the hub of B’nai B’rith International activities in Israel. The World Center is the key link between Israel and B’nai B’rith members and supporters around the world. To view some of his additional content, click here.