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November 5, 1999/26 Cheshvan 5760, Vol. 52, No.10
Messianic congregations accused of dishonesty
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
Jewish people are being preyed upon by a wolf in sheep's clothing, says Rabbi Toviah Singer.
Singer, a 39-year-old Orthodox rabbi who grew up in New York, travels the nation as director of Outreach Judaism, an organization that works to counter efforts by evangelical Christians who Singer says are using Judaism as camouflage to convince Jews to convert. Singer spoke in the Valley this week.
Singer says these missionaries aren't openly telling Jewish people to convert to Christianity, but instead are urging them to become "fulfilled Jews."
"This is consumer fraud," Singer, who has spent 20 years spreading his message, told a gathering of 75-80 people on Sunday, Oct. 31, at Har Zion Congregation in Scottsdale.
Singer discussed the approaches of messianic congregations, members of which identify themselves as Jews who believe Jesus was the messiah, but who wish to observe and maintain their Jewish traditions.
Singer says messianic congregations don't put up crosses and Christian statues, and congregants celebrate Jewish holidays rather than Christmas and Easter. Singer says he thinks messianic missionaries should "be honest about evangelism. ... Don't blur the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity in order to lure Jews who would otherwise resist."
He suggests that missionaries for groups such as Jews for Jesus and the American Board of Missions are guilty of "a very old form of anti-Semitism." What the missionaries are doing isn't so much a physical attack on the Jewish people, such as during the Holocaust, but a spiritual attack in the form of "a seduction that is nefarious, that is dishonest and, unfortunately, is working within many segments of our population," he says.
Singer says there are 300 messianic congregations in the nation, up from 12 congregations 19 years ago.
"Last year, (Outreach Judaism) estimates evangelical Christians spent nearly $300 million on Jewish evangelism," he said during the talk sponsored by the Har Zion Men's Club and the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs. "We estimate that we are losing approximately 185,000 Jewish people to these groups."
Singer explains that he believes these people are obsessed with converting Jews because they believe that the second coming of Christ is only possible after the Jewish nation has "come to the cross."
"It's a mitzvah (commandment) in the Christian Bible to convert Jews," Singer says.
Sheldon Volk, the leader of messianic Immanuel Congregation in Phoenix, who grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, denies that "false advertising" is being used to convert Jews.
"You don't fool around with life issues with deception," he says.
Volk says in his case it was his brother who urged him to study the Christian Bible's New Testament, not a Christian missionary.
"I don't think I was proselytized; I was challenged," says Volk, 61. "I've been reading and studying (Christ's) word for 25 years."
Volk and his wife, June, who also grew up in a Jewish home, host a radio show, "For Zion's Sake," on KXEG (1010 AM) at 9:15 every morning. The congregation has services Sundays at Camelback Seventh Day Adventist Church, 5902 E. Camelback Road.
Volk acknowledges "there are a lot of overzealous Christians" who want to convert Jews, but he rejects Singer's portrait of them as predators.
"We don't prey on Jewish souls," Volk says. "It's a passion I have to cause our people ... to go back to the word of God, to the Hebrew scriptures."
Singer says that although God has promised the Jewish people that they are an eternal nation, "no individual has that guarantee." He says the best defense against evangelists is a Jewish education - through day schools and summer camps - that will teach children about "their sacred tradition, the truth and beauty of their own faith."
Singer warns: "The missionary of today is the spiritual anti-Semite, those who attack the faith of the Jewish people. ... If (Jewish youth) understand Judaism, no missionary can come near them."
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