Messianic Jews attacked in Israel
Pastor Dale Morgan
Messianic Jews attacked in Israel*
Posted on Mar 15, 2007 | by Erin Roach
BEER SHEVA, Israel (BP)--The arrest of a Messianic Jewish evangelist in
Israel reflects the strife that often confronts Messianic Jews despite
Israel’s guarantees of religious liberty and without any repercussion
from law enforcement officials, the leader of a Messianic congregation
told Baptist Press.
Messianic evangelist Eddie Beckford was arrested outside his business,
the Chess and Bible Shop in Arad, after a mob of ultra-Orthodox Haradim
Jews surrounded his van in the parking lot and beat him Feb. 25.
“In general over the years here in the south in the Negev, in Arad and
in Beer Sheva, there has been some form of harassment or persecution,”
Howard Bass, leader of the Nahalat Yeshua congregation in Beer Sheva, said.
Groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews seem to have a difficult time accepting
the fact that some Jews would believe that Jesus is the Messiah and that
they would want to evangelize other Jews, Bass said. So those
anti-Messianic groups work to stop the people they consider
“missionaries” through various degrees of persecution.
“In Arad, for instance, for almost three years they have been hounding
the believers there at their services, in front of their homes,” Bass,
an American Jew with Israeli citizenship, said.
Beckford’s arrest followed a call to police when the confrontation with
the ultra-Orthodox mob broke out. The Haradim complained that Beckford
attacked them, according to an e-mail from Beckford’s wife Lura.
“[The police] blame us for the disturbances the Haredim cause,” Lura
Beckford wrote in a message posted at israelprayer.com. “They tell us,
‘If you weren’t here, we wouldn’t have to deal with this trouble.’
“So, they arrested Eddie and put him in leg irons and took him to jail.
They completely ignored the Bedouin’s testimony that Eddie did nothing
and the Haredim attacked him. He spent the night in a small filthy cell
with five other men, and in the middle of the night they transferred him
to another filthy cell,” Lura added.
Beckford, an American, was arraigned before a judge in Beer Sheva Feb.
28 and was offered a plea bargain of spending 45 days in jail or
agreeing not to return to Arad for 45 days. He chose to stay with
friends outside Arad rather than serve a prison sentence, and his wife
was trying to retrieve his identification card which was confiscated by
police in Arad.
“This is a culmination of a week of horror as far as the Haredim are
concerned. Just this week, ‘A’ was harassed by them four different
times. They blocked his car and pounded on it, etc. ‘R’ has been
harassed while walking her child from school by these grown men,” Lura
wrote, using initials in place of names. “She and I have been harassed
several times in public areas while walking. All of us have put in
complaints with the police on assault charges.
“I had the privilege of being hit by the chief rabbi of Arad. Why? Just
because I believe in Y’shua as the Savior of the Jewish people and the
world,” she wrote. “‘S,’ a visiting friend of ours, has been terribly
harassed while giving out literature, including being beaten and spit
upon. All this because we have committed the crime of being believers.”
Beckford’s arrest preceded the introduction of a bill by an Orthodox
political party seeking to sentence proselytizers in Israel to one year
in prison.
“Whether it’s Christians coming from abroad or Jewish converts working
in Israel, they all have the same agenda -- to destroy every trace and
memory of the people of Israel, and they plan to do this by converting
Jews,” the proposal by the Shas group said, according to ynetnews.com
March 14. “These bodies are operating mainly among the Jewish population
which is under physical, social and spiritual distress.”
In early February, a religious freedom lawsuit was filed on behalf of
Nahalat Yeshua against the chief rabbi of Beer Sheva and Yad L’Achim, a
group that is a main source of persecution toward Messianic Jews. Though
it took more than a year to file, the lawsuit stems from a violent
demonstration that took place at the congregation on Christmas Eve in 2005.
“In Beer Sheva eight years ago, there was a massive demonstration
against our congregation on the Shabbat, on a Saturday, which prevented
us from having a service,” Bass recounted to BP. “That time we didn’t
take any legal action because we’re supposed to be expecting things like
this on the one hand and also the amount of violence wasn’t excessive
enough to where we thought we should do something.
“Just before Christmas, we had another fairly large demonstration, and
this time it was much more aggressive and violent and we did feel that
something ought to be done about it,” Bass said.
The case essentially is about standing up for the right for Jews in
Israel to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Bass said, though it is not
meant in any way to be construed against the state of Israel or against
the Jewish people as a whole.
“It is not to be used in any way to foment or promote anti-Israel or
anti-Jewish actions or reactions. It is already known through the
Scriptures that Israel at present is opposed to the good news of God, so
we are not out to make them an enemy,” Bass emphasized. “Nor is our
legal action intended to be used by any other minority or religious
groups in Israel to encourage or affirm anti-Israel or anti-Jewish
sentiment.”
From the defendants’ point of view, Bass said, they did nothing wrong
when they demonstrated at the Messianic congregation’s service, even
though they were required by law to ask permission from the police for
such a large gathering.
“They’re claiming that they were simply exercising their freedom of
religion in the same way that we’re claiming to be,” Bass said.
“Therefore they’re guilty of nothing.”
Launching a religious freedom lawsuit of this sort is challenging in
Israel, Bass said, because the Messianic Jews essentially are standing
up for something that is contrary to the religion of the state.
“We understand what we’re doing is very serious, and we just have to
trust the Lord that He’s going to help us through it in a way that Jesus
will be honored in the manner that we handle it and in the
consequences,” Bass said. “So we don’t quite know yet what that’s going
to be.”
Jim Sibley, director of the Pasche Institute for Jewish Studies at
Criswell College in Dallas, told Baptist Press the word needs to get out
about the harassment of Messianic Jews in Israel.
“It really is intolerable, and I think a lot more attention needs to be
given to it,” Sibley said. “That’s the only way that the Israeli
government is going to really do anything to protect the rights of
believers.”
Sibley noted that the persecution is not coming from the Israeli government.
“It’s coming from the ultra-Orthodox communities, and the problem is
that the local police are not really taking action to protect believers
or to prosecute those who are causing the trouble,” he said. “They’re
kind of standing by and letting it happen. So the national government
needs to know that the United States is growing increasingly aware of
the problem and is anxious about it.”