Israeli threat to "Messianic Jews"

Jews Against Jews! MICHAEL HOFFMAN'S ANALYSIS OF THIS ARTICLE FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY AFTER IT]. Israel's Messianic Jews: Police indifferent to threats against us By The Associated Press June 20, 2008 Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz's body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion severed two toes, damaged his hearing and harmed. a promising basketball career.  Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family the motive of the attackers is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Israel's tiny community of Messianic Jews, a mixed group of 10,000 people who include the California-based Jews for Jesus, complains of threats, harassment and police indifference.  The March 20 bombing was the worst incident so far. In October, a mysterious fire damaged a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews, and last month ultra-Ortho- dox Jews torched a stack of Christian holy books distributed by missionaries. The Foreign Ministry and two chief rabbis were quick to condemn the burning, but the Ortiz family says vigorous police action is needed. "I believe that it will happen again, if not to us, then to other Messianic believers," said Ami's mother, Leah Ortiz, 54-year-old native of South Orange, N.J. Proselytizing is strongly discouraged in Israel, a country whose population consists of a people that suffered centuries of persecution for not accepting Jesus and has little tolerance for missionary work. At the same time, Israel has warm relations with U.S. evangelical groups, which strongly support its cause, but these generally refrain from proselytizing inside Israel. Even the Mormon church, which has mission work at its core worldwide, agreed when it opened a campus in Jerusalem to refrain from missionary activity. "Historically the core of Christianity ... was 'convert or die,' so it was seen and is still seen as an assault on Jewish existence itself," said Rabbi David Rosen, who oversees interfaith affairs for the American Jewish Committee. "When you are called to join another religion, you are being called on to betray your people." Messianic Jews consider themselves Jewish, observing the holy days and reciting many of the same prayers. The Ortiz family lights candles on the Sabbath, shuns pork and eats matzoth on Passover. Ami Ortiz, interviewed at the Tel Aviv hospital where he is being treated, comes across as no different from any Jewish Israeli his age. He's a sabra,or native-born Israeli, who speaks English with a Hebrew accent, has an older brother in an elite Israeli army unit and was hoping to join the youth squad of Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team. But his religion also holds that one can embrace Jesus -- Ami calls him by his Hebrew name, Yeshua -- as the Messiah and remain Jewish. Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, believe that the Messiah has yet to come, that he will do so only when he chooses, and that any attempt to pre-empt his coming is a grievous sin. Rabbi Sholom Dov Lifschitz, head of the ultra-Orthodox Yad Leahim organization that campaigns against missionary activity in Israel, says Messianic Jews give him great pain. "They are provoking... it's a miracle that worse things don't happen," he said. Messianic activists appear to have had some success among couples with one non-Jewish spouse, as well as immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union who have loose ties to Judaism. Or Yehuda, a town in central Israel with many immigrants as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews including a deputy mayor, Uri Aharon, was the scene of the May 15 book-burning.  Ami Dahan, a local police official, says hundreds of Christian religious books were burned on May 15 in an empty lot in town. He said Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon, has been questioned on suspicion that he instructed youths to collect the books from homes where they had been distributed and told them to burn them.  Aharon denies ordering the burning. He says the books were collected from a neighbor-hood of mostly Ethiopian immigrants who are easily persuaded by missionaries.  "There are three missionaries who live and work in the town, and every Saturday they take people to worship and try to brainwash them,"Aharon said. Many Messianic Jews say they recognize the sensitivities involved and do not distribute religious material or conduct high-profile campaigns. But Aharon noted a recent Jews for Jesus campaign with signs on buses that equated two similar Hebrew words - Jesus and salvation. Public outrage quickly forced the bus company to remove the signs. Lawyer Dan Yakir of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says the law allows missionaries to preach provided they don't offer gifts or money or go after minors. "It is their right according to freedom of religion to maintain their religious lifestyle and disseminate their beliefs, including through literature," he said. But the obstacles are evident, raised not just from religious activists but by the state. Calev Myers, a lawyer who represents Messianic Jews, said he has fought 200 legal cases in the past two years. Most involve authorities' attempts to close down houses of worship, revoke the citizenship of believers or refuse to register their children as Israelis. In one case, Israel has accused a German religion student of missionary activity and has tried -- so far unsuccessfully -- to deport her.  "In incidents of violence, police are reluctant to press charges," Myers said. The book-burning caused shock among U.S. evangelicals.  Dave Parsons, spokesman of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, which represents evangelical Christian communities, said the test would be how vigorously authorities pursued the case.  "We believe there is a link to a series of incidents here in the land that involve harassment, intimidation and physical violence," he said. The Ortiz family moved from the United States to Israel in 1985, qualifying as immigrants under Israel's Law of Return because Leah, the mother, is Jewish. In 1989 they moved into Ariel, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and established a small Messianic group which now numbers 60, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, according to David Ortiz, the pastor and Ami's father. He said that he built the community through conversations with friends and neighbors, but did not actually go door-to-door distributing religious material to strangers in the traditional sense of missionary work. David Ortiz says he has also proselytized in the Palestinian areas -- prompting Islamic leaders there to warn against contact with him. Ortiz said he had no problem if Messianic Jews discuss their religious views with others and persuade them to believe in Jesus.  When the family began holding study sessions, a rabbi warned Ortiz not to speak about Jesus outside the home. In 2005, fliers were distributed in Ariel warning that there were believers of Jesus in the community. One day, two men wearing the black skull- caps of Orthodox Jews knocked on the door and photographed Ortiz when he answered. Recently the photo turned up on a flier with the family's ad- dress.  When the basket was left at the door Ami wasn't surprised, since it was Purim, a holiday when Jews exchange gifts.  "I opened it up and I heard it and then I was on the floor and I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything, the lanky boy recalls." Ami was in critical condition, with severe gashes in his legs and feet and one that just missed his jugular vein. His tryout for the Maccabi team was canceled. His family initially suspected Palestinians; Ariel is in the heart of the West Bank and surrounded by Palestinian towns and villages and, like most Jewish settlements, has been the target of Palestinian attacks. But police immediately told him the bomb was more sophisticated than those made by Palestinians since it contained plastic explosives. "Nobody ever suspected that a Jewish group would do such a thing, that they would put a bomb in somebody else's house," David Ortiz said. Police have since told the family that Palestinians were not behind the bombing. The family has footage from a security camera of a man delivering the package, according to a person close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity because police say disclosing details could harm the investigation. Police spokesman Danny Poleg would not discuss the case, saying only that no arrests have been made.  Mean-while, the Messianic Jewish believers are taking no chances. These days they worship under the protection of an armed guard. HOFFMAN'S AFTERWORD: The AP can't bring itself to mention that the "Christian religious books" that were burned were Bibles, i.e. copies of the New Testament. "Messianic Jews" are enthusiastic Zionists who reject historic Christianity and embrace a hybrid of Judaism and Christianity (darkness and light) that retains some Talmudic traditions and a great deal of Judaic racial prestige utterly contrary to the New Testament. "Jews for Jesus" is on record as refusing to criticize the Talmud. Note the guilt-inducing mind control statement aimed at wavering Judaics by Rabbi David Rosen, of the American Jewish Committee. "When you are called to join another religion, you are being called on to betray your people." When an Anglican Englishman joins the Catholic Church he's betraying the English? When a Catholic Italian joins the Methodist Church he's betraying the Italian people? When an am ha'aretz in first century A.D. Jerusalem joined Jesus and the early apostles he was betraying the Jews? AP reports: "The (Israeli) Foreign Ministry and two chief rabbis were quick to condemn the burning..." Yes, for purposes of public relations they condemned it, but they do nothing to amend the rabbinic texts or correct the culture that breeds anti-Christian violence and bigotry; they just can't be seen to publicly advocate it. AP writes, "Proselytizing is strongly discouraged in Israel, a country whose population consists of a people that suffered centuries of persecution for not accepting Jesus..." Would AP ever report, "Judaism is strongly discouraged in Russia, a country whose Orthodox Christian population consists of a people that suffered 70 years of persecution for not accepting the Communism of circumcised Bolsheviks"? Pope John Paul II and the leaders of Protestant fundamentalism all discouraged attempts to convert Judaics to Christ, in league with the American Jewish Committee and Israeli Zionists. The current Pope Benedict meets with rabbis in synagogues in Cologne and New York as equal partners in the worship of God. AP states: "Messianic Jews consider themselves Jewish, observing the holy days and reciting many of the same prayers. The Ortiz family lights candles on the Sabbath, shuns pork and eats matzoth on Passover." Yom Kippur is one of the "holy days of Judaism" and includes the permission to lie, in a rite called "Kol Nidrei" or the nullification of "all vows." If "Messianic Jews" are participating in the Kol Nidrei they are liars and not Christians. There is no New Testament warrant for following the rabbinic rite of shabbos candle lighting, eating unleavened bread on Passover or shunning pork. (Pork is an unhealthy food but we have the Christian freedom to eat it. Rabbinic Judaism does not ban pork in fidelity to the Old Testament. Rabbis secretly regard the pig as a sacred animal and eschew its flesh for that reason). If Messianic Judaism is such a counterfeit, why is it persecuted? Orthodox Judaism is distinguished by its dictatorial tyranny over the mind of man. The totalitarian control exerted during the Communist revolution in Russia had Talmudic roots. No iota of deviation from the Oral Law is permitted, including any nostalgia for Jesus Christ, who is regarded as an idol who practiced sorcery and is now in gehenna boiling in his own feces. What is instructive about this AP article is the fact that it showcases the Israeli penchant for violence -- using bombs, book-burning and arson against any who deviate, however minutely, from the dogma of Judaism or the Israeli state. Judaism considers western civilization to be Edom and despises it with far greater rancor than even Muslim fundamentalists. The current alliance between the West and the Israelis and rabbis, is very tenuous and temporary, predicated on the denial of New Testament doctrine and the transformation of an erstwhile Christian western civilization into a collective golem that bombs and fights Muslims for the benefit of the Israelis. When this proxy function is no longer needed, the Israelis will dump the West in Red China's lap and proceed on their supremacist path as the self-appointed judge of the entire world. The reconstituted Sanhedrin court in Tiberias is one harbinger of this master plan, aided and abetted by powerful "Christian" allies like Senator McCain, President Bush and Supreme Court Justice Scalia, among tens of thousands of other "conservative" golem in the top ranks of the American government, military, media, culture and business. Hoffman's book, "Judaism Discovered" will be published in August by Independent History and Research.