Scope of the problem
Since its founding twenty-five years ago, the environment surrounding Jews for Judaism has dramatically changed. The time was ripe to embark upon a comprehensive planning process both to assess and reflect upon the organization’s accomplishments to-date, and to position Jews for Judaism to maximize its future impact. Following is an overview of the changes and trends Jews for Judaism considered in developing, and will remain mindful of in implementing this Strategic Plan.
Thanks to the Strategic Plan, a few new trends of missionary proselytizing were discovered:
High school and particularly college students are the primary targets of the new proselytizing efforts. A Jews for Judaism survey of more than 2500 Jewish students from all denominations in the Greater Los Angeles area found that 68% of teens and 85% of college students had been approached by someone who tried to share another religion with them. In fact, these numbers are probably on the low side since missionaries have been trained to disguise their early efforts as simple gestures of friendship: In a recent letter to their supporters, Chosen People Ministries (one of the largest Christian missionary organizations in the world that specifically targets the Jewish community), explained how their staff was using an “undercover” approach to “make meaningful contact” with Jewish people and “witness to them indirectly.” Respondents to Jews for Judaism’s on-line survey conveyed that they are most often approached “at a random place,” at home via door-to-door solicitation and at school.
The messianic method of proselytizing is particularly effective with adolescents who are already struggling with questions about values, directions in life and spirituality – and who have not yet found answers to their spiritual needs or a sense of community in Judaism. This method also is very effective with youth who are only tangentially involved with the Jewish community (note that 47% of Jewish college students have one parent who is not Jewish, and 67% think it is unimportant to date someone Jewish). Missionaries use deception and manipulation to create confusion and then suggest that the answer to that confusion can be found by believing in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Their young targets typically lack the Jewish background and critical thinking skills to recognize the duplicity of the missionary arguments and resist the peer pressure from people they’ve come to think of as friends.
It is this very peer pressure that is making this new wave of proselytizing as effective as it is. Realizing that young people prefer to listen to young people, the Christian Evangelical movement is investing millions of dollars annually on Peer-to-Peer training. They provide simple step-by-step instructions in the process, likening it to a fishing cycle (“focus/hook/follow-through”) or to another models that is easily understood by their trainees (some of whom are as young as six years old). They offer campus clubs and even summer camp trips to reward the best “trainers,” and they support them with videos, concerts, workshops, one-on-one mentoring programs, books and print materials. These deceptive missionaries send their trainees out to talk to millions of our youth (“Schools are mission fields”) and succeed far too many times.
This shift from the use of professional missionaries to broader peer-driven proselytizing includes:
- The Evangelical movement numbering 75 million, actively promotes peer-to-peer proselytizing especially on high school and college campuses. A sophisticated example is the website CampusRevolution.com
- Evangelicals team up with Messianics to utilize the Jews for Jesus model of presenting Christianity in the guise of authentic Judaism
- Use of new web based technology – such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and the iPod – creating a virtual on-line community that reaches into our homes and students dormitory rooms. Jews of all denominations and affiliation levels are part on the virtual community.
