Thread by @bogiperson

Reminder that Jews for Jesus is a Christian organization created to aggressively proselytize among Jews.

This often involves harassing Jews in Jewish spaces.

Some bizarre experiences I have had with them are threaded below.

(THIS WILL GET VERY STRANGE)

A note that they have various different subgroups ("Messianic Jews" is along the same lines) and their tactics might also be different country to country, I did not ask all of them which exact denomination they belonged to.

(I did ask some of them.)

They heavily recruit in Eastern Europe. Right now probably more heavily than in the US, today's events notwithstanding.

Actual Jewish organizations are also heavily active in Eastern Europe, bc we went through many years of state-mandated atheism in recent history.

(Side note: Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. The Jewish organizations in Eastern Europe are generally trying to reach people who are ethnically Jewish, but grew up secular because of state oppression.)

So Jews for Jesus would attempt to enter Jewish events, while trying to appear as Jewish as possible.

(Generally Jewish events are open to the public, you don't need to "infiltrate" them.)

They would go to EXTREME lengths to do this.

So it wasn't just about entering Jewish spaces, but making sure that once there, they would be considered Jewish by the people already there.

There was a guy I regularly saw who would GLUE peyot on his head and then hand out leaflets. (I don't know if his beard was genuine)

I have also seen him try to hand out "Bibles in Hebrew, Old and New Testament". On Shabbat, in public spaces.

There are a few problems with that
* The New Testament is obviously a Christian text...
* ...and it wasn't written in Hebrew! It was written in Koiné Greek!

and also:

Orthodox Jews (which he, I imagine, tried to pose as based on his getup and... decorations) do not carry things on Shabbat in public spaces without an eruv. (This is a kind of fencelike delimitation)

It was an interesting dance when he was trying to hand me one of these Bibles.

(I am no longer Orthodox but still very strongly prefer not to carry things on Shabbat in public. Please do not try to make Jews of any denomination do this, it's just not courteous to make assumptions about observance.)

I saw these people at events regularly, and usually threw away their flyers advertising Jesus.

Sometimes they included Bible quotes, even in Hebrew, which causes a problem bc you are not supposed to throw that away if you are a religious Jew.

So I prob still have some somewhere

But I did not know how bizarre it would get.

I did not know that they would attempt to infiltrate Chabad Lubavitch.

If you are Jewish, you might already be rolling on the floor laughing here. If not, I will explain about Chabad.

So Chabad is an organization run by Lubavitcher Chasidim, whose aim it is to bring back secular Jews to Judaism. (Thus they are quite active in Eastern Europe.)

Where I lived, they have a yeshiva (Orthodox Jewish men's seminary, kind of) alongside synagogues.

Chabad has a reputation of being pushy and also chatting up strangers. If a bearded dude comes up to you and asks "are you Jewish," they might be Chabad. They have to ask you bc they are not allowed to proselytize.

(They probably want to get you to do some Jewish thing.)

Some of Chabad Chasidim have odd beliefs about their late Rebbe being the Messiah (this was NOT a common belief among them in Hungary while I still lived there, it's more a US/Israel thing)

But they are NOT Christian in any shape or form.

So this ended up interesting...

So the yeshiva had (probably still does have) quite solid adult education programs.

You would sign up and be able to study Jewish texts with Chabad rabbis. (In a gender-mixed group, if you are wondering)

I liked it and did multiple of their programs. But one summer........

OK before I explain, I must say that there was some kind of minimal vetting to not let e.g., violent anti-Semites in.

But generally everyone could sign up, some non-Jewish ppl were interested in conversion and they could attend too.

So I wasn't ENTIRELY suspicious when the young woman sitting next to me was telling me about how she used to go to a Calvinist congregation, then some kind of Evangelical congregation.

(Evangelicals are only present post-1989 in Hungary and some ppl confuse them with Lutherans.)

I chatted with her and she said that she was now more interested in exploring Judaism, which was why she signed up.

I knew MANY people who ended up Jewishly observant after a round at some kind of post-1989 Christian religious movement, so that made sense so far.

I was a bit weirded out when I realized a few days later that she was wearing a "Jesus fish" bracelet. But okay. It is OK to be religiously indecisive, I told myself. :)

(I still think it is OK to be religiously indecisive. but what happened next was very much not OK...)

So this was a summer semester. And at the end of the course, the rabbis asked the students who would like to help out with Chabad staffing the Jewish tent at a youth festival.

Chabad was initially saddled with this bc no other synagogues wanted to do it, but they got into it -

I volunteered at the Jewish tent many years in a row and had incredible experiences.

Both good and bad.

(I also hand-sold Jewish books to neo-Nazis, but that's another story for another time! That was quite some handselling experience.)

So I signed up this year too.

And this young woman also signed up.

I was a bit weirded out bc a lot of the things you do at the tent is answer questions about observance, but I figured she could ask others if she got stumped with a question. It might be a cool experience for her too. I didn't say anything.

(All this happened quite a long time ago. I left Orthodoxy 2014ish.)

So the youth festival began. We started our shift at the tent.

I was, by that time, very experienced in things like fending off the police (another story for another time) and fending off neo-Nazis simultaneously (likewise).

So I was in the tent a lot. Also overlapping with her

So as I was busy handselling books (things like Donin's "To Be a Jew" which I still recommend as an intro book to Judaism) and answering questions, one of the Orthodox girls came up to me.

And said that this young woman was saying some really strange things over there.

I was like, uh oh, and my mind went to Jews for Jesus

But also, stranger things have happened in the Jewish tent.

So I left my book stand on one side of the tent and tiptoed to the other side.

(This was a youth MUSIC festival so I didn't need to be super quiet, to be honest.)

I stood behind her and listened to what was going on. She didn't realize.

She was giving the full-on Jews for Jesus proselytization speech to some people interested in the Jewish tent.

Jesus this, Jesus that. "Some of us believe in Jesus" (while surrounded by Chabadniks!)

I went and got a rabbi. (There was always at least one rabbi in the tent, because of the popular service "Ask the Rabbi for 50 Cents")

Her services weren't required in the Jewish tent after that.

(She wasn't physically thrown out. But gently asked to leave, and she didn't push)

So if you are wondering about how far Jews for Jesus are willing to go to proselytize among Jews, my answer is...

...they are willing to pose as Chabad Lubavitch.

I hope you enjoyed the very strange thread!