22 Sivan 5781
It's a fair question as you'll see. I live for the day when the names of false religions disappear from the vocabulary. I'd like nothing better than to stop talking about Christian missionaries crawling all over our Holy Land, but they never take a rest, so neither can we.
In a recent comment, Elisheva brought to our attention Arutz Sheva's continuing campaign to paint the Waller Family and their HaYovel Ministry as something to admire and cheer on. This might have something to do with the fact that the Wallers have the backing of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed. The Rabbi is not only the Rav of Yishuv Har Brachah in the Shomron, a place where Jews were evicted from their homes to make way for the money-making HaYovel enclave there, he is also the son of the founder of Arutz Sheva. The Rabbi refused to meet and speak with representatives of Jewish Israel to hear the damning information about their hidden agendas which were not so hidden within their messianic circles at the time.
This blog has been speaking out about this for YEARS. [It's all here.]
Fast forward to 2021 and the scandal of the "chareidi" missionaries - gentile Christians posing as Jews and living among the frum community of French Hill in Jerusalem. It turned out not to be an isolated case. More such families were about to be revealed. It turned out that they all had an association with The Bram Center.
A stranger visiting the “Tzemach David” shul and beis medrash in Yerushalayim would never imagine that the innocent-looking facility was actually a training center for Christian missionaries in how to conduct themselves as religious Jews.A wide-ranging probe by Yad L’Achim revealed that Tzemach David is the tip of the iceberg in the missionaries’ efforts to earn the trust of the Israeli public through deceit and manipulations. Tzemach David is housed in a building called the Bram Center, after Abram (Bram) Poljak, a pioneering missionary in Israel.The “Beis Medrash” is run by an organization called FFOZ (First Fruits of Zion) that was established in the United States in 1992 with the central aim of presenting Christianity as Judaism and conducting intensive activities to gets Jews to convert. ... “The Bram Center provides … a place for Israelis to learn about the connection with Messianic Judaism.”Half a year ago, the missionaries ratcheted up their activities, starting a “Torah Club” that claims to offer in-depth study of Tenach and Judaism to enable “Messianic Jews” to lead full “Jewish-Torah lives.”The two main activists are Ami (Tim) Buckles and Boaz Michael.Buckles, who dresses like an American chareidi Jew from the United States, lives near the Givat Mordechai neighborhood in Yerushalayim....Boaz Michael, chairman and founder of FFOZ, lives in the Arnona neighborhood of Yerushalayim and walks around with a large knitted kippah.
Arutz Sheva and the missionaries they support are not the only things posing as kosher here...
ReplyDeleteReport: Carrion Meat Was Sold with Badatz Certification
A while back I did some research on missionary activity and their tactics. The Lausanne Movement is an umbrella organisation for global missionary activity.(They make the point that if you are a xn you are a missionary by definition, it's just a question of how to go about doing it.) Its website has very detailed information about how to convert anyone on the globe, with specific documents on how to convert a jew, a muslim etc. There was a chilling document from the 1980s which set out the profile of every kind of Jewish community in the world, including the different communities in Israel, and how to approach them. Given the closed nature of religious communities and the difficulty for them to penetrate yishuvim the tactic is to befriend the leader, just befriend and not engage in any active missionising. This is called a bridgeman in their terminology, someone who softens us up and paves the way for the missionary work, a Trojan horse if you will.
ReplyDeleteAlso one of their general tactics, is to blur the boundaries. Old style missionising required the target to give up their culture, become like them, and they realised that they could be more successful if instead of saying you should be like us, they claim to be like their intended target, adopt their culture, and then go for the whammy by inserting their avoda zara. What is happening at Har Bracha is classic textbook procedure for modern missionising.
Missionaries also have their own terminology:
they came to help with the harvest (they mean harvesting souls),
the restoration of Israel (they mean the stage before the Jews, chalila, accept their gd on a stick.),
the word "reach" means missionise (from Hayovel fundraiser "Because of you, we will reach tens of thousands of people through educational media content.")
Also re Har Bracha, a swedish missionary site advertised its year-long missionary course, culminating in an internship at Har Bracha.
More from Hayovel fundraiser
"Because of you, HaYovel will be even more effective in restoring the land and people of Israel."
"As long as Jewish farmers continue to thrive in the Biblical Heartland, HaYovel will continue coming to help with the harvesting."
By now everyone should understand what they really mean.
As to why Jews, and rabbonim in particular, are so susceptible to these tactics, (it's not just Har Bracha, that is just one, albeit egregious, example) I've thought of several possibilites:
The Jews of the world are like an abused child, and suddenly someone is showing them love, but the child doesn't realise they are being groomed. When I was reading on the Lausanne site it occurred to me that their tactics are identical to those of sexual predators. (Aka A7 headline: Jews and the gentiles who love them. My version, Naïve Jews and the spiritual predators grooming them for conversion".)
Mirroring: Israelis in particular get very excited when a non-Jew speaks Hebrew, adopts some mitzvot, etc. They love us, want to be like us. (Blurring the boundaries combined with grooming tactics).
And why davka rabbonim? I can only guess that people who hold positions of importance develop a liking for kavod, and suddenly they are getting off the charts kavod from these xns.
Money, obviously, Mina Fenton called it the money crusade. They have billions, (are buying up tons of property in Yerushalayim), and suddenly we have all these teachers, see root-source "jews and xns studying the common roots of their faith together" with its wall of shame.
There is much, much more, Britt Lode, Benny Elon (https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2005/07/looking-beyond-the-gaza-withdrawal.html), in fact it seems to be endless … the question is what can be done about it with so much money and political clout on their side? (See the slate link, the goverment gave land to missionaries in the galil.)???????
Unfortunately, not surprised by A7's behavior. They have been turncoats for a while and, of course, the infamous Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, are no surprises at all. This has become such a tremendous problem for Israel and the ignorant and uninformed Jews and, apparently, even those so-called frum Jews. The problem really starts because of the lack of Jewish education from childhood. Whatever Jewish studies (meaning learning Nach) was taught in the public schools was taken out long ago and replaced, shelo neida, with xtian and muslim teachings in classes together with tours of their avoda zora places and, of course, with today's immoral teachings. The 'state' is the one who is most guilty because they allowed all this and even invited them in. Those at Har Bracha are in such a deep spiritual sin that doubt if they can be forgiven for it. We pray that they will somehow do teshuva.
ReplyDeleteThanks to elisheva for her great informative comment. Yasher Koach! Our salvation will come, am afraid, only with the coming of Moshiach. Maybe MBY to fight this war!
Eli B - what was his original name?
ReplyDeleteThe "one new man" of these missionaries has the same goal as the "aryan man" of the nazis: to destroy Jews and Judaism.
ReplyDeleteAlso, different thought,
It was Bibi who made tremendous inroads with the christian right in America. These are the same forces behind the missionaries. Bibi helped those forces working to shmad Jews. I can't help but wonder if this is related to Bibis downfall.
Rivka Levy - "Eli B - what was his original name?"
ReplyDelete-the one we call Yoshke.
J***s
ReplyDeleteThank you for stepping Devorah Chaya. If one mentions the J name to anyone in the world, they will know who you mean. If you mention his new stage name no-one will know who you're talking about. This re-packaging is only to target the Am Yisrael; this is always their principle avodah; their 24 -7 mission in life.
ReplyDeleteEli B.
Ah, I get it now.
ReplyDeleteThanks for clarifying. Spending a bit too much time researching 'alter egos', so I thought yoshke had another name I hadn't heard about, apart from the obvious.