Called to Controversy

by Ruth Rosen

  “Yeah, I trust you Moishe,” Susan replied. She didn’t say it lightly. She might look young for her age, but she was no pushover.

  They arrived at their destination and Moishe stood before the group to receive a brief introduction. It was not a large group, and he was close enough to make eye contact with each person.

  First he outlined the recurring incidents as he had already done over the phone, and reiterated that this was not a Jewish way of handling disputes. “Up until now, we haven’t talked to the media about the kinds of physical opposition we’ve been facing,” he added. “As Jews, we don’t want the public to judge the Jewish community by these roughnecks any more than you do.” Some of the members exchanged glances. Was this a veiled threat? Would Moishe go to the media if they were unwilling to help? Pausing for a few moments, Moishe thought, Let them wonder.

  “We’ve come to you because these guys will listen to you in a way that they won’t listen to us—and I uh, I hope you’ll agree that it’s in everyone’s best interest for them to listen. So here’s the message I’m asking you to get across. Violence is not the answer. Our people are trained to handle it. They will not run from it.”

  Moishe paused again and took a deep breath. “I’d like to show you something that I—uh—think will carry more weight than I can convey in words.”

  And then he said, “Susan, would you come here?”

  Susan’s high heels clicked across the hardwood floor as she joined Moishe in front of the group. “Susan,” Moishe said, “would you allow me to slap you to demonstrate something for these people?”

  “Yes.” Susan responded without hesitation.

  Moishe extended his right arm as far back as it would reach, and with his hand open, he took a powerful swing at the pretty young face before him.

  As the group let out a huge corporate gasp, Susan was knocked off her feet and literally slid across the floor. Taking only a brief moment to compose herself, she picked herself up, straightened her suit, and smiled. Half her face was beet red, but her smile was just as bright, as she said, “It’s okay, Moishe.” Moishe swallowed hard. Then he turned to the group and said in a measured tone, “All of our people are like that. They’re not going to be deterred. I hope that we can count on you to get the word out.”

  Moishe wished it could have been one of the guys—but he’d thought it through and knew it would do no good to choose someone with a tougher exterior. If the opposition heard that someone they might see as vulnerable could handle a blow like that, they could be pretty sure that the others would not respond to bullying, either.

  The local JDLers didn’t stop opposing Jews for Jesus, but soon after that meeting there was a marked decline in the level of harassment. It seemed clear to Moishe and the other Jews for Jesus that the JCRC had indeed passed along his message.

  Susan was able to help Moishe make his point, not only because she trusted him but also because she, like the rest of the group, had received training before converging on New York City for what was to become the first of their annual Summer Witnessing Campaigns.

  Everyone who wanted to participate in that campaign agreed to what was then referred to as “pain training.” During the training, each person received one hard slap across the face. In addition, Moishe gave a serious lecture about pain, fear, and depersonalizing the hostility that they might encounter.

  Once in New York, the group divided into smaller teams and passed out their gospel literature four times a day. In addition to these sorties and the specialized music and drama, Moishe encouraged the group to think outside the box with parades, processions, and colorful placards.

  Moishe never had a five-year plan or a ten-year plan for his life or for Jews for Jesus. He believed that Jesus might return at any time, and he treated each big opportunity as though it might be the last. He was thrilled to be leading a band of bright, creative people who would let all of New York City know that there were Jews who believed in Jesus. By that time there was a drama team, the New Jerusalem Players (NJP), as well as the music team, the Liberated Wailing Wall (LWW).

  Creativity and camaraderie were integral elements of the summer project. It was fun, but strenuous and demanding. All of them worked harder and longer than they ever thought possible. Standing for hours in oppressive summer heat produced sore muscles and blistered feet. As objects of spitting, swearing, and occasional slapping or shoving, the group experienced emotional fatigue. But Moishe was convinced that by God’s grace they could handle it. And they did. Moishe participated in many more such campaigns, but after the first one, he nearly always put someone else in charge.

  No longer under the auspices of the ABMJ, Moishe realized that while his primary goal was to further the gospel among Jewish people, he must also concern himself with training leaders so that the operation would be able to continue without him. He expected the others to recognize him as the primary leader, but more and more he began to see Jews for Jesus as a leadership cadre.

  That is not to say that the moment Moishe was fired by the ABMJ, he swung into action and formulated a myriad of plans. The underlying depression that had been his constant companion for years deepened. He became emotionally numb and for a time allowed himself to be moved along by others. Moishe recalled, “In the beginning, being on my own in ministry was really more responsibility than I thought I could handle. I liked being accountable to another person.”

  Once other missions heard that Moishe was a free agent, he received more than one employment opportunity—and the thought of working for another organization had its appeal. Yet Moishe did not consider himself a free agent because he was part of the covenant he’d asked the group to make just six months before he was fired. With a full year of the commitment remaining, Moishe explained to other mission leaders that unless their ministries could offer positions to the whole group, he did not feel at liberty to accept a position for himself.

  Moishe credited three people and one project with keeping him going during those difficult days. There is more about the project later in this chapter, but the people were Amy Rabinovitz, Susan Perlman, and Steffi Geiser. Moishe also credited his wife:

  I should mention . . . [Ceil]. She took a part-time job in a law office, and for several months, hers was the only paycheck that came in. When it came to . . . ethics, she encouraged me to do the highest good. For example, there was something that we needed for the house (I can’t remember what it was) but because we had so many guests, I said that we could have the ministry buy it. But she wouldn’t hear of it.

  While Moishe credited various women for “keeping him in line” and seeing to it that Jews for Jesus moved forward, he was very much aware that several men also had key roles in building Jews for Jesus into an organization, including Sam Nadler, Baruch Goldstein, Mitch Glaser, Jhan Moskowitz, Tuvya Zaretsky, and Stuart Dauermann. Moishe said, “We became a wonderful team and got a lot done in a short time.”

  In terms of the actual birthing of Jews for Jesus as an official nonprofit missionary organization, Moishe realized that he needed outside help, and he turned to Byron Spradlin, an energetic young Christian who was passionate about seeing the gospel proclaimed in creative ways. Byron, a musician and youth pastor, was affiliated with the Conservative Baptist Association, the denomination that had ordained Moishe. Byron was also a seminary student with a quick mind. Moishe asked him to help draw up the articles that would officially incorporate Jews for Jesus. Together they hammered out the details of the official documents at the Rosens’ dining room table. Byron agreed to serve as the chairman of the board of directors, a post he held for some three and a half decades.

  Moishe found that he had a new responsibility that weighed rather heavily on him. He needed to ask people to help support the organization. In the ABMJ, he and others had prided themselves on not asking their constituents for money. But now, unless he made the need known, there was no way that people would be able to help.

  Ceil recalled,

  I typed add
ressograph labels with names and addresses of personal friends, mostly from our Christmas card list. . . . Some were Gentile believers; some were Jewish believers who also had other ministries. We started with something like two hundred names. Moishe sent out a letter explaining that we were no longer under the auspices of the ABMJ, and we needed support. Our friends responded almost immediately. We not only received funds, but pastors donated reams of paper for our literature, and sent volunteer helpers from their congregations. We felt as though the Lord was certainly taking care of us.

  While Moishe hadn’t had much experience with ministry fund-raising, the business classes he had taken decades earlier as well as his retail experiences provided useful principles and insights. He said,

  One principle that I learned long before Jews for Jesus was “If you don’t have it, don’t spend it.” I’ve always been reluctant to buy things on credit.

  We say that we live by faith, but when we contract—take out a mortgage—we’re saying, in effect, that we have some knowledge that the donors are going to give this [certain amount], and I’ve never been comfortable with that. I feel that God has set a limit on the size of every organization and what he was going to provide by way of people, what he was going to provide by way of resources, what he was going to provide by way of a task to be done.

  I’ve never seen a ministry or a mission that I felt had a permanent destiny, even a local church. I feel there might be a need for a church in a place now, and that need might not exist at a future time. [In which case] I thought that an institution should be allowed to die a graceful death. But, as long as people had a pecuniary interest [in said institution], they would keep it going because it put food on the table. That sounds cynical but [it’s part of the reason] I didn’t want to build a super-big organization, and I didn’t want to incur debts.

  Although Jews for Jesus was the most visible and most publicized group of Jewish believers in Jesus, there were many other Jewish, Jesus-believing individuals and groups who were not affiliated with the missionary organization. Many recognized that Jews for Jesus had been a slogan before it was the name of an organization. Since the words described a movement of Jewish people who were following Jesus as the Messiah, they had no qualms about being called Jews for Jesus.

  Others, however, really chafed at being lumped together with the group of radical young missionaries. After all, many of the things said in the press about Jews for Jesus were untrue, even for those who were part of the organization. And many things that were accurate concerning the missionary organization were not necessarily applicable to all Jesus-believing Jews.

  It should be no surprise then that a number of those who wanted to remain distinct from Jews for Jesus had no great love for Moishe and his somewhat flamboyant, often controversial methodologies. Such people seemed to view him as personally responsible for the unwelcome assumption that they were part of “his group.”

  For the most part, Moishe showed no interest in alleviating those hostilities. Maybe he felt that whatever undesirable connotations others had to bear as a result of being associated with Jews for Jesus fell under Jesus’ teaching: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matt. 5:11). What was Jews for Jesus, other than a group of Jewish people drawing attention to the name and person of Jesus? And hadn’t Jesus predicted that this would bring false accusations? Moishe had little patience for any Jewish believer in Jesus who chafed at being called a “Jew for Jesus” because he saw it as a badge of honor (as did many who were not part of the organization). To him, anyone who saw it differently wasn’t seeing things straight. Of course, this frustrated and offended those who did see things differently.

  The very name Jews for Jesus seemed to be an affront to those who held the view that they should never say Jesus, but only say Yeshua, the Hebrew pronunciation of his name. They also refused to identify with any term that included the word Christian—in favor of messianic Jew.

  Reasons for emphasizing terminology were in part due to the need to reiterate the fact that belief in Jesus did not negate one’s Jewish identity. To that degree, Moishe was happy to use the terminology. He often talked about Yeshua (later Jews for Jesus chose to spell it Y’shua). However, he objected to the insistence that some terms be used exclusively and others rejected or disallowed as inappropriate.

  Moishe firmly believed that the only way to truly counter the visceral reaction that words like Jesus and Christian evoked in many Jewish people was for individuals to discover for themselves who Jesus really is, what he did and what he taught. Only then would people understand that Jesus was not responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews and that those who committed atrocities in his name were acting contrary to his teachings.

  Moishe understood that many chose not to describe themselves as Christians because being Jewish and Christian are commonly considered mutually exclusive. But he “refused to refuse” to allow his Jewish identity to separate him from Gentiles who were following the Jewish Messiah and who, as a result, loved the Jewish people. He made his feelings known both privately and publicly, which did not endear him to those who saw things differently. One can only imagine the chagrin of those who believed it necessary to say “Yeshua,” not “Jesus,” when they were continually referred to in the press as “Jews for Jesus.”

  The world of Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus)—as relatively small a world as it is—has its share of divisions, just as the larger communities of Jewish people who don’t believe in Jesus do. Within the world of Jewish believers in Jesus, Moishe did not see himself as either the cause or the potential solution to these divisions. Some, no doubt, would disagree.

  In any case, it is not unusual for people of influence who see things differently from one another to butt heads. That certainly seemed to be the case with Moishe and certain other influential people in the movement of Jewish believers. Yet he was also an encourager and supporter of many in the movement and was quick to recognize the talents of others, including the music group Lamb. Accordingly, when Moishe was invited to speak at the Chicagoland Messianic Rally, he let the rally organizers know that he thought a concert by a music team called Lamb would enhance the program and that he would like them to share the platform and sing before he got up to speak. Further, he respected the group’s abilities enough to employ their help in producing the first Liberated Wailing Wall album. (The album was the project noted earlier that helped lift Moishe out of his depression.)

  Moishe felt that the Liberated Wailing Wall (a mobile evangelistic music team) was one of the most valuable assets that Jews for Jesus had brought to the ABMJ while the group was still under their auspices. Most of the team’s songs were written by Stuart Dauermann, though many others in the group contributed music and lyrics. Because Fiddler on the Roof was very popular at the time, most people, whether or not they were Jewish, could immediately recognize the Jewish sound of the Liberated Wailing Wall. As for the lyrics, they were from Scripture, whether from the Psalms, Hebrew prophets, Gospels, or Epistles. The Liberated Wailing Wall raised Christian awareness, not only of Jews for Jesus but of the need for Jewish evangelism. It also spoke to the hearts of many Jewish and gentile seekers—who began following Jesus as a result. And so, at a time when his income was still rather precarious, Moishe used his own money to produce the first Liberated Wailing Wall album.

  Some may wonder how Moishe’s relationship with his daughters fared throughout the 1970s when he was investing so much time and energy in Jews for Jesus. Children of visionaries may feel overlooked or left out, as many biographies and autobiographies attest. Moishe never pushed either of his daughters to do what he was doing, but he welcomed both to be as involved in the world of Jews for Jesus as we cared to be. This was true both before and after the mission became independent.

  As a speech and drama major, Lyn was particularly interested in the evangelistic street theater the group was pioneering. Eventually she became part of th
e New Jerusalem Players. She recalled,

  When Dad lost his job he never made me feel like there was anything I needed to do without. I really enjoyed the four of us around the [dinner] table. He often brought home a dinner guest and there was always enough [to eat]. He never acted like he expected me to be part of his ministry, but whenever I wanted to be part of what he was doing, he was always happy to have my participation.

  As for me, I was fairly strong and outspoken in my beliefs and went on several of the demonstrations. However, I withdrew for almost a year, during which time I was not interested in anything connected with God. This had nothing to do with my relationship with my father—it was just normal teenage “stuff” that included dating a boy my parents did not approve of.

  Later, when I was once again strong in my faith, Moishe asked me if I would like to join the Summer Witnessing Campaign in New York. “No, not really,” was my reply. Eventually I agreed to go—not because I was interested but because that year (and it was the only year) the New York campaign was only two weeks, and I felt it would make him happy. It turned out to be a life-changing experience that led me to transfer from a liberal arts school to a Bible college and eventually join the staff of Jews for Jesus. This seemed as unexpected a turn of events to Moishe as it was to me.

  By that time, Lyn was fully involved with Jews for Jesus. Moishe was surprised and delighted that both of his daughters felt God leading them into the ministry that meant so much to him.

  Not only that, but shortly after Lyn’s graduation, a young Oklahoman made his way out to California. Alan Bond had been dating Lyn during her last year of school. Knowing that he had been president of his church youth group, she had assumed that he was a Christian. As their relationship became serious, however, Lyn realized that for Alan, Christianity was simply part of his culture, not a life-changing belief in Jesus.