Called to Controversy

by Ruth Rosen

  In the years to follow, when Moishe flew to Israel or South Africa, he often had a layover in London, and frequently invited Richard to join him for a meal. Richard recalled,

  Even though I was working with another mission at the time, he [Moishe] never tried to recruit me. Rather he mentored me, listening to my issues and concerns, teaching me about Jewish mission history, sharing his own perspectives, philosophies, joys, and trials. I remember him in the UK just after his father had died; he was grieving, but he shared of himself and his feelings.

  I got from Moishe that “almost-family” bond. . . . He became a sort of spiritual father . . . who knew the ways of Jewish mission and could teach me so much about evangelism, media, leadership, character.

  In media, I saw a master at work. In humour, I saw a zany prophetic edge, in strategy, I saw a military cunning. Often when he would phone from San Francisco I would take copious notes during the conversation. I would come downstairs with my head buzzing with new ideas and a smile on my face, and my wife Monica would say: “You’ve been on the phone to Moishe, haven’t you?” It wasn’t hard to tell.

  That is not to say that Richard Harvey’s experiences with Moishe were all positive. Richard was on staff with Jews for Jesus from 1990-1997. As the London branch leader supervised by Moishe, he experienced the same difficulties mentioned in previous chapters. Having acknowledged those difficulties, Harvey concluded,

  [These negatives] never, never outweighed the sense of being with someone who was not only larger than life, but cared, loved, and was passionate about what they sincerely believed. I did not always agree with Moishe . . . but who cares? He was a genius, master strategist, and rare eccentric who could bring a new perspective.

  Richard Harvey spoke of Moishe as a man who filled the role of “one of the most encouraging people in my life.”

  Moishe was a tremendous support to Monica and me when we arrived in San Francisco having just suffered the loss of a near full-term pregnancy. He was able to share with me his suffering through a similar experience. And, when my back was so bad I could only lie down on the floor at the international LCJE meeting at All Nations, he would lie down on the floor next to me!

  Years later Harvey authored a book on messianic Jewish theology* and expressed concern that “although I found eight or nine types [of messianic Jewish theology], there is one type that is missing, which is ‘Jews for Jesus/Moishe Rosen’ messianic Jewish theology.” He went on to say:

  I don’t think it is correct to sum up his [Moishe’s] theology as “Conservative Baptist with a dispensationalist edge”—this may be accurate from one perspective (official, church-based)—but I think there is a lot more depth and subtlety to his position. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have been formulated systematically. I think [Moishe] has had a pivotal influence in causing other messianic Jews . . . to formulate their own positions, often in reaction to or imitation of Moishe’s unsystematic and implicit theological system.

  Moishe’s theological positions probably did have more depth and subtlety than some might think. Over the years, I had many discussions with my father about spiritual and philosophical matters. It was probably in the last year or two of his life that I expressed to him that as time went by, it grew easier for me to hold certain matters in tension, in large part because of an expanded awareness of many biblical realities as mysteries, now known only in part, leaving room for some amount of wondering and/or respectful differences of opinion. He nodded and said that he’d had similar thoughts.

  To codify or categorize a system that would go beyond the basics of the gospel would have been counterproductive to Moishe’s determination to remain single-minded in his efforts. Moishe was a dreamer, but he was also extremely practical and dead set on avoiding distractions from the cause to which he had dedicated himself. He staked his life on the belief that God had called him to communicate the gospel to his people. He spent his life pointing out that Jesus is the only solution offered by God to breach the gap between his holiness and sinful human beings, be they Jewish or Gentile. Moishe identified with particular theological leanings to a certain extent, but resisted being defined by any detailed and systematic description of theology.

  Moishe also concerned himself with preserving the right to proclaim the gospel freely in public venues. In 1981 he was arrested for handing out broadside tracts at the Portland airport. The charge was violating a port ordinance “requiring advance registration by those desiring to exercise First Amendment rights at the terminal.” Although the ordinance was upheld by the district court, the Ninth Circuit ruled it unconstitutional. It was a precedent-setting case.

  In 1986 Moishe hired a young Jewish believer in Jesus, Jay Sekulow, to serve as the organization’s general legal counsel. Jay had answered the invitation to follow Jesus at a Liberated Wailing Wall concert. Moishe wanted him to try a case in which Jews for Jesus missionaries had been arrested for handing out tracts at the Los Angeles International Airport. Sekulow had to get special permission to argue the case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1987 because of his age (he was only thirty years old). Nevertheless, he won.

  When Jay formed his own ministry, Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism, Moishe encouraged him to buy a property not far from the Supreme Court: “Because you’ll be coming back here often.” At the time, Sekulow did not take Moishe’s suggestion seriously. Later in his career,* after trying multiple cases before the Supreme Court, he recognized that Moishe’s suggestion had been somewhat prophetic.**

  Moishe had been adamant that Jews for Jesus fight to maintain the right of free speech at a time when few Christians were willing to file the lawsuits necessary to protest actions that would quash those rights. He recognized that it was not only fascists and totalitarian governments that threatened to deprive people of those rights, but bureaucrats, desk jockeys, and a growing number of uptight citizens who were already developing a somewhat Orwellian notion of tolerance. He wanted Jews for Jesus to be the first to meet a challenge to free speech and to keep the way paved not only for themselves, but also for others.

  Throughout the 1980s, Moishe had seen his persistence in pressing the right to free speech pay off. Other struggles remained an uphill battle. His weight spiked and his energy began to lag. At one council meeting, he told the senior staff that while it was important to the ministry for him to travel and speak, he wasn’t sure how to balance a travel schedule with his health needs. The staff suggested he always have an assistant while traveling.

  He also knew he needed help with his weight, though that was a far more sensitive subject. Meals had always meant more than mere sustenance to him. Sharing good food meant fun and fellowship. In 1986 Moishe went to the Cooper Clinic (of Kenneth Cooper “Father of Aerobics” fame) for a thorough health check and recommendations on weight loss. He was so impressed by the consultation that he wanted the senior staff to have opportunities to be examined by the Cooper Clinic as well.

  During Moishe’s tenure as executive director, this was a benefit that Jews for Jesus career missionaries received regularly at three-to-five-year intervals. More than one staff member discovered a medical condition that, if left untreated, could have had very serious consequences.

  Nevertheless, he didn’t always follow his own path to good health. Although he lost a significant amount of weight, most of it returned, and Moishe faced a sobering reality: a crisis in his health could leave Jews for Jesus in a quandary over the selection of his successor.

  Moishe thought through a painstaking plan by which the next executive director ought to be nominated not by him, but by the senior missionaries. He then secured the understanding of the board that they would accept a nomination so long as it came from a unanimous vote of the Jews for Jesus council. The strategy for selecting the next executive director became an official board document, and Moishe was satisfied that a chapter of history he had witnessed at the ABMJ* would not be repeated.

  * Scriptures inscribed on parchment, e
ncased in small leather boxes to be strapped on the arm and forehead for prayer.

  * This was also true of David’s older sister, Martha, and her husband, Loren, both of whom served with Jews for Jesus for many years.

  * Harvey’s PhD is from the University of Wales (Lampeter). His dissertation was published as Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology: A Constructive Approach (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster/Authentic Media, 2009).

  * Sekulow eventually became known for his role as chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.

  ** He bought the property and in 2010 named it the Moishe Rosen House in memory of Moishe.

  * Regarding selection of Joseph Hoffman Cohn’s successor.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The quality of your life is shaped by what you really believe, not just what you say you believe.

  —MOISHE ROSEN

  A clear, cool night had settled over Hertfordshire, England, and almost all was peaceful on Chalk Hill. Almost, but not quite all: a couple of visitors had made their way to the residential neighborhood to protest the presence of the missionary music team, the Liberated Wailing Wall, at Bushey Baptist Church. The two young visitors, both wearing yarmulkes, had arrived late, possibly expecting to slip in unnoticed. However, they never made it past the lobby because as they entered, Richard Harvey immediately recognized them. Moishe was there, too, in town for a meeting of the European Board of Jews for Jesus. He was prone to intermittent back spasms and found it difficult to sit in pews for long, so he had settled into one of the more comfortable chairs in the church lobby.

  Moishe knew that several church members had brought Jewish friends to hear the Liberated Wailing Wall, but he sensed that these two had not come to enjoy the concert. He could imagine that one young man observant enough to wear a yarmulke might come out of curiosity, but two? Few Orthodox Jews would feel comfortable being seen by their friends in a Baptist church, he reckoned. With some effort, he rose from his chair to meet them.

  Richard rose simultaneously. “Hullo, Daniel. Hullo, Andrew,” he said amiably.

  “You know these guys?” Moishe kept his voice neutral as he eyed them.

  Richard said, “I can’t say I know them, but I know who they are. I see them most every week at Speaker’s Corner, don’t I?” He continued speaking to Moishe but was watching the two men. “They’re antimissionaries, Moishe, hecklers, as you’d call them.”

  As though to verify this, Moishe demanded in his most sonorous voice, “Have you come here to worship Jesus?”

  One snorted in contempt as the other said derisively, “Of course not! We’re real Jews. We’ve come to make sure you don’t deceive—”

  “You’re not welcome here,” Moishe announced bluntly.

  The intruders protested that they had a legal right to be there.

  “I know what the law says.” Moishe moved closer to them. “Call the police,” he instructed Richard.

  “Right, Moishe,” and off Richard went to find a phone.

  A barely audible gasp escaped from a church member who had been chatting with Moishe, Richard, and Susan—all of whom he had just met for the first time. Mark Greene, also a Jewish believer in Jesus, was on staff at London Bible College,* a school closely affiliated with the church. At Richard’s request, he had spoken to the pastor about inviting the team to come to Bushey Baptist. And it had been quite a plum for the team to find a welcome at this vibrant and highly respected church.

  Mark was not prepared to hear a missionary ask people to leave a church. Shocking! And had that Harvey bloke actually gone to call the police?

  Mark’s shock turned to fascination as he watched Moishe trundle the two out the door without laying a hand on them. With each step the hefty American took, the young men had to back up to avoid being bumped by his sizeable abdomen, which preceded the rest of him by at least ten inches. Before long, two frustrated and somewhat bewildered protesters found themselves outside the doors, which were now blocked by the outsized mission leader.

  Soon the police arrived. They listened to the antimissionaries’ accusations, then heard from Richard, who explained the type of adversarial relationship they’d had with him, and his reasons for supposing they had come to disrupt the meeting.

  “That’s rubbish,” the more vocal of the two insisted. “We have every right to be here.”

  “Actually, you don’t,” one of the bobbies said calmly. “This isn’t Speaker’s Corner, is it?”

  The other added, “If they don’t want to grant you access to their meeting, they don’t have to. That’s perfectly legal.’”

  Dejected but still determined, the two stopped just outside the church’s property.

  Mark wondered aloud at how Moishe had handled the situation; having unbelievers removed from the church seemed rather an odd way of conducting missionary work, after all.

  Moishe took a chair next to Mark and said earnestly. “I appreciate your wanting to share the gospel in this or any situation,” he said, “and your heart for evangelism is why we’ve invited you to the board meeting tomorrow. But you have to understand that these men did not come to hear the gospel. They were not interested. They came with a position and a purpose, and that purpose was to disrupt.* Some Jewish people came tonight to hear what we had to say. These guys wanted to prevent that from happening. They’re wolves. And a shepherd doesn’t let the wolves meet the sheep.”

  As Mark listened, his skepticism began to melt away.

  The hour passed quickly enough, and as the notes of the final song faded, the pastor returned to the platform to make final remarks. Mark Greene slipped back to the lobby in time to hear Moishe ask Richard, “Are our friends still out there?”

  Richard checked and found that they were.

  Moishe did not seem surprised. “Here’s what we’ll do. You and Susan go out and begin engaging them in conversation. Keep them occupied as people leave. If they’re busy arguing with you, they won’t buttonhole anyone who came to hear the group. Got it?”

  Richard and Susan grinned. Mark, once again observing the mission leader’s tactics, was impressed. “Brilliant!” he said as he, too, smiled approvingly, and he promised Moishe that he would be at the board meeting the next day.

  Years later as Mark Greene recounted the story, he said of Moishe’s strategy: “It was countercultural, but it was biblical. It was a tremendously smart, biblical response, just like Paul [when he said], ‘I’m a citizen of Rome.’ He was using the law [to his advantage].” Mark not only attended the board meeting, but became a member, and soon afterward, the chairman of the board of Jews for Jesus in the UK.

  Moishe was a master at using the law to his advantage, but he also learned to use other people’s procedures to his advantage, as the following story shows.

  Moishe was an early advocate of desktop computers, but when at one point the organization had seven of the latest and supposedly greatest computers at the headquarters office, Moishe recalled,

  Unlike the earlier models, they were subject to continual breakdowns. The repairman would come out and the same machine might freeze up the next day. And since all but one of these machines was subject to the same problem, I asked [the company] to replace them . . . but the dealer argued and the company just stonewalled us. I filed a lawsuit.

  When it was apparent that we were getting nowhere, I personally bought a hundred and seventy five shares of stock—it was priced low enough at the time. The next time we got together for one of these negotiating stints, I made a point of saying, “Now I understand that stockholders can come to the board of directors meeting, is that right? And if they ask in advance, they’ll be given a certain amount of time to speak . . . I bought 175 shares of [your] stock.”

  But then I found out that you had to have more stock to attend the meeting and I bought another 225 shares. Then I told the attorneys that I intended to come to the next stockholders’ meeting and express my displeasure with the way they chose to treat their customers. Within 48 hours, [the company] an
d the dealers settled the case and we had seven of their latest desktop computers to replace the “lemons.”

  I completely forgot to sell the stock afterwards. One day I realized I had 400 shares that were worth almost ten times what I’d paid. But that is the story of my life; if I ever made any money, it was by mistake.

  In describing his role during that era, Moishe said,

  From about 1980 through 1995, I was chiefly working as a strategist, trying to discern the best places to spend my energy and the energy of Jews for Jesus. [But] by the nineties, my chief role was that of a fireman. I had pretty much taught the staff all that I could teach them in doing the work, and a lot of my new work was putting out fires, making things work according to their principles and practices.

  Moishe’s reflections on his “fireman” role in the 1990s mainly pertained to his work within Jews for Jesus. Yet he still liked to help other people get things started and encouraged numerous groups and individuals in their own ministries. He took an especially active interest in creative people who were longing to tell others about Jesus. It didn’t matter that they were not part of the Jews for Jesus staff; in fact, Moishe tended to be more generous with those who he thought could do better by remaining separate and distinct from Jews for Jesus.

  That was certainly the case with Sally Klein O’Connor and her husband, Michael. Michael wrote brilliant lyrics, and his singer/songwriter wife, a Jewish believer in Jesus, sang with power, passion, and a vulnerability that was truly unique. Moishe first heard Sally sing in autumn 1989 at a Jews for Jesus conference; she had been invited to perform a song that she and Michael had written called “Improbable People for Impossible Tasks.” The crowd was bowled over by the song’s calypso beat, humor, and biblical message. Sally recalled,