Students Threatened New Offensive Created

Jews for Judaism’s process in developing its Strategic Plan gave us an excellent opportunity to evaluate the latest trends in proselytizing. We learned that Jews for Jesus and Messianic groups continue to aggressively promote evangelical Christianity in the guise of traditional Judaism and they’ve been successful! This Messianic/Jews for Jesus movement has grown to over 300,000 Jewish members with more than 15,000 in Israel. Recently, they have devised campaigns that target large Jewish populations, distribute literature on street corners, mail CD’s in Yiddish to Orthodox households and send music groups to infiltrate Israeli army bases. Jews for Judaism maintains an active role in responding to these deceptive campaigns.

Our research also revealed that Jews for Judaism must now confront new proselytizing trends that are rapidly evolving. The evangelical community, numbering 75 million in the United States, has shifted and expanded their efforts to include peer-to peer proselytizing. Christian students are being expertly trained to approach their Jewish friends on high school and college campuses. One particularly disturbing website, CampusRevolution.org, trains Christian high school students in the art of “going fishing” for susceptible classmates.

Unlike the “in your face” missionaries on street corners, this behind-the-scenes, peer to-peer approach is subtle and covert. Since “out of sight is out of mind,” this less visible tactic creates a false sense of security and a mistaken impression that the missionaries have disappeared.

In fact, according to a recent survey, 68% of Jewish high school students and 80% of college students have been approached, at least once, by someone trying to share another religion with them. Many students admit they are vulnerable to such manipulative and confusing tactics, and they fear that their friends less committed to Judaism are definitely at risk.

And there’s more! New web-based technologies, such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and the iPod have created a virtual on-line community, so aggressive and pervasive, that missionaries suddenly appear in our homes and student dormitories. Moreover, evangelicals are now using the classic Jews for Jesus tactic of telling Jewish students that they can be Jewish and Christian at the same time.

A direct result of the research for our Strategic Plan was the creation of a dynamic, cutting-edge program designed to empower students, parents and professionals against
these high tech trends in proselytizing as well as peer pressure. Our Community Mobilization Against Proselytizing program will be launched with the help of a $175,000 two-year grant from the Los Angeles Jewish Community Foundation.

Working with a team of collaborating agencies comprised of Hillel, JSU, LA Hebrew High and JCA Shalom Institute, Jews for Judaism’s program has been designed to incorporate a wide range of inter-linked activities. These include student liaisons trained to serve as peer-to-peer representatives on their campuses; annual Student Leadership Training Retreat and Concert; development of a student-oriented website, Student Prep Kit and interactive DVD to empower students with answers and materials to deal with proselytizing; and specialized training for Jewish professionals. Our collaborating agencies and a student committee will participate with us in the development, design and use of the latest technologies to put our Community Mobilization Against Proselytizing into action.

This multi-faceted program will mobilize and empower multiple community agencies to respond effectively and collaboratively to help our youth resist the often powerful lure of missionaries, cults and peer pressure.

For more information about the Community Mobilization Against Proselytizing program, sponsorship opportunities or how you can get involved, contact Rabbi Zalman Kravitz at 310-556-3344 or zalman@jewsforjudaism.org.