District Court Dismisses Jews-for-jesus Lawsuit

A U.S. District Court here dismissed a lawsuit Tuesday brought by Jews for Jesus against the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Jews for Jesus sued the JCRC because the Stevensville Hotel, a glatt-kosher resort in Liberty, N.Y. which has since closed, did not permit the Hebrew-Christian organization to hold its 1987 annual gathering there after JCRC director Michael Miller told the hotel’s president that Jewish groups would no longer patronize the establishment if Jews for Jesus did.

Agudath Israel of America, which was scheduled to hold its annual convention there a few days after the Jews for Jesus gathering in November 1987, was ready to cancel its reservations after it learned of the missionary group’s plans.

But Stevensville’s president canceled the contract with Jews for Jesus and returned the group’s deposit.

Jews for Jesus sued the JCRC in March 1988, alleging a conspiracy to violate the group’s civil rights.

In his ruling, Judge Richard Owen of United States District Court in the Southern District of New York ruled that the JCRC’s efforts were protected by the First Amendment.

The JCRC’s efforts were “definitely not an unlawful economic boycott,” he said.

Owen acknowledged, in his opinion, that “Jews for Jesus is an ‘evangelistic missionary society’ whose followers, Jews and non-Jews alike, believe that Jesus was the Messiah, a belief that conflicts with traditional Jewish doctrine.”

The “JCRC, among other Jewish organizations, feels that Jews for Jesus uses deceptive tactics in promoting its doctrine, and, in particular, that Jews for Jesus missionaries fraudulently and misleadingly use Jewish symbols to associate themselves with Judaism and to attract followers,” he said.

The lawyer for Jews for Jesus, Jay Alan Sekulow, said that the group will “definitely” appeal the decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and to the Supreme Court. It is also considering filing the suit in the state courts, and possibly refiling in the District Court on procedural grounds, he said.

Jews for Jesus was founded 21 years ago by Moishe Rosen, a Jew who converted to Christianity in the early 1950s and was ordained a Baptist minister in 1957.

The group, which answers its San Francisco headquarters telephone with the greeting “Shalom,” has been condemned by Jewish and Christian leaders for its mixture of rabbinic Judaism with Christian tenets, and for its tactics, which have been called harmful, deceptive and divisive.