Is one of the criteria for being a "cultist" smoking cigars, in your mind? 
Posted on 09/15/2002 5:20:45 PM PDT by jstone78
Portland Jews Brace for Assault by 'Jews for Jesus'
By Paul Haist, Jewish Review
Portland’s Jewish community has mobilized to resist a two-week assault by Jews for Jesus who will unleash a sizeable squad of trained proselytizers on the city at the beginning of June. A former Eugene rabbi who now specializes in combating Jews for Jesus returned to Oregon May 7 and 8 to help the Jewish community here prepare for the assault. The campaign is planned to coincide with the annual Portland Rose Festival when thousands of people will be on the streets and accessible by pamphleteers.
Rabbi Efraim Davidson is the director of Torah Atlanta, a counter-missionary group that serves the southeast United States. Davidson, who lives in Atlanta now, was a founder and the spiritual leader of Congregation Ahavas Torah in Eugene.
ANTI-'JEWS FOR JESUS' FLIER
The Jewish Federation of Portland and its Community Relations Committee have been aware for several months of JFJ plans to bring their crusade here now to take advantage of the large public gatherings that will occur during the Rose Festival.
Davidson said that the Portland campaign is part of a JFJ five-year program called “Behold Your God.” He has confronted similar JFJ campaigns in other cities, including Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta.
“Behold Your God,” is, according to Davidson, “a very well coordinated, multi-million-dollar campaign” focusing on 66 cities worldwide with Jewish populations of 25,000 or more.
He said that the Jews for Jesus use aggressive proselytizing to target disenfranchised or unaffiliated Jews, Russian immigrants and college students. He said their techniques are manipulative, deceptive and anti-Semitic.
Jews for Jesus have had some success in recent years. Davidson cited figures that show the group has grown from a mere seven U.S. congregations in 1975 to 478 today. There already are at least five so-called messianic congregations in Portland, according to the Web site www.missionportland.org, although Davidson identifies only three messianic congregations here.
Davidson added that in 1973 there were an estimated 10,000 born Jews in the United States who were practicing Christians. Today, 29 years later, he put that figure at about 250,000.
Davidson said the JFJ typically names a coordinator for a particular city that is part of its campaign plan. That person, who he identified as Sue Pearlman in Portland, does the groundwork for the upcoming campaign.
That groundwork includes, said Davidson, “hooking up with a messianic congregation and using it as the physical base for training.”
The coordinator also usually contacts local Baptist churches to recruit lay Christian volunteers. Davidson said the JFJ relies on the Baptists because they are “very motivated evangelicals.”
(Excerpt) Read more at torahatlanta.com ...
Acts 28:27-29
27 For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
28 Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles JEWS, and that they will hear it.
29 And when he had said these words, the Jews CHURCH departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.
Jeremiah 23:5-6 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
True both in the former and latter. But I was referring to the former here. Messianic Jews take the hit as being "not authentically Jewish" for their ideological (religious) stance as conservative blacks take hits as being "not authentically black" for their ideological (political) stance.
Putrid nonsense, the both of them.
Which organization are you referring to? Jews for Jesus or other Messianic groups? A Hispanic Messianic congregation that I know has several members who are fluent in Hebrew and read from the Hebrew Text and simultaneously translate when not reading from the Reina Valera which is the 1569 Spanish translation with a revision in 1602, of the Masoretic Text and Textus Receptus BECAUSE like its English counterpart, the KJV, its translators feared G-d, did a very painstaking job of translating, and didn't try to soften or pervert the message, unlike some of the newer perversions. Bible Gateway.com says: The Reina-Valera Antigua was first translated and published in 1569 by Casiodoro de Reina, after twelve years of intensive work, and later put out in 1602 in revised form by Cipriano de Valera, who gave more than twenty years of his life to its revision and improvement. The NIV translating team had 100 "scholars" from 20 denominations (how ecumenical!) working for ten years, but many of those scholars weren't translators, they were editorial reviewers and stylistic reviewers. Well, betcha by golly wow!
To me, the threat posed by "Jews for Jesus" to mainstream Judaism is nothing compared to this.
With the ultimate goal of hastening The End, no doubt. You do realise that this is an important, but little-advertised reason for our ardent support of Israel?Not the only reason for sure, but it's certainly there. It's certainly the only use some so-called "Christians" have for Jews - cannon fodder for the Apocalypse.
I thought "Wow - the Jews must really like this guy." About a week later, I heard someone on TV calling him "anti-semitic" for one reason or another.
Probably revolving around some of the claims he's made in his books regarding "international bankers," etc. Unfortunately, that's code for "Jews." Whether Robertson meant it that way I don't know.
Snidely
Messianic Jews are persecuted throughout the world, and I understand that half a million of them were among the victims of the gas chambers of the Holocaust, HOWEVER, Jewish congregations have every right to be anti-missionary, at least while we still have religious freedom in the USA. And I don't blame them one bit! Where are these millions of dollars coming from? We are to pray for Israel, not spend millions of dollars to aggressively "convert them". Messianic Jews who have at their disposal millions of dollars, and join up with popular ecumenical, fundamentalist groups such as WOF and PK, are NOT part of the group of persecuted Messianic Jews. I know some persecuted Messianic Sephardic Jews and they are being persecuted by their evangelical, fundamentalist and/or Catholic relatives and friends, not by any Orthodox, conservative or reformed Jews.
I used to read the NIV, thinking that the KJV was complicated, until one day I was following along with a radio program that was reading from the NIV, but I couldn't find my NIV, so I picked up my grandma's old KJV. Something definitely "clicked" in my spirit when I started to read the KJV, not to mention that the NIV passage they were reading from used the word "slaves" where the KJV used "servants". That's when I started to investigate the NIV. It's a good translation for liberals who like to say things like "the Bible prohibitions of sins like homosexuality are outdated because after all, 'the Bible also permits slavery'." NOT QUITE! They forget to mention that in the Bible, there were laws regarding the treatment of strangers, exiles, slaves and servants, and archaeological excavations of gravesites of early Christians proves that the early Christians freed their bondservants and referred to them as brothers, while pagan civilizations were still torturing and killing slaves.
And as far as Torah Atlanta being anti-Christian bigots, As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are BELOVED for the fathers' sakes. FOR THE GIFTS AND CALLING OF GOD ARE WITHOUT REPENTANCE. Romans 11:28-29 emphasis mine.
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. Romans 11:32
It's too bad that those millions of dollars aren't being spent to sustain and protect beloved Israel from the threat of Islamic terrorists.
Is one of the criteria for being a "cultist" smoking cigars, in your mind?
That's okay. We just talked past each other. It's cool (waiving my two fingers towards you right in front of my eyes). That means we're "right here" now.
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