frum jew in baltimore revealed as a christian missionary

[whYME]

I don't have time to elaborate but I must be Mocheh on your statement regarding irreligious Jews

Read again. I was referring to secular non-Jews.

I made the same mistake as him.

[PlatinumGuy]

+1.
I'm not mekabal that people are dumb enough to have non menushal wine at a kiddush, which is open to the public. There are plenty of non-frum Jews or people who aren't Jewish at all (on the path to Geirus) in the community that it makes no sense.

And if someone is dumb enough to have non-mevushal wine by a public event, hes a shoita and patur from mitzvos.

-1

[CountValentine]

You're very welcome.
We feel targeted probably because of the large amount of missionaries at work in Israel. They must very well know whom they are trying to convert. But we have no issue with missionaries working with secular non-Jews. On the contrary - we believe that it is actually a favor they are doing them by getting them to believe in God.

Was not aware this is a big problem in Israel. So it is not just your occasional Jehovah Witness coming knocking on your door? What religion/denomination is seen the most trying to convert?

[CountValentine]

Missionary work  to us is like having someone try to influence a family member to cut off ties with you - quite infuriating, wouldn't you agree?

If you look at it that way then yes I agree with you. The problem is I have no problem with someone trying to convert me or my grown children. If they want to test our faith, have at it.

[Satmar Lady]

Was not aware this is a big problem in Israel. So it is not just your occasional Jehovah Witness coming knocking on your door? What religion/denomination is seen the most trying to convert?

I haven't really researched the topic but missionaries in Israel are constantly in the news. I only know of the CMJ - the Church's Ministry among Jews, which is an Anglican society and is very active in Jerusalem. I've also seen pictures of Mormon missionary literature left at the Western Wall.

[CountValentine]

No Roman Catholic? I guess I am of the hook. 

[Satmar Lady]

If you look at it that way then yes I agree with you. The problem is I have no problem with someone trying to convert me or my grown children. If they want to test our faith, have at it.

This is where we are unique as a religion, since we are also an ethnic group. If a Jew leaves embraces a new religion, they essentially cease to identify themselves with our people. Intermarriage is almost inevitable for them or their descendants, and they will be lost to the Jewish nation.
Now if missionaries would target a strong-minded, deeply religious adult like you and your grown children probably are, it wouldn't bother me either. It is the weak and the children that are our concern.

[Satmar Lady]

I should add that in Israel the missionaries are known to specifically target immigrant Jews from countries where they were afraid to teach Judaism in the open (former USSR, Arab countries), or had limited access to the broader Jewish community. These less knowledgeable Jews are easy prey, and I think you can understand the outrage this causes and as a result, the extreme sensitivity we have towards missionaries.

[henche]

I guess getting a serious answer is out of the question.

Dude, you clearly know nothing from nothing. 

[Satmar Lady]

Oh, and how did I forget the missions in recent years here in NY, in the heart of our communities with large families of young children? Sorry, I do not recall the religion they were from. In Brooklyn they set up shop in the Williamsburg section, among tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews. In upstate NY some missionaries mailed out to every Jewish household a DVD promoting belief in Jesus, sent in an envelope without an inside address, with a message printed on the front in Yiddish: Open it, you'll find it interesting!
I hope you can see what makes us so wary of missionaries. We leave them and their children alone, why can't they just do the same?

[CountValentine]

Dude, you clearly know nothing from nothing.

Sorry I thought your answer was to a "reparations for slavery" question I did not ask. 

[Freddie]

Another thing you need to consider if you are to understand why the very concept of a missionary is loathsome to Jews is that historically the Church specifically targeted Jews for conversion more than any other group. The need to convert the Jews was considered a foundation of theology and the resistance of Jews to conversion was taken as a very specific affront which I don't need to spell out for anybody.

Yes, if you go back far enough, you find that at one time or another, every group has been missionized by the Church, even the Irish and the Poles. But no group has been as persistently targeted of the centuries as the Jews.

[CountValentine]

I hope you can see what makes us so wary of missionaries. We leave them and their children alone, why can't they just do the same?

Maybe they actually believe they are helping the ones that convert.

[aygart]

@SL – TY, @Churn – you can make your valid point without the hyperbole.

Not sure why most here feel Jews are being targeted. I get people coming to my door all the time from different religions. They have no idea if I or my neighbors are Jewish.

I know Judaism is not about converting others to it. What is so wrong for another religion trying to get some to convert to their religion? We all feel the religion we follow is the one and only true religion. Wouldn’t everyone be better off if they followed what one believes is the true religion.

Maybe they actually believe they are helping the ones that convert.

...and what is the big deal if he was?

I will let you answer that yourself. Would people not consider it to be an issue if someone in a Catholic church was trying to convert members to Islam?

I think we went in a circle

[CountValentine]

I think we went in a circle

Since I am dizzy I will have to agree. 

[Satmar Lady]

Maybe they actually believe they are helping the ones that convert.

Helping one person while hurting an entire community? It really hurts us all in a very personal way when we hear that we lost one of our brethren to missionaries.

[CountValentine]

Helping one person while hurting an entire community? It really hurts us all in a very personal way when we hear that we lost one of our brethren to missionaries.

Would it be fair to say when anyone converts to another religion (for whatever reason) in your community you would feel the same way?

[Menachem613]

Sorry I thought your answer was to a "reparations for slavery" question I did not ask. 

[Satmar Lady]

Would it be fair to say when anyone converts to another religion (for whatever reason) in your community you would feel the same way?

Yes. But in such a case, they would believe they will be losing out in their own personal life if they don't convert. This is understandable, but missionaries don't have to make such a sacrifice in order to refrain from hurting us.

[Freddie]

CV thinks that Jews bashing missionaries is like African-Americans asking for slavery reparations. IOW, it's a victim mentality based on old history that we should have gotten over already. I'll have to say this: when friends who are African-American talk about how they hate and fear police, I have to conclude that either a) they are crazy, paranoid wackos, b) they are willfully exaggerating if not lying, or c) that I just cannot relate since my experience is radically different than theirs. When I was younger, I did a lot of A and B. After I grew up some, I realized that the truth was mostly C.

Maybe this is similar.