Avi Snyder
Editor’s Note: See also Lisa Loden, “Israel’s Russian Jewish Christians and Russian-Language Evangelism in Israel,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 24 (Summer 2016): 11-14
Returning to Ukraine
In 1992 I stood outside the main train station in Odessa, Ukraine, handing out my evangelistic tracts. At one point, a Jewish woman approached me rather sheepishly, paused, and then extended her arm. “Have you seen this?” she asked in Russian. She was holding a weathered pamphlet entitled, “Can Jews Believe in Jesus as the Messiah?” I took the pamphlet from her hand and turned it over to see the publication information. It had been printed in Odessa in 1916. The author was Leonid Rosenberg, a Jewish believer in Jesus and one of a number of pioneers in the field of Jewish missions who had labored in Eastern Europe from the late 1800s to the early 20th century.1 After a moment, the woman took the pamphlet back from me, as though she didn’t trust me with it any longer. But at least for a few seconds, I’d held a tract that had been in the woman’s family for three generations.
Authors like Vera Kuschnir and Kai Kjaer-Hansen have chronicled Jewish people coming to faith in Jesus in Central and Eastern Europe during the 19th century.2 Though some “conversions” were undoubtedly just a cultural passage out of the Jewish ghetto and into mainstream European society, thousands of Jewish men and women turned to Jesus out of genuine convictions. The result was not only the establishment of messianic congregations and institutions, such as those founded by Rosenberg in Ukraine, by Joseph Rabinowitz in Moldova, and by Rabbi Isaak Lichtenstein in Hungary. The wave of
Jews embracing Jesus as the Jewish Messiah also fostered the development of a generation of Jewish-Christian scholars, notably Alfred Edersheim and David Barron, whose biblical expositions have benefitted the entire body of believers, regardless of nationality.3 Jews embracing Jesus did not suddenly end with the coming of the 20th century. Leonid Rosenberg’s work survived up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The line of Jewish Christian witnesses and scholars continued with people such as Jakov Jocz and Rachmiel Frydland who came to faith before the war, survived the Holocaust, and significantly impacted the post-Shoah generation of Jewish believers in Jesus on an international scale.4 My encounter outside the Odessa train station in 1992 with the Jewish woman who possessed a first-edition of one of Rosenberg’s tracts reminded me of an important missiological fact: The Jews for Jesus ministry in Ukraine was by no means a “start-up;” rather, it was a “return.”
Something Old, Something New
A plaque on the wall of the Jews for Jesus headquarters states in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, “Jews for Jesus -- Established 32 A.D., give or take a year.” A modest familiarity with the New Testament makes it clear that all of the first followers of Jesus were His fellow Jews, including the apostles. It was Jewish missionaries like Paul who first declared the gospel to their own and then carried the Good News to the nations.
However, the current ministry called Jews for Jesus is relatively young. Our modern-day origins may be traced in part to a revival now called “the Jesus Revolution” that took place predominantly in North America from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.5 Though authoritative figures are not available, a significant number of Jewish men and women became followers of Jesus during that time. A core of them formed an evangelistically minded group under the leadership of a veteran missionary to the Jewish people named Moishe Rosen, and by 1973, Jews for Jesus had become an incorporated mission in the United States. Today, some 200 staff present the gospel message to the Jewish people in an open and forthright manner from mission stations in 13 countries around the world, including Israel. In Central and Eastern Europe and in the former U.S.S.R., 44 indigenous Jews for Jesus workers serve in Russia (five in Moscow), Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary, and Germany. Today messianic congregations number 80 in the Central and East European countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Poland; 100 in Ukraine, 20 in Russia, and six in Belarus.
Glasnost and Good News for Soviet Jews
The current work in the region began when an exploratory team visited Russia and Ukraine in 1990 at the invitation of the Evangelical Christian-Baptist Union. Glasnost and perestroika promised to provide access to the estimated 2.5 million Jewish people in the Soviet Union. This team dispatched by Jews for Jesus consisted of myself, my wife Ruth, a fellow Jews for Jesus missionary originally from Uzbekistan named Liza Terini, Dr. Eddie Elliston from the Fuller School of World Missions, and Pastor Alexander Kuzichev of the Russian Baptist church in Los Angeles, California. Our purpose was quite simple: to determine whether our high-profile methodology would “work” in the Soviet Union, and to learn whether our Jewish people would give us an open-hearted hearing. We discovered that direct proclamation did indeed work, and we found our people very responsive to the Good News. God was the architect of the genuine openness, of course. But in human terms the receptivity may be credited to a number of reasons.
The Failure of Communism
Disillusionment with Soviet ideology was deepseated among Jewish people. In her book, Doubly Chosen, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt documents the fact that even before the collapse of the U.S.S.R., many Jewish intellectuals were drawn to the ceremonial beauty and transcendence of the Orthodox Church.6 More than ever our Jewish people, like everyone else, sought to fill the ideological vacuum left in the wake of the failed Soviet experiment.
The Forbidden Fruit of Faith
The Soviet prohibition against religious instruction and assault on faith in God had turned the gospel into something like “a forbidden fruit.” People, including many Jewish people, wanted to know what it was that they had not been allowed to experience.
The Thoroughness of Soviet Anti-religious Propaganda
Ironically, the nearly complete Soviet ban on biblical and religious instruction had served to shield our people from the standard objections to Jesus that we Jews from the West had heard all our lives, namely, “You can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus.” In the U.S.S.R., that mantra was not as widely known or as automatically believed.
The Divide between “Jewishness” and “Judaism”
More so than in the West, Jewish people in the U.S.S.R. were already accustomed to defining Jewish identity in other than religious terms. A commitment to Jewish self-identification did not automatically carry with it a commitment to a religious identification that excluded faith in Jesus.
A Desire to Understand How Jesus Figures in Jewish History
Jewish people wanted to study Jewish history and heritage that had been denied them for more than 70 years. This included a desire to understand how Jesus figured in Jewish history: Was He, is He, the promised Jewish Messiah, or not? I remember once speaking with a Jewish couple during our first trip in 1990. They knew they were Jews, but they knew very little about being Jewish, and they knew virtually nothing about Jesus’ messianic claims. At one point in our conversation, the woman confided to her husband, “We need to look into all of this.”
Launching the Ministry
Encouraged by the openness that our initial findings supported, my wife and I, along with Liza Terini, moved to Odessa in September 1991 to bring the gospel to our people, and to establish an ongoing Jewish evangelistic society comprised of Soviet-born, Jesus-believing Jews. By 1998, additional mission stations had been established in Moscow, Kyiv, Kharkov, and Dnepropetrovsk, with the most recent station opening in Minsk in 2008.
We by no means acted alone. While our ministry focused on direct Jewish evangelism, like-minded Jewish evangelistic societies such as Chosen People Ministries and Ariel Ministries also came to the region to help form congregations and to disciple Jewish people who were coming to faith in cities like Kyiv and St. Petersburg. Hear O Israel Ministries conducted a series of messianic dance and music festivals in key cities throughout the former USSR, leading to the formation of even more congregations. In 1994, the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute opened in Odessa to provide training for the emerging generation of messianic leaders.
An International Advance
In a short while, the scope of all of our ministries spread beyond the borders of the former U.S.S.R. New opportunities emerged when Germany opened her doors to Jewish people who wished to emigrate from post-Soviet bloc countries. Today, Jews for Jesus has mission stations in the Ruhrgebiet and Berlin, and our evangelistic efforts serve as a complement to the congregation-planting work of Beit Sar Schalom (www.beitsarshalom.com), Evangeliumsdienst für Israel (www.edi-online.de), Swiss-based AMZI (www.amzi.org), and others.
Jews for Jesus expanded from the former U.S.S.R. not only to Germany, but also to Israel. From 1991 to the present, some 1.2 million Russian-speaking people with Jewish roots and heritage immigrated to Israel. In response to this opportunity, two Jews for Jesus missionary families redeployed to Israel in order to work alongside our Israeli team members in Tel Aviv. According to missionary reports, Russian-speaking Jewish people remain the most receptive to the gospel message among Israelis.7
The Fallout of Gospel Fruit – Opposition
Whenever the gospel is accurately proclaimed and accurately understood, some people receive the message, and others rise up to oppose it. Opposition typically takes the form of anti-missionary activity or anti-Semitism.
Anti-Missionary Activity
In 2000, individuals from both a secular and a religious Jewish background formed an association in Moscow called the Magen Anti-Missionary League, whose purpose is to counter our efforts. Their methods consist primarily of lodging complaints with local authorities, attempting to disrupt our assemblies and outreach activities, and seeking to dissuade our fellow Jews from listening to what we have to say. Individual acts of violence against our workers may or may not have been the result of their influence.
Anti-Semitism
Our workers often experience physical and verbal attacks of an anti-Semitic nature as we openly identify ourselves as Jews while proclaiming the Good News. However, anti-Semitism we encounter in the former U.S.S.R. differs from anti-Semitism we encounter in West European countries such as France and the United Kingdom. Today in the West, anti-Semitism is usually political or racial in nature. But in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Ukraine and Russia, anti-Semitism often stems from an historic, religious anti-Jewish teaching that blames Jews in particular for the death of the Messiah. “You Jews killed Christ” is a slur that we frequently hear as we hand out our gospel tracts. Yet to identify others as being solely responsible for Jesus’ death is to miss a central point of the gospel, namely, that He willingly gave His life as the payment for everyone’s sins. That makes all humanity culpable, even as the Scripture explains (Acts 4:27; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4). People who deny their own part in Yeshua’s death are denying that Jesus died for their sins.
“Loving Us to Hell”
We face a third form of opposition from liberal Protestant theology that holds that we Jews do not need to believe in Jesus in order to be reconciled to God. Proponents of this position oppose Jewish evangelism, arguing that, “New fellowship of Christians and Jews is possible only while respecting other convictions.”8 However, if it is true that “no one comes to the Father” except through Jesus the Son (John 14:6), then to withhold the gospel from us Jews, specifically because we are Jews, is not an act of respect. Rather, it is probably the most anti-Jewish argument that a genuine Christian can maintain.
In a post-Soviet context does this many-sided opposition affect the cause of Jewish evangelism? Certainly, real or implied “bans” from Jewish authorities can discourage Jewish people from considering the claims of the gospel. And anti-Jewish sentiments from people claiming to be Christians only reinforce the false notion that the gospel is a message of hatred directed against us Jews. Despite these impediments, Jewish people in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former U.S.S.R. remain especially open to the Good News. In Budapest, for example, our team has seen remarkable receptivity to the gospel among survivors of the Holocaust. And during a recent two-week outreach in Odessa, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the beginning of our current missionary work, a team of some 45 staff and volunteers saw 39 Jewish people and 120 non-Jews publicly profess Jesus as Messiah and Lord.
These figures from the Odessa outreach illustrate something of a “strategic edge” that we Jewish believers may have: When we Jews openly proclaim the gospel as Jews, more than just fellow Jews take note. Since the world still considers the idea of Jews for Jesus something of an oxymoron, our high-profile evangelistic presence serves as a lightning rod, capturing the attention, not only of our own, but also that of non-Jews who may think they have “moved beyond” the need to consider the claims of Christ. A Jewish evangelistic voice strikes many as fresh and arresting.
Present and Future Challenges
In the days ahead a number of challenges will face Jews for Jesus in particular, and messianic ministries in general.
Demographics
The Jewish population in Russia and Ukraine continues to dwindle because of ongoing immigration to Israel. However, Jewish populations in Hungary and Germany remain stable. In addition, signs of a resurgent Jewish life in Poland may lead to a new evangelistic field as Polish Jewish life continues to grow.
Reaching Jewish Millennials in the Former U.S.S.R.
Twenty-five years ago, a simple desire to know what the Bible had to say, combined with a hunger to become acquainted with a Jewish heritage that the Soviet system had repressed, worked handin-hand to help Jewish people discover Yeshua/ Jesus, as the promised Messiah. In addition, fewer options competed with the gospel in the first decade following the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Today the situation is different for Jewish millennials. Therefore, without compromising or surrendering the integrity of the gospel message, new methodologies must be considered and employed in order to reach a generation that denies absolutes and that – despite cries for authenticity – contents itself with relationships and commitments that are shallow.
Inspiring the Second Generation ‘
The Jewish people were given a biblical mandate to be an evangelistic light to the nations (Isaiah 43:21; Isaiah 49:6, Acts 1:8; Romans 8:29). While cherishing and maintaining our Jewish identity, we must also embrace the missionary mandate that accompanies that identity, passing that mandate on to those who follow after us. Without that sense of mandate, and without a sense of the imperative to share the gospel, Jewish missions and messianic congregations will turn inward, and the focus will shift from proclamation to preservation.
Maintaining a Jewish Identity but Avoiding Jewish Legalism
The consistent testimony of Jewish believers in Jesus—in the former U.S.S.R. as well as around the world—is that our faith in Jesus has made our Jewish identity and traditions more significant to us. The proliferation of messianic congregations throughout the former U.S.S.R. is certainly evidence of that. However, whereas a continued identification as Jews remains important, we must remain consistent to our understanding that a correct and salvific relationship with God does not depend in any way on Jewish observance but solely on repentance and faith in the finished work of Yeshua.
Maintaining Our Identity but Avoiding Separation
Though many, if not most, may prefer to worship Jesus in a Jewish cultural context, we must continue to cherish and maintain our connection to the larger body of Messiah. Messianic Jews need the edification that comes from association with our non-Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. Similarly, followers of Jesus who are not Jewish will only benefit if their association with messianic Jews leads to a deeper appreciation of the Jewish roots of our Christian faith. In short, we need each other.
A Resurgent Legal Threat
The verdict is not yet in on how Russia’s July 2016 legislation further restricting religious freedom will affect evangelism in the Russian Federation. Central to the work of Jews for Jesus is the open proclamation of the gospel, without which we cease being Jews bearing witness to Jesus as our Messiah. Whatever circumstances await, we Jews for Jesus understand that we are irrevocably called to declare the gospel “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). By God’s grace, we will endeavor to remain faithful to that call.
Notes:
- Vera Kuschnir, Only One Life: a Story of Missionary Resilience: Biography of Leon Rosenberg, the Late Founder and Director of the American European Bethel Mission. (Broken Arrow, OK : Slavic Christian Pub., 1996).
- Kai Kjaer-Hansen, Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement: the Herzl of Jewish Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).
- Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1999), The Temple: Its Ministry and Services as They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1958), and David Baron, The Servant of Jehova: The Sufferings of the Messiah and the Glory That Should Follow (London:Marshall, Morgan, 1954).
- See Rachmiel Frydland, When Being Jewish Was a Crime (Nashville,TN: Thomas Nelson, 1978) and Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1949 and 1979).
- Time Magazine 97 (21 June 1971).
- Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Doubly Chosen: Jewish Identity, the Soviet Intelligentsia, and the Russian Orthodox Church (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).
- For reports from our Israeli field, contact the author:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . - Gabriela Wunderlich, “Streitpunkt: Mission unter Juden," Pro Christiches Medienmagazin Kirche, 17 December 2014; http://www.pro-medienmagazin.de/ gesellschaft/kirche/detailansicht/aktuell/streitpunktmission-unter-juden -90511/.
Avi Snyder is European Director for Jews for Jesus, based in Budapest, Hungary