Subject: Messianic "Jews" under threat by
Israelis
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> *** > > [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-Orthodox
> 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 > neighborhood 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 > skullcaps 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 address. 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. >
Meanwhile, 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 masterplan, 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. > > In the meantime, you can obtain a huge
collection of his writing, all 44 > back issues of his bulletin,
"Revisionist History," newly issued in pdf. > here: > http://www.revisionisthistory.org/cgi-bin/store/agora.cgi?p_id=10058 > > Or obtain his three hour conversation with talk show
host Alex Jones > here: > http://www.revisionisthistory.org/cgi-bin/store/agora.cgi?p_id=10059 > >>>> > > The HOFFMAN WIRE is a
public service of Independent History and Research, Box 849, Coeur d'Alene,
Idaho 83816 USA > > 24 Hour Revisionist News Bureau: >
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