The Missionary Deception Hits the Israel Parade

At the Celebrate Israel Parade yesterday in Manhattan, Jews of all stripes came together to acknowledge and celebrate the central role Israel plays in Jewish life, especially salient on the 28^th of Iyar, Yom Yerushalayim, commemorating the unification of Jerusalem in 1967. The joy and ahavat yisrael of the day was unfortunately disturbed and threatened by the presence of various Hebrew Christian missionaries, who sought to infiltrate the parade festivities and use a day to celebrate Jewish unity as a pretext to undermine the very essence of Judaism.

Attempts to convert and proselytize Jews are as old as Christianity itself. Paul claimed to target the Jews “as a Jew,” a trope which serves as ammunition for today’s missionary organizations, who enjoy million dollar budgets, slick-talking missionaries who utilize psychological manipulation, misinformation, subterfuge, and a smattering of Jewish cultural innuendo as a pretext for targeting the vulnerable, uneducated, and unaffiliated. One group distributed literature claiming “Yoshke made me kosher”  (sic) and another group utilized visibly non-Jewish individuals clad in yarmulkes to distribute various propaganda materials.

At the end of the day, thankfully, these efforts are futile on the whole, but even one Jewish neshama lost to Christianity is a tragedy of epic proportions. A simple understanding of Tanakh demonstrates that there is absolutely no way the messiah has already come, and an historical understanding of their religion demonstrates a slew of pagan influences, adapted from Roman and Babylonian influences. It is overwhelmingly clear and obvious that the world is even more broken and ailing now than it was 2,000 years ago. The world is obviously unredeemed; wars have proliferated and intensified in the 20^th century beyond anything previously imaginable. The Beit haMikdash has not been rebuilt, and the site of Har haBayit is occupied by a mosque. The exiled Jews of the world have not been fully restored to Eretz Yisrael, universal recognition of the sovereignty of G-d has not been achieved, as idolatry has only metastasized in the past 2000 years, and none of the other prophecies for the person of mashiach have been fulfilled, certainly not by Yoshke, who actively encouraged his followers to dishonor their parents, called his mother “woman,” cursed those with whom he disagreed, and publicly urged his followers to desecrate shabbos.

How anyone born as one of klal yisrael, the goy kadosh and mamlechet kohanim, the chosen nation, can even consider such a belief evades my comprehension. One simply cannot be a Jew and support our right to live as a free people in our land if they embrace a belief in any non-Jewish theologies, including the idolatrous perversions and distortions of Christianity.

After leaving the parade, I was furious, dumbfounded, and became resolute in my desire to thwart the evil schemes of any group that would seek to deprive Jews of their heritage and lead them down the path of avodah zarah. May we zoche to see the coming of the real messiah, soon in our days, and may all idolatry disappear from the face of the earth as we progress towards the day when HaShem’s name will be One over all the earth.