During the week covered by this review, we received 27 articles on the following subjects:
Anti-Missionary Activity
Missionary Activity / Political Issues
Political Issues / Christian Zionism
Christian Sites
History / Interfaith Relations
Anti-Missionary Activity
Various Articles
A father of a 16-year-old who came under the influence of Messianic Judaism has filed a lawsuit against “Derech El”, a “missionary organization” that is reportedly responsible for producing YouTube videos through its college, aimed at the conversion of minors. The father is also suing YouTube, demanding that the videos be taken down, or at least limited to those over the age of 18 (as proselytizing to minors is illegal in Israel).
Missionary Activity / Political Issues
Various Articles
The High Court of Israel (Bagatz) ruled that the Knesset Finance Committee exceeded its legal mandate by denying tax exempt status to “Yachad Ramat HaSharon”, a Messianic Jewish non-profit that is also reported as being involved in missionary work. At the time the decision was made, alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid was on the Finance Committee and voted against the Messianic non-profit, arguing that the Jewish people had still not recovered their pre-Holocaust numbers, and that it was their right to protect themselves. Bagatz ruled, however, that the Committee’s decision did not uphold religious freedom and equality, and that such a decision could lead to a legal distinction between religions and faiths, especially affecting those who belong to a minority group. Yad L’Achim said in response that the Court’s decision was a clear sign that it was intent on turning Israel into a country without a Jewish identity, while Knesset member Yinon Azulai (Shas) called for Bagatz’s legal authority to be curtailed.
Political Issues / Christian Zionism
Various Articles
Former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, visited Israel together with John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel (the trip was organized by CUFI). During her visit, Haley prayed at the Kotel. On Twitter, Haley wrote: “No matter the challenges, the people of Israel always celebrate life and thank God for their blessings. It’s humbling to join them again in prayer at such a holy place.” John Hagee also expressed his solidarity, saying that Israelis need to know they are not alone, and that millions of Christians stand with the Jewish nation and will continue to stand with it. Haley visited the city of Ashkelon to see houses that were hit by Hamas rockets, and stated, “Israel has the right to security.” She attacked President Joe Biden, saying that it would be a mistake not to build on the gains made by Donald Trump, and that he could not be a friend to Israel and simultaneously back the nuclear deal with Iran.
In another article, Lapid said that Israel needs to prepare for the nuclear agreement with Iran to return. He also said that he intends to strengthen ties with Democrats in the US, as well as with the Jewish community. Republican and Evangelical support is important to Israel, he said, but the “Jews of the world from all different streams – they are our family.”
Lapid’s words follow a number of other reports to do with the complex ties between Evangelicals and Israel. The first is former Israeli ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, who caused an uproar by saying that Israel needs to spend more of its energy reaching out to Evangelicals than to Jews. A second controversy was stirred by the “expletive-laden” diatribe against Lapid and Bennett written by Evangelical leader Mike Evans. These reports were compounded by reports that support for Israel amongst US Evangelicals aged 18-29 declined by more than half between 2018 and 2021. Dr. Yoav Fromer, head of the Center for the Study of the United States at Tel Aviv University, said of the declining numbers: “It seems that the Israeli government’s decision to abandon large segments of the liberal, progressive Democratic public and gamble only on the Evangelicals might end up costing us dearly.” Meanwhile, shifting attitudes have also been reported amongst young American Jews, who are less connected to Israel than their parents were. However, Rabbi Moshe Hauser pushed back against this pessimistic idea in one article, noting that 25% of Jewish children in America are being raised in the Orthodox Jewish community, and that 83% of US Orthodox adults said that caring for Israel was “essential to what it means to be Jewish.” Cindy Matthews, president of Covenant Journey (which sponsors Christian student trips to Israel) said that Israel should, nevertheless, be strengthening ties with Evangelicals: “Support for Evangelicals from Israel should be expanded… I’d like to see Israel engage with American Christian universities more, encouraging trips like Covenant Journey. It would be a tremendous asset if the Israeli government would subsidize trips for our students the way they do for Jewish trips.”
The final two articles reported that twenty Christian tourist groups arrived in Israel for a pilot program run by the Israeli government. Groups undergo a COVID-19 test and a serological test at the airport. One group of Christian students came with the organization Passages, which brings thousands of American Christian students to Israel with the goal of connecting them to the roots of their faith. Passages intends to bring 1,000 students by the end of this year. Students visited Lod, Ashdod, and Sderot to express solidarity with Israel. Another Spanish-speaking American Catholic group, part of the pilot, was the first to visit the baptismal site “Yardenit” since before the pandemic.
Christian Sites
Haaretz, June 11, 2021; Haaretz, June 11, 2021
Both the Immanuel Church and the Maine Friendship House in the American-Germany Colony are taking part in the tourist attraction “Houses from Within”. The Immanuel Church, in which a Messianic Jewish congregation also gathers, has impressive neo-Gothic architecture, windows, and an impressive organ, which will be played in concert as part of the program. The Maine Friendship House was brought to Israel in 1866 by Christian Zionists.
History / Interfaith Relations
Haaretz, June 14, 2021
This was a piece about Abraham Joshua Heschel, an American rabbi and leading Jewish thinker and professor, who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, protested the Vietnam war, and pushed the Catholic Church to apologize for its anti-Semitic history. Heschel was a part of a dialogue with Catholic leaders at an interreligious conference in 1963 (as part of the Second Vatican Council), where he worked to change Catholic attitudes towards other religions. The shift in the Catholic Church came to effect in the encyclical Nostra aetate. The article highlighted a new film about Heschel entitled, “Spiritual Audacity: The Abraham Joshua Heschel Story”, by Martin Doblemeier, himself Catholic. Interviewed for this piece, Doblemeier noted that there has been a shift in attitudes towards religious leaders. If today they are viewed with suspicion, in the `50s and `60s, leaders like Heschel or Billy Graham garnered great respect.