
Rochelle Wilner President	Frank Dimant Chief Executive Officer	Prof. Stephen Scheinberg National Chair	Ruth Klein National Director of Advocacy

1998 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents

MISSIONARIES AND MESSIANIC CHURCHES

One of the more alarming trends in antisemitic activity in Canada in 1998 was the growing number of incidents involving messianic organizations posing as "synagogues". These missionizing organizations are in fact evangelical Christian proselytizing groups, whose purpose is specifically to target members of the Jewish community for conversion. They fraudulently represent themselves as Jews, and these so-called synagogues are elaborately disguised Christian churches.

It is the belief of most of these churches that the conversion of Jews is one of the prerequisite conditions needed to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus. With the millennium around the corner, many of these groups feel that they are living in the end times and that the Messiah will be here soon. This millennial belief is what some sociologists refer to as PMS, or "pre-millennial syndrome". Others have dubbed it "millennium madness". This syndrome manifests as a great sense of urgency amongst some fundamentalist Christian churches to convert Jews as quickly as possible because the millennium draws near, but the Jewish community has yet to "repent" and to join the ranks of Christianity. This spiritual emergency to convert the Jews has led to a dramatic increase in deceptive and aggressive proselytizing activity in 1998, which threatens to be even greater in 1999.

The City of David

The "City of David" organization is a perfect example of the deceptive tactics used by some messianic organizations. The leader calls himself a Rabbi, and their sign includes Hebrew lettering. Their church could easily be mistaken as a legitimate synagogue; indeed this is their intent. Last year the League participated in a formidable community coalition and organized an inter-faith letter writing campaign to the media and to the property managers who leased space to the storefront church in a plaza in the heart of a Toronto Jewish community. The Hebrew sign was removed and an office for "Jews for Judaism", a counter-missionary organization, was secured in the same plaza. "Jews for Judaism" estimates that there are at least 50 Christian proselytizing organizations in Southern Ontario alone, which are actively targeting Jews for conversion.

Despite last year’s efforts to curtail the missionizing efforts of the City of David "synagogue" and other messianic organizations, their proselytizing efforts grew in 1998. The "City of David Synagogue" took out advertisements in local newspapers in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. Due to complaints from B’nai Brith and Jews for Judaism, many publications are now insisting that their ads be run with the disclaimer: “We are Jews and Gentiles who believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah of Israel.”

In Montreal, a similar evangelical group calling itself the "House of David" has led to escalating tensions throughout the year. Students from a nearby Lubavitch Rabbinical College demonstrate weekly, protesting the use of the Star of David, the kippah, and the Israeli flag in trying to attract misinformed individuals from the former Soviet Union in search of a spiritual home.

False Advertising

Another incident involving messianic churches took place in both Montreal and Ottawa where they were advertising themselves in the Tele-Direct Yellow Pages under the heading of "synagogues". The League contacted Tele-Direct, cited a precedent in Toronto where a messianic church was removed from the "synagogue" listings in the Yellow Pages and explained that this was a case of false advertising. Tele-Direct initially was co-operative and agreed verbally to remove the churches from the "synagogue" category. However, the messianic churches flatly refused to be moved away from the "synagogue" category and Tele-Direct is trying to find a resolution that both the Jewish and messianic communities can accept before this issue winds up before the courts.

Pamphleteering by messianic and other missionizing organizations also increased in 1998. There was an upsurge in missionizing pamphlets being distributed at subway stops and in apartment buildings around Toronto. The two most commonly reported publications were the Messianic Times and an antisemitic flyer called the Last Call International, as described in the following section.

The Messianic Times

On the weekend of October 27, 1998 much to their dismay, many Jewish residents in Thornhill, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto with a large Jewish population, received a copy of the newspaper The Messianic Times, which calls itself "the world’s only international messianic Jewish newspaper". It is actually an international quarterly publication used by proselytizing organizations such as "Jews for Jesus" to convert Jews worldwide to their movement. The magazine’s founder, Zev Isaacs, has recently moved to the United States where it appears the newspaper is being published.

The front-page headlines of the Messianic Times featured Jewish issues such as Ethiopian Jews, the possible discovery of a lost tribe of Israel, Holocaust survivors returning to Poland, and Sukkot scriptures. Nowhere on the cover is Jesus mentioned. The Messianic Times is a very slick publication that uses the presentation of Jewish issues as a tactic to lure unsuspecting readers to its Christian content. Though documented as only one incident for purposes of the Audit, B’nai Brith received dozens of calls from members of Jewish communities who were outraged at being targets of the aggressive dissemination of this publication in their neighborhoods.

The Messianic Times is a tool used by so called "Hebrew Christian" groups to reach Jews. The problem with the publication is that it gives the illusion that it is somehow Jewish to believe in Jesus. The publication recently has been translated into Russian with the hopes of gaining unsuspecting converts from the former Soviet Union. However, as yet, no Russian translations of the paper have been found in Canada. This activity of specifically targeting the new Russian Jewish immigrant community is particularly insidious. Many Jews from the former Soviet Union lack concrete Jewish education that was prohibited during the Communist era, and they are ill-prepared to counter the arguments and appeal of the missionaries, particularly those disguising themselves as practising Jews.

The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada and Jews for Judaism have received many complaints about the Messianic Times and similar publications. However, because the distributors are not in violation of the law, the efforts of Jewish organizations must be focused on heightening awareness of messianic groups, their deceptive tactics and their intentions. “The Jewish Community must therefore exercise constant vigilance to educate ourselves about, and be aware of, the true nature of these organizations, and that is quite simply conversion away from our faith,” stated Toni Silberman, Chair of the Central Region, League for Human Rights.

The Last Call International

The second major pamphleteering in 1998 involved an antisemitic flyer called The Last Call International. Police collaborated with B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights in searching for the people responsible for distributing it. The League received approximately twenty complaints from Jewish residents living in Toronto, on Bathurst Street between Finch and Wilson, an area with a large Jewish population and a significant number of Russian Jews. Those targeted were outraged by the hate mail that was placed solely under identifiably Jewish doors with Mezzuzahs on the doorposts. The perpetrators seemed to be working at night and working their way down Bathurst Street and adjoining Jewish neighborhoods. It should be noted that although these were also discreet complaints, such pamphleteering is counted as only one incident, unless apparent at sporadic times and in different neighborhoods or regions.

What started off as one complaint at the League quickly mushroomed. The pamphlet was distributed in a senior citizens home with primarily Jewish residents, some of whom were Holocaust survivors. The Last Call International states that the Holocaust will happen again if the Jews do not repent: “A mighty persecution is coming again, Jews are going to be taken into Concentration Camps...God is showing these things before it happens so we can turn up to him and repent...” reads the unsolicited message.

It is unclear what the last The Last Call International writers want the Jewish community to repent for. The pamphlet’s name seems to be taken from the New Testament’s Book of Joel . Joel 2:1 is written in the right hand corner of the pamphlet in small letters indicating that the author is probably a Christian or a messianic Jew. However, nowhere in the pamphlet is "Jesus" or "being born again" mentioned. Jews for Judaism, a counter missionizing organization, was extremely helpful in supplying B’nai Brith with information and a possible P.O. Box for the culprit which we then passed on to the police. The League has asked anyone with information about The Last Call International to phone the police or B’nai Brith at the League’s anti-hate hotline, 1-800-892-BNAI.

Chosen People Ministries

As the year came to a close, a full-page ad by the Chosen People Ministries appeared in the December 21, 1998 issue of the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s national newspapers. B’nai Brith Canada lodged a formal complaint with the newspaper, urging it to institute a policy of not accepting advertisements from proselytizing organizations in keeping with guidelines evident in some other mainstream publications. In a letter to the Globe’s National Advertising Manager, B’nai Brith Canada’s Executive Vice President stated the following:

“That it is ‘reasonable to be Jewish and believe in Jesus?’ as the ad states, is a misnomer. The acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah is a fundamental difference between the Jewish and Christian faiths. As a result, the ad is deceptive and misleading as it seeks to proselytize members of the Jewish faith. The Jewish community has always been a small minority in the world’s population. This ad seeks to further diminish the Jewish population by trying to draw Jews away from their faith, singling out one particular group for conversion and comparing one faith unfavorably with another. Furthermore the ad’s request that readers identify themselves as either Jew or Gentile when ordering a book is repugnant.”

“While we understand the value of free press and the basic right to free expression these freedoms are not absolute in our society. A newspaper screens its letters to the editor and has a right to refuse advertisements that it deems offensive. Other publications have adopted policies that forbid the printing of such ads by proselytizing organizations as the Chosen People Ministries. We urgently request that the Globe and Mail adopt a similar policy to safeguard against further incidents of this nature occurring in the future. It is most unfortunate that this ad ran at this time of year. This ad is not in the sprit of the Canadian multicultural holiday season that we look forward to every year.”

The Chosen People Ministries have escalated the struggle by applying in the fall of 1998 to register the menorah as their trademark, claiming they have used it since 1988. Both the Canadian Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith Canada (the latter of which has used the menorah as its logo since 1875 in Canada) have filed an objection with Revenue Canada. Education and vigilance seem to be the best way of combatting proselytizing. Teaching and informing people that it is not Jewish to believe in Jesus, and explaining that there are some Christian churches who are out to deceive the Jewish community by posting signs in Hebrew and calling themselves synagogues, are important first steps.