Rochelle Wilner President	Frank Dimant Chief Executive Officer	Prof. Stephen Scheinberg National Chair

1999 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents

Conversion Craze — Millennium Madness?

Messianic organizations posing as "synagogues" present an ongoing problem. Efforts by these organizations to convert Jews seem to have increased in 1999. It is the belief of most of these churches that the Second Coming of Christ is reliant on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. The turn of the millennium brought a subsequent focus by some more extreme groups on end of the world scenarios. This "millennium madness" created an increased urgency for these groups to convert as many Jews as possible. Judging by the furor that these increased efforts created, most Jews saw through the trickery and misleading advertisements and claims that messianic organizations generally use to bring people into their fold. Some Jews, however, seem to have been caught up in their rhetoric.

In Toronto, the messianic organizations used a number of different tactics to encourage conversion. One group, the Chosen Peoples Ministries, even went so far as to co-opt the menorah as a trademark, a known symbol of the Jewish people since biblical times and used as a symbol by B’nai Brith Canada for more than 150 years. Besides the offices of groups such as the Chosen People Ministries displaying Jewish symbols and their churches being advertised as synagogues, some groups did targeted mailings to "spread the word". A number of Doctor’s offices across the Greater Toronto Area received lengthy scripts for a play promoting the messianic church movement. This play depicts the journey of one young man through his birth as a Jew and his subsequent embracing of Jesus as his saviour.

The propagandist "newspaper" the Messianic Times was widely circulated through many predominately Jewish neighbourhoods in Toronto. The publisher, using the Canadian unaddressed admail system, targeted areas by postal code, resulting in their largest and most spread out circulation to date. Particularly offensive about this distribution was the pre-Hannukah timing and the packaging (blue wrapper with a Jewish star sticker on it) which made it appear to be a holiday gift.

Also in Toronto, the death of a prominent minister in the messianic church movement during the summer illustrated just how far these groups will go to be recognized as both Jewish and Christian. The minister, Malvern Jacobs, though born Jewish, had later been baptized and ordained a Christian minister. Despite this, his family attempted to have him buried in a north Toronto Jewish Cemetery. The cemetery, with the agreement of both major rabbinical associations in Toronto, barred entrance to the funeral procession. A spokesman for the two rabbinical associations said “Someone who has publicly eschewed the tenets of Judaism and has made it his life’s work to proselytize Jews to Christianity has placed himself outside of the Jewish community and has thereby forfeited the right to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”

Messianic churches or "Hebrew Christian" groups, as they refer to themselves, are also present in other areas of Canada. In Calgary, Alberta there is a messianic congregation who advertised themselves as “Loyal to Jewish heritage and True to New Covenant Faith”. They are active in conversion activities.

TABLE OF CONTENTS | INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW | DEFINITIONS AND DATA COLLECTION | SUMMARY OF DATA
ANTISEMITISM IN CANADA — REGIONAL CLIMATE AND TRENDS | HATE IN CANADA: AN OVERVIEW
ANTISEMITIC BIAS AND SYSTEMIC DISCRIMINATION | CONVERSION CRAZE — MILLENNIUM MADNESS?
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ANTISEMITISM AND HATE | APPENDIX A: The Jewish Community in Canada — A Brief Overview
Table 1: NATURE OF ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS BY YEAR | Table 2: GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF INCIDENTS
Figure 1: Nature of Antisemitic Incidents by Year | Figure 2: Three Year Average of Incidents | Figure 3: Antisemitic Incidents by Region