The fund-raising letter from an evangelical group targeting Jews is unequivocal: Christians should heighten their missionizing of Jews during the period from Passover till Holocaust Memorial Day.
And it is from a group — the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry — whose director, Elwood McQuaid, is a featured speaker at an upcoming conference of Jewish and Christian groups that support Israel.
Also speaking are representatives of the Israeli government, State of Israel Bonds and Prominent conservative political figures.
The presence of the evangelical group at the National Unity Conference for Israel has illuminated a sharp split in the Jewish community.
Jews are divided over whether they should forge ties with the segment of the Christian community most outspoken in its support for Israel — and yet devoted to converting Jews to belief in Jesus.
This segment includes groups such as Jews for Jesus, the Messianic Jewish Movement International and the Chosen People Ministers, as well as the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, according to Jewish experts on missionaries.
There are more than 600 groups in North America spending more than $150 million a year trying to convert Jews, said Mark Powers, national director of Jews for Judaism.
Jews for Jesus, for example, spent nearly $7 million missionizing Jews in 1993, according to the membership directory of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, an evangelical information clearinghouse.
Most of the missionaries’ money is collected from members of mainstream evangelical churches, said Philip Abramowitz, director of the Task Force on Missionaries and Cults of the New York Jewish Community Relations Council.
Many of the country’s most influential mainstream evangelicals, including Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, and groups, including the Southern Baptist Convention, help support the missionaries, even if they themselves do not target Jews, according to experts.
Some in the Jewish community are raising concerns that the new relationship being forged between Jewish political conservatives and the religious right on issues of mutual interest, including Israel, lends credibility to groups that try to missionize Jews.
Others, including Esther Levens, co-president of Voices United for Israel, say that love of Israel is the major factor to consider in the relationship and outweighs even the proselytizing.
The National Unity Conference is scheduled to take place in Washington on May 4-6. The National Jewish Coalition, the major group representing Jewish Republicans, and the Israeli Embassy recently pulled out of the conference.
The Republican group cited as its reason for withdrawal the presence of Christian groups whose purpose is to convert Jews.
The Israeli Embassy’s reasons were more political in nature. Avi Granot, the embassy’s counselor for interreligious affairs, has hosted McQuaid, the head of the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, at meetings several times, along with other evangelical Christians.
He said the embassy withdrew because of concerns that the conference would end up lambasting the Middle East peace process.
Levens, the conference organizer, took issue with that, saying the embassy “wanted control over the conference, which we wouldn’t give them.”
She termed McQuaid’s fund-raising letter urging the missionizing of Jews “a distraction.”
The March 22 letter said: “We can reach out to the thousands of Jewish people who are searching desperately for peace of heart in the face of horrible memories.
“By God’s grace, we will bring them God’s message of true comfort and hope: the wonderful news of a living Messiah!” wrote McQuaid, whose ministry spent more than $5 million on programs aimed at Jews in 1993, according to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
“I trust you will send a generous gift to help the Friends of Israel share the Messiah with the Jewish people,” the letter continued.
“For the Jewish people who can only assemble to remember tragedy, a future without Him promises only despair and hopelessness. The Messiah Jesus alone can bridge the gulf between joy and despair, hope and hopelessness. We must be faithful to His commission to love them to life,” wrote McQuaid.
Levens, who described McQuaid as “a true friend of Israel,” said accusing groups such as his of trying to harm the Jewish people was “hurting our support among these people and creating anti-Semitism.”
Herbert Zweibon, chairman of Americans for a Safe Israel, agreed with Levens. He issued a statement April 12 condemning the pullout from the Unity Conference of the Republican group and the Israel Embassy, saying it “undermines the vital alliance of Jewish and Christian friends of Israel.”
Others, including Jews for Judaism’s Powers, say that to forge relationships with groups who are dedicated to converting Jews “is like cooperating with the Nazis. Both have the same goal — the end of the Jewish people.
“To fawn at people who say they love Israel without looking at their real objectives is burying your head in the sand,” said Powers. “Sure these christians love us. They love us to death.”
“One group, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, tries to straddle the line. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, its president, said he has raised more than $1 million from evangelical Christians for the United Jewish Appeal.
He said he is not participating in the National Unity Conference because it takes place on the Sabbath. He also said he would not deal with groups whose sole purpose is to missionize Jews.
Eckstein says he does not believe that his work with evangelical groups helps to legitimize their missionizing.
“They believe all Jews will ultimately come to believe in Jesus, but I see their motivating force is to bless the Jewish people [by aiding Israel] and then let the Holy Spirit do what it will do,” he said.
Complicating the purely ideological disagreement over the role of the Christian right is the fact that the government of Israel actively courts evangelical, Pentecostal and other “Bible-believing” Christians with intensive promotions.
At this year’s National Religious Broadcaster Convention in Nashville, Israel Minister of Tourism Uzi Baram announced a $500,000 pilot program targeting Bible Belt Christians in 13 states.
Four Israel, concern over missionizing takes a back seat to the economics of the issue.
About 180,000 of the 450,000 North Americans who visited Israel in 1994 were Christians visiting the Holy Land for religious reasons, according to the New York office of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism.
And they spent about $234 million while visiting the country.
“There are many more evangelical Christians than Jews [in North America], and this is where Israel can benefit its economy,” said Barbara Bahany, a spokeswoman for the ministry. “We’re all working to get Israel economically independent and travel is one way to do it.”
At least 6,000 are expected to visit Israel next year for the Evangelical Prayer Congress and other conventions of “Bible-believing” Christians.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
