Plans by a group that melds Judaism with evangelical Christian beliefs to open a new religious center in heavily Orthodox Jewish Flatbush has some residents hopping mad.
Jewish Leaders Angry Over Messianic Outpost
Plans by a group that melds Judaism with evangelical Christian beliefs to open a new religious center in heavily Orthodox Jewish Flatbush has some residents hopping mad.
Chosen People Ministries, which calls itself a Messianic Jewish organization, purchased a former Jewish funeral home on Coney Island Ave. for $2.1 million earlier this year.
By the spring, the 11,000-square-foot building and its 150-seat sanctuary will host Jewish-style Christian worship services and a theological training program linked to a Christian evangelical seminary.
Local Jewish leaders and residents fear the center would give the group a stronghold from which it could proselytize in the Orthodox community.
“We wouldn’t put up a booth in Vatican City and try to convert the Christians to our religion,” said Eli Horowitz, a schoolteacher who lives near the future site of the Brooklyn Messianic Center. “I find it offensive.”
The Manhattan-based group already has a small outpost in the neighborhood, where it mainly serves the area’s Russian Jews.
Chosen People president Mitch Glaser said it plans to hold English language classes and drug and alcohol abuse counseling at the new location, and will add English-language services to its current Russian ones.
He denied, though, that the group was looking to convert Orthodox Jews in particular.
“It’s not Crown Heights. It’s not Borough Park. It’s not even the heart of Midwood. … It just happened that this was a good spot for us,” Glaser said. “Do I want our fellow Jewish people to have an opportunity to learn about [Jesus] and even believe he’s the Messiah? I would say, unequivocally, yes.”
For some in the neighborhood, that is precisely the issue.
“Peace, love and all that, but these people are here to convert us,” said Delavar Omidfar, 23, a student who lives near the center’s future site. “They’re going to target the weak and try and make inroads. It’s distasteful.”
Some Jewish leaders said they take particular issue with the group because it is what Glaser calls “a very Jewish version” of evangelical Christianity.
“It’s Christianity with a Jewish veneer. We have a problem with that because that’s actively deceitful,” said Jewish activist and Flatbush resident Michael Verschleisser, who lives in Flatbush. “There’s a lot that they want to do with that place, but ultimately the goal is evangelism.”
old ohlie torah boy
i thought this was a tzfati place , oh well
mendel
as it says in tehillim chapter 104 “yitamu kol chataim min ha’aretz…” let all sin end from the world, and no more wicked p. are left.
The good side.
At least their not as violent as the tzfatim!
what the?
to #1 – oh man you cant even spell your schools name right… hashem yishmor!
esther
anyone who could be so foolish as to compare this to anything to do even remotely to us,and in writting nuch,is just plain dumb.
Yaakov E.
Maybe they can join up with messianic lubavitch?
Yaakov E.
WHat the .....
let them all burn in Geheinom!!!!!!!
cc
there are other ones around too.
got to do outreach to teach them Torat Emet.
Uncle Mendel
I would open a Chabad House up next door.
Arlans would give a little Gelt to help open it.
Tamar
To Aakov E. I misspeled your name purposly. It is too holy for you if you would compare them to lubaviches. Shame on you
and may Hashem forgive you for your stupid deeds.
Israel Seldowitz
I think that old ohlie torah boy’s comment to compare christian missionary jews for yoshkie to an old tzafati practice shows the sick self-hatred of anti-mashiach fake anti lubavitchers.
the rebbe would frown at him.
after he does teshuva, the rebbe would have naches from him.
but now he’s a sickie, worst that the worst zfatie.
Israel Seldowitz
old ohlie torah boy can join yaakov e in their foolishness.
to 1
grow up!!!!!!!
Israel Seldowitz
We can be very pround to be Lubavitchers, and more than proud of the achievements of the shluchim around the world.
People dress as Lubavitcher (as the Previous Rebbe writes in Likkutei Diburim) and engage in infighting (“tzvatie this, or anti-that) miss the point of why one is Lubavitch.
Jews for J is a real pain.
Infighting Lubavs or frumies are worst that those at which they swing. Growing up is to be not like them.
how dare they
Chutzpa
emes
Give them a hat and a beard, get them to keep mitzvos and cholov yisroel and then they can go run 770.
disgusted
all you who are comparing these guys to lubavitchers are sick in the head and its because of people like you that jews for j has the ability to open around here