Some of that alarm was apparent among the 200 people who attended last night's town hall meeting at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax. Similar meetings are scheduled for today in Rockville and tomorrow in the District.
Debbie Levi, 53, of Centreville attended because two close relatives joined Jews for Jesus in New York City. She said she heard good advice last night about keeping the lines of communication open with them and letting them know "there's a place for them to come back."
Stephen Katz, Washington director of Jews for Jesus, says that starting Saturday, his group will flood Metro stops and other locations with leaflets. It is part of "Operation Behold Your God," a worldwide campaign.
(Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
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Asked about the Jews for Jesus outreach in Washington, she said she didn't feel "threatened, more concerned. I'm concerned that it might get a foothold."
The issue is divisive within Christendom as well.
The Rev. Clark Lobenstine, a Presbyterian minister and executive director of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, said his group condemns Jews for Jesus and other messianic Jewish groups by name because of "proselytizing efforts" that "go beyond the bounds of appropriate and ethically based religious outreach."
A conference statement refers to the practice of many messianic Jews who say they go to synagogue instead of church or refer to their pastors as rabbis to draw Jews to their gatherings. Lobenstine said that local Jewish leaders, offended at those tactics, had a large say in crafting that passage.
But other Christian groups have pledged their support for Jews for Jesus, with some calling it a duty to evangelize the Jewish people. Ten Christian congregations in the area are actively helping the Behold Your God campaign.
The Rev. Lon Solomon, senior pastor of McLean Bible Church, was born Jewish and became a born-again Christian in the 1970s. He explains his support for Jews for Jesus in part by pointing to the book of Romans, in which the Apostle Paul wrote that the Christian Gospel was "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
"To be honest with you, there are a lot of churches that don't have the courage to stand up and take the heat and criticism that the Jewish community is going to generate," Solomon said. "And we just figured some church is going to have to do that, and why not us."
Katz said he feels that Jewish leaders are not allowing members of their own community to engage in an honest discussion about the claims of Jesus. Over the years, he said, he has been spit on and hit by Jews who wanted him to stop his evangelistic campaigns.
"Tolerance has become one of America's top cultural values," he said. "In that sense, I think it's a shame that there are people who seek to oppress views and oppose open discussion. . . . If something can stand up to an honest investigation, let it stand. If it falls, let it fall."
