Called to Controversy
Page 25
That is also why Moishe eventually embraced the slogan “Jews for Jesus” after originally dismissing it as too unsophisticated. When people used the phrase to try to dismiss the group, saying, “You can’t be Jews for Jesus,” Moishe realized the slogan was invaluable and had it copyrighted. No other phrase and no other name brought the issue to the forefront so succinctly.
The Jews for Jesus project presented a creative and determined band of obviously Jewish people who not only raised the image of Jesus as a Jew, but also insisted that there was absolutely nothing un-Jewish about embracing him as the promised Messiah. Jews for Jesus challenged the cardinal “rule” that being Jewish and Christian are mutually exclusive. That challenge was (and is) seen as a threat to Jewish identity and survival.
Suddenly, the Jewish community felt it had a war on its hands, and it was mostly a war of words. Many Jewish newspapers labeled Jews for Jesus a cult and warned parents about soul-snatching missionaries. Ironically, Moishe had made it very clear that no one was to approach a minor with the gospel or make a nuisance of himself or herself when offering the message.
None of the unfounded accusations came as a shock to Moishe. His response was to educate people about what constituted a cult, the characteristics of cult leaders, and the dynamics of brainwashing.*
He never desired to antagonize the Jewish community, but he recognized that anything that made Jesus an issue to Jewish people would be considered antagonistic. He therefore did his best to prepare the group to take the heat. He continued to adapt some of the revolutionary tactics of the antiwar movement to suit the group’s purposes.
Moishe said, “I learned something from my father. He used to say, ‘Either people threaten or they strike.’” Jews for Jesus did take its share of “strikes.” A bullet through the Corte Madera office window, for example, was cause for a police investigation.
Some of the strikes were predictable, as when Jews for Jesus showed up at an event to let people know that they were not going to be intimidated, despite the rumblings of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) about how they would “defend” the Jewish community from the missionaries. The only missionary “attack” was a handful of smiling people who, identified by their clothing as Jews for Jesus, might offer gospel tracts. The public was always free to refuse the literature, and no one was forced to talk to the pamphleteers. The “defense” the JDL spoke of seemed to consist mainly of attempts to scare off the Jews for Jesus and/or prevent Jewish people from seeing and interacting with them.
Some in the Jewish community recognized that the Jews for Jesus were interested in Jewish causes and were also some of the best volunteers when it came to a good rally or demonstration for causes like freeing Soviet Jewry. Susan Perlman recalled,
We had, as individuals, gone to different Jewish events—some attended local synagogues, some went to Hillel on the campuses. We were always marginalized and Moishe knew and accepted that. But that didn’t deter him and the rest of the tribe from wanting to identify and support the Jewish community.
I remember when the Munich Massacre happened; Steffi silk-screened red circles for the Olympic symbol onto black armbands. And we wore them, you know, as a badge of identification.
We had “Free Soviet Jewry” buttons; we worked with Hal Light, who headed up the early Soviet Jewry demonstrations in San Francisco that really were a precursor for the Jewish emigration out of the former Soviet Union.
Jews for Jesus lent a strong presence to several Bay Area demonstrations, and they came without the Jews for Jesus T-shirts and jackets because that would have been counterproductive to bringing attention to the plight of Soviet Jews. But some of the organizers and community leaders knew Moishe—had actually met with him—and appreciated him and the group, though they could never publicly acknowledge it.
While opposition was mounting, Moishe sensed that something even bigger was about to happen, but he did not know what. In January 1973, in a staff meeting—though most of the “staff” were volunteers—he asked the group to make a commitment to one another to keep working together for the next eighteen months, whatever might happen. And they did. No one, not even Moishe, realized how vital that commitment would soon prove to be.
Meanwhile, the ABMJ home office in New York was not particularly pleased about the publicity. After all, who was to say that some of their Christian constituents might not believe the accusations against the Jews for Jesus? Daniel Fuchs had been happy about much of what Moishe was accomplishing, but he also had concerns. As previously mentioned, somebody within the mission had sowed seeds of suspicion regarding Moishe’s supposed aspirations to take over the mission. Moishe found this ridiculous because, as he put it, “The fact of the matter is, the second man in charge has the most fun. I never wanted to be the top man, because the top man has to be a figurehead, has to go around, has to nod politely and be seen in the right places and affirm everything and be a diplomat. The second man usually gets to plan and lead operations, and that’s the position that I liked.”
Nevertheless Daniel had, for a time, spoken to Moishe about becoming his successor. Apparently now he feared that Moishe was eager to see that come about sooner rather than later. The truth was, even though Moishe did not covet the position of top executive, he wanted the freedom to do everything as he saw fit. When the home office refused to sanction some of his plans, Moishe complained and didn’t think until years later how some of his behavior must have come across to his boss.
Moishe did recall an issue that seemed to bring his relationship with the ABMJ to a crisis point, though he later saw that there had been much more leading up to it:
A woman from Pacific Grove called our office. She had heard about what we were doing in the Bay Area and wanted to help with a significant donation. . . .
At that time, we needed a house [not for the Rosen family but for some of the volunteers]. We had been using the parsonage at the Baptist Church in Mill Valley, but they called a new pastor who needed the rooms for his family. The amount this lady wanted to give would have met that need. But we had a procedure that was proper. . . . That was, we referred generous donors who had inquiries to our headquarters in New York. It was Daniel Fuchs’ purview to decide how to spend such a large gift. Well, he decided it would be better spent elsewhere. And actually, I think the project he used it for was a good project. The point was, the woman seemed amenable to helping us first, and, in a sense, I felt she got talked out of it.
That was within Daniel’s rights. But I grumbled about it. He felt that I was rebellious. We spoke on the phone during a trip I had taken to the Toronto branch of the ABMJ. He said, “Really, the way things are working out, you’re the kind of person that has to be in charge,” which I felt was not true. I just wanted the things that I wanted to do to happen, that’s all. And I argued that I had just completed something like seventeen years of working under him, which didn’t seem too persuasive to him at the moment. He said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave the mission, but we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
I wanted to be able to see Daniel’s face when we talked because I’ve never been able to measure what is happening by someone’s voice alone. That was fine with Daniel. “You’re scheduled to be in New York to speak at the Summer’s End conference,” he said. “We’ll discuss it further then.”
It was July 1973. Now, you’ve got to appreciate that it had been a decade since I’d seen anybody dismissed for anything less than personal immorality. I was in shock—I never expected to be fired.
There was a whole lot more to this [dismissal] than the one incident. Some of it involved our music group, the Liberated Wailing Wall. It seemed like everything I proposed was seen as an attempt to put myself in the leadership position. The fact of the matter is, I’ve always regarded leadership as a nuisance. I didn’t particularly like the responsibility.
Let it not be said that Moishe ever felt he was victimized or blameless in the matter of his dismissal. After the initial shock, he co
uld see that Daniel was right to fire him because as he later explained,
I was difficult to manage. I would be with the ABMJ today if I had practiced the kind of humility that I believe in. But I was arrogant. First, I boasted a lot about the Jews for Jesus project. I thought it had been handed to me by God himself, and I believed I was boasting about what God was doing, not what I was doing. But there was a certain arrogance that went along with it that I didn’t see in myself.
The second thing was, I had come to the point where I knew more about Jewish evangelism than anybody else, and I didn’t hesitate to say it. I did not treat him [Daniel] with the proper respect. I was a hot item, and when people called to interview me, I should have deferred to him. My attitude was that he didn’t know how to do it and it was better for the cause if I did it. . . .
The third thing is that I presumed on my relationship with the American Board. I came to New York in 1967 with a romanticized view of the mission and reality. When I found things weren’t exactly as I’d thought they should be, I didn’t take the time to build and affirm relationships, particularly with Daniel, that I should have. I didn’t maintain what had been a good friendship and fellowship. And when I moved to California, I thought that the mission ought to continue supporting me because I was doing these terrific things and they were gaining from the work that I was doing. But my standards and their standards were very different, and I didn’t shrink from letting people know that I felt my standards were correct.
Another factor was Moishe’s struggle with understanding the nature of authority. Before he came to New York, he imagined the proper response to authority was a “Yes, sir” salute and do-what-you’re-told compliance. He said,
When I found out that things were far more flexible than that, and that every decision involved right and wrong and standards, I started getting confused. And I suppose that my confusion was part of a battle between the ideal and the real, and how to reconcile the two, since I could not make the real live up to the ideal. I’m not saying that I always lived up to my own ideals. But it was a struggle because I felt that if I ever gave up my ideals, I’d be in profound trouble.
Part of Moishe’s struggle had to do with a public face that seemed to be expected of him. The nature of that public face was to express more affirmation and enthusiasm than Moishe was comfortable expressing. He explained,
Daniel was filled with praise for the staff, and he would talk publicly about the great dedication and all the wonderful work that was being done. But when we were alone, privately he would express reservations. I know that he would have liked it if I had been the same kind of person, praising the staff and the organization publicly. But I didn’t raise my kids with too much praise, and I didn’t treat anybody else with too much praise. And if somebody would start repeating these praises, if I didn’t think they were justified, I would start contradicting by saying what I knew to be true. He would rather that I kept my mouth shut.
Ceil reflected,
I don’t think he [Moishe] expected to be fired and I certainly didn’t expect him to be fired. I remember that he was shocked, but not angry. He said Daniel was probably right to fire him. He knew that he had too many ideas that didn’t go along with where the mission was heading. And he was very outspoken and openly critical of things he disagreed with.
After they fired him, he was ready to be a salesman or go do anything he needed to put food on the table and he would hand out tracts and talk to people in his spare time if he had to. He just knew that he had to continue preaching the gospel, and if the ABMJ wouldn’t support him, he would find another way.
Did Moishe regret the time that he spent with the ABMJ? He said,
No, because they were the best mission out there . . . their ideals were the basis for my own ideals.
I do regret that I didn’t take the time to avail myself of some of the great men who were part of the staff. Just to sit and listen to them, to apply myself to them. I feel that I could have, number one, learned a lot; number two, been blessed by their experiences. But I was so eager to get experience on my own that I went off on my own too quickly, too early to try things.
As shocked as Moishe was by the dismissal, he had already begun to form a somewhat separate identity from the ABMJ. In old correspondence, some of his letters to supporters talked about the ABMJ “allowing us” or “helping us”—delineating “us” (the Jews for Jesus project) from the rest of the mission. He presented the mission as the sponsor of Jews for Jesus. Moishe was trying things that no one else in the organization was doing, and in that sense, Jews for Jesus had been sanctioned as something that was separate from the rest of the ABMJ. In hindsight, it is difficult to see how either Daniel or Moishe could have overlooked the ramifications of that separation and how eventually it would become untenable for Jews for Jesus to remain part of the ABMJ.
While he never saw himself as being disloyal to the mission, Moishe later stated, “My first loyalty was always to those I ministered to and those I ministered with.” But he’d had to remove himself as far as possible from mission headquarters in order to minister to and with those he felt he was supposed to reach. The success of the Jews for Jesus project could not have led to anything other than an eventual parting of the ways.
When asked to identify his greatest success and failure during his years with the ABMJ, Moishe replied,
My greatest success and my worst failure was the same thing; it was the Jews for Jesus project. It was the greatest success inasmuch as I discipled more people, mobilized more people, and got out the [gospel] more than at any other time I served with the mission. But it was the greatest failure because all of this “more” served to disconnect me from the ABMJ.
Daniel had prepared Moishe for the dismissal by phone, but made it official and worked out the details of the severance in person. Moishe recalled, “He wasn’t unkind; he let me keep one of the cars and saw that we were paid through the end of November. He’d initially told me in July, so he gave plenty of time to find a means of support.”
In parting, Daniel Fuchs reiterated that he was doing Moishe the biggest favor of his life and that one day Moishe would tell him so. Neither of them realized just how soon that day would come.
* Moishe said that he had experienced a “rush” from the crowd’s response to him and had realized that it would not be healthy for him to indulge in that feeling. The influence that Moishe sought was always one of individual reasoning; he found the idea of sweeping large crowds into a fervor frightening and repulsive.
* Years later a former employee interviewed for an article that appeared in the March 2010 edition of Charisma magazine reminisced about a leadership meeting in which Moishe joked about one such article, saying, “If we’re a cult, how come I can’t get you guys to do what I want you to do?”
PART THREE
Challenging the Status Quo
TWENTY-FOUR
Don’t let your friends happen to you; don’t let life happen to you; don’t let things happen to you. Make the kind of friends and the kind of life that you believe you ought to have.
—MOISHE ROSEN
Moishe pulled up to Susan Perlman’s apartment in the oversized red Dodge Polara that the ABMJ had allowed him to keep after his dismissal. Susan, looking very much the fresh young professional in her suit and high heels was outside waiting. As usual, the bench seat of the “the boat” (as Moishe’s family called the big sedan) was pushed all the way back to accommodate his height and girth. Susan clambered in, bracing herself for the arctic blast. Regardless of the outside temperature Moishe generally kept the air conditioning on full force because he was easily overheated. When he was overheated he tended to grow logy, and today’s visit to the JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Council) demanded nimble, clear thought.
He considered telling Susan his entire plan, then decided, No, it’ ll just give her more time to be nervous if I tell her the details—but I do need to tell her enough to be able to count on her help.
“These guys are claiming to defend the Jewish people by making aggressive attacks on peaceful citizens,” Moishe had said in his first call to the JCRC, “and their behavior reflects poorly on the Jewish community. I don’t expect you to agree with our message, but I think you’d agree that their tactics don’t represent the values of most Jews in the community, or how we want to be viewed by non-Jews. If you tell the JDL that this is not the right way to deal with things, I believe they’ll listen.”
The JCRC had little to say in response, but the head of the local organization did agree to a meeting. After thinking through the various people he could bring along, Moishe had decided to ask Susan. She appeared younger than her age—and few would guess the kind of mettle that lay beneath that doe eyed, sweet exterior.
“Should I come in colors* or regular street clothes?” Susan had asked.
“Neither,” Moishe had replied. “A suit. Cognitive dissonance, remember? They have us pigeon holed with that hippie street image. Anyway, we want them to see by how we dress that we are showing respect.”
Now as Moishe pulled away from the curb, he phrased his words very carefully. His speech still gave way to an occasional stammer. “Uh Susan, we might not have another opportunity to get our point across to this group. So during this meeting, I’m going to ask something of you that is hard for me, and it will be hard for you. It’s something I’d rather not ask, but I need your help for the sake of the whole group. Do you trust me?”