Jews for Jesus stir up community

Saturday, Dec. 31, 2005 | 7:10 a.m.

Oscar Goodman, a Jew for Jesus?

A religious tract recently distributed in Las Vegas by the controversial evangelical organization Jews for Jesus had fun with the mayor's promotion of Bombay Sapphire Gin to fourth graders and his celebrity photography work for Playboy.

It then explained how Goodman, or anyone else, could become a follower of Jesus.

The San Francisco-based international organization passed out the tracts, and seven other variations, to both gentiles and Jews as part of a three-week campaign in the valley that wrapped up earlier this month. The campaign included mailings, cold calls, radio and print ads and handing out tracts on the Strip, the airport and other locations.

Jews for Jesus campaign director Tuvya Zaretsky said the tracts are purposefully humorous to attract people's attention.

"We actually sent it to City Hall, but didn't get any bites from Oscar," Zaretsky said from his Los Angeles home.

Local Jewish leaders speculated that the tract was also designed to provoke Goodman into a response that would generate media attention for a group they believe unethically tries to convert Jews to Christianity.

Goodman didn't respond to a Sun request for comment.

Jews for Jesus made the evangelical push, the first of its kind in Las Vegas, as part of an overall effort targeting cities with Jewish populations of 25,000 or more.

Las Vegas is believed to have one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in the country, with the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas estimating the population at 80,000 to 100,000 Jews. Las Vegas was particularly attractive to Jews for Jesus because its population tends to be older, secular, unaffiliated with local synagogues and highly intermarried with other religious groups, Zaretsky said.

But evangelizing to Jews has been controversial, even among Christian denominations. Some, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and several other mainline Protestant churches, have issued formal statements arguing that Jews have a special covenant with God and should not be proselytized by Christian groups.

Others, such as evangelical and particularly Southern Baptist churches that have supported Jews for Jesus, have argued that Christians are commanded to share the "Good News" with everyone.

"To the Jew first, and then the gentiles," said Rabbi Shmuel Oppenheim, leader of the Lev HaShem Messianic Jewish Synagogue in Las Vegas, paraphrasing Romans 1:16-17. His congregation will be following up with those who asked for more information during the campaign.

Jews for Judaism, the national countergroup to Jews for Jesus, took out advertisements denouncing the campaign in the Jewish Observer and spoke against the campaign at two local synagogues and before UNLV's Hillel Jewish student organization.

The full-page advertisement calls Jews for Jesus a "threat to Jewish survival" and offers "educational programs that inoculate against missionary efforts and bolster Jewish pride." The group also offers an 800-number hotline for free crisis counseling "that successfully reunites families and rescues those who have been lured away from Judaism."

Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, director of the Los Angeles Jews for Judaism office, supports the right of the Jews for Jesus members to share their faith. He said he and other Jews have a problem with the group's aggressive methods. He also has issues with how they target Jews specifically.

"If an evangelical group targeted all Catholic groups for conversion because they felt Catholicism wasn't fulfilling enough, wouldn't Catholics be offended by that?" Kravitz said.

Zaretsky said the goal of the campaign was to make the "Messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to the Jewish community."

"People can do whatever they want with an issue," Zaretsky said. "We just wanted them to have a chance to engage it."

Local rabbis responded by mostly avoiding the issue, said Congregation Ner Tamid Rabbi Sanford Akselrad and Temple Beth Am Rabbi Mel Hecht. Rabbis educated their own congregants about exactly why Jews don't believe Jesus was the promised Messiah, but they did not go out and protest against the campaign.

"We (the local board of rabbis) decided we'd rather speak to congregants directly rather than to give them more publicity than they deserve," Akselrad said.

The Jews for Jesus group and other evangelistic, Messianic Jewish congregations are offensive to Jews because they encourage Jews that they can accept Jesus without giving up their Jewish heritage, Akselrad and Hecht said. They hold Jewish style worship services, use Jewish terminology such as calling Jesus by the Hebrew name Yeshua and reinterpret Jewish symbols and festivals through a Christian lens.

For many rabbis and Jewish people, that's deceptive, Akselrad and Hecht said.

"They say you can accept Jesus as the Messiah and retain your Jewish identity," Akselrad said. "... Once you cross that line you enter into a new religion called Christianity."

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.