Showing posts with label Yad L'Achim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yad L'Achim. Show all posts

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Messianic Presence at Hebrew Book Week Angers Ultra-Orthodox - Israel Today


Messianic Presence at Hebrew Book Week Angers Ultra-Orthodox

Sunday, June 18, 2017 |  Israel Today Staff
Israel last week conducted Hebrew Book Week, an annual week-long event celebrating Hebrew literature.
The event is marked with book fairs in cities across the country. And the presence of Messianic book publishers at several of these fairs had ultra-Orthodox Jewish "anti-missionaries" fuming.
In fact, the often-violent anti-missionary group Yad L'achim filed an official police complaint after discovering a booth operated by the "HaGefen" publishing house at the book fair in Rishon Letzion.
HaGefen is a well-known Messianic publisher. Among its offerings at the book fair its series titled "The Testimony," which is a modern translation of the Bible with Israeli youths in mind.
Yad L'achim claimed that the books constituted "incitement and solicitation of minors to convert."
What most bothers groups like Yad L'achim is that these books are not identified as "Christian." They refuse to accept that Messianic Jews are very much an integral part of the Jewish people as a whole and of Israel.
"The innocent buyers do not know that these are missionary books that encourage conversion to Christianity," read the Yad L'achim complaint.
HaGefen issued a response noting that it has been a registered non-profit in Rishon Letzion for no fewer than 42 years. It further pointed out that the "offending" series of books, "The Testimony," consist almost entirely of a literal modern translation of the Bible.
PHOTO: President Reuven Rivlin and his wife Nechama visit a Hebrew Book Week book fair at the First Station in Jerusalem. Photo by Mark Neyman/GPO
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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Messianics in Turmoil as Anti-Missionaries Dig Up Dirt - ISRAEL TODAY

Messianics in Turmoil 

as Anti-Missionaries 

Dig Up Dirt

Tuesday, February 25, 2014 |  David Lazarus  ISRAEL TODAY
The leadership of Messianic Jewish congregations across Israel are in turmoil over recent revelations published in the snazzy new anti-Messianic magazine “The Seekers” put out by the anti-missionary group Yad L’achim.
With so many young Jewish Israelis coming to faith in Yeshua in recent years, Yad L’achim was compelled to reveal an arsenal of evidence detailing the scandalous activities plaguing Israel’s Messianic movement in a mass mailing of the magazine.
Exposed! Messianic Jews in Cahoots with Christians
Yad L'achim has now proven beyond doubt that there is, in their words, “a strong connection between Messianic Jews and Christian Churches!” After years of intensive undercover investigative work, with some help from Google, Yad L’achim has published a website page revealing that “some Messianic leaders receive financial support from oversees Christian organizations!”
Such collusion with Christians surely spells doom for the Messianic Jewish movement as we know it. No self-respecting Jewish organization would dare receive support from Christians. Messianic Jews receiving money from churches clearly excludes them from the Tribe. For Heaven’s Sake, Orthodox Jewish charities would never be caught cavorting with Christian money!
Revealed: Messianics Enjoying Sin!
In yet another devastating blow, Yad L’achim reports that young Jewish boys and girls are lining up to join Messianic congregations because “the New Testament gives you the freedom to do whatever sin you want,” says Ronen Shalom, a Yad L’achim convert.
Shalom, who recently converted back to Orthodox Judaism after becoming a devout Buddhist, then a Yoga instructor and Tai Chi expert before living for a number of years as a freedom-loving follower of Jesus, admits that even he eventually got tired of the “freedom that allows any sin” in the Messianic movement. Thank G-d, the poor seeking soul is now back on track and “enjoying every minute” adhering to the 613 commandments as well as the thousands of rabbinic laws added to the Torah, he says.
Shalom and his friends also report being “much happier now that they are back home in the Orthodox religious camp” without all the sin and corruption.
Spotlight: Messianic Leaders Poke Fun
Yad L’achim’s new Hebrew magazine also reveals that that Messianic Jews are anti-Semites. As proof, a student of Yad L’achim’s reprogramming program divulged that he heard a Messianic leader tell a joke about how some Orthodox Jews spend hours inspecting the Sukkot Etrog with a magnifying glass to insure it is kosher. Overcome with horror that anyone would poke fun at the Orthodox being too strict in keeping the rabbinic traditions, the distressed student had to abandon his Messianic faith. And that is NO joke!
Messianic Jews in Turmoil
In their scathing report, Yad L’achim also provides irrefutable evidence that some Messianics do not always agree with each other. In fact, they have in their hands actual Messianic newsletters taken from the world wide web showing that certain Messianic Jews in Jerusalem are in disagreement with other Messianics over theological issues! It appears that Messianics are arguing with one another!
One can certainly appreciate how such arguments make it impossible for a real Jew to join the Messianic movement. Although, don’t they say that when two Jews get together to talk about anything you get three different opinions? Could it be that Jews who believe in Yeshua are still Jews (by virtue of their argumentativeness)? That is a question still being argued. At least ex-Messianics are now resting in peace back in Orthodox Judaism without all the conflicts, divisions, mean-spiritedness and arguments.
Note: Yad L’achim’s strategy to put off young Jewish seekers from the “temptation to follow Jesus” by exposing the dirty laundry of his disciples should not be considered _Chutzpah (rude). Religious authorities way back in the New Testament times also liked to spread stories about the Messianic Jews (see Acts 6:10-15, if you dare)._
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Friday, May 24, 2013

Messianic Believers in Israel

Jewish anti-missionaries take on Messianic believers

Thursday, May 23, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff  
The ultra-Orthodox organization Yad L'Achim has long been a thorn in the side of Israel's Messianic Jewish community. Sometimes more than a thorn - Jack Teitel, the Jewish terrorist who almost killed Messianic youth Ami Ortiz, is believed to have strong ties to the group.
Now Yad L'Achim is targeting a blossoming Messianic community in the coastal city of Bat Yam. The local edition of the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot reported earlier this month that Yad L'Achim had received many complaints from residents upset about receiving "missionary material."
According to the article, local Messianic believers had visited homes in the area to share their faith. Yad L'Achim backers quoted in the piece also took offense at the reported recent founding of a new Messianic congregation, which they tried to paint as a "cult-ish" and "secretive" enterprise.
"We have a problem dealing with this issue, because the meetings take place in a private residential home in one of the apartment buildings so that naturally the activity there is very hidden and secretive," said one rabbi.
Oded Raban, a local Messianic Jew, refuted such nonsense, telling the paper that “there is nothing inappropriate in the [Messianic community's] activities ... [there is] no truth in the claims that we behave in an underhand manner. And if it comes across that way, the only reason is that we face such extreme antagonism, that it doesn’t leave us with many options.”
Raban reiterated what many other Messianic Israelis have stressed before:
"We have tens of thousands of believers in this country, and we are all citizens of this state. We are loyal to it, serve in the army, give to it, but our worldview is slightly different from other Jews’, and for that reason, other Jews see us as an anomaly. We, as our Jewish brothers, believe in God and see Him as the center of everything in this world."