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5. Missionary Activity
- Indiana University Press
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5 Missionary Activity Converting the Jews to Christianity One of the most important points of contact between Israel and the Christian world, which was inextricably connected to the question of Israel’s foreign relations , was missionary activity. Knowledge of the basic facts on this activity in the first years of statehood is vital to understanding the perspectives of both sides and the dialogue between them. A Christian missionary is one who carries out a mission. The duty to disseminate the religion is one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity and is fulfilled through intensive activity and the establishment of relevant institutions and organizations. Long before Israel came into being, it was considered imperative to spread the message of Christianity in the Holy Land, the cradle of that religion.1 It should be noted that during the British Mandate, missionaries had a much wider scope for action among Arab and Christian inhabitants of the country than in later years, mostly because of the relatively large number of practicing Christians in that period. On the other hand, they encountered great difficulties in working among Jews.The secular and pioneering Jewish community regarded the churches as an alien shoot, opposed them on national grounds, and were not susceptible to religious influence of any kind, while the Orthodox community detested them for obvious reasons. This situation changed somewhat after the establishment of the state. The Jews were now the majority and the dozens of missionary organizations, most of which remained in the country,were now faced with a sovereign Jewish community whose character was changed by the influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants,many of them financially and socially deprived,on a scale unknown under the Mandate. On the other hand, the number of Christians and Muslims diminished significantly,and there was clear pressure from local clerics to deflect the main focus of missionary effort to the Jewish community. In the political sphere as well, there were changes that seemed to offer the potential for action. One major country recognized the State of Israel on the explicit condition that Bialer, Cross on the Star 6/9/05 8:43 AM Page 93 nothing be done to alter the status of their Christian institutions in Israel,which already enjoyed considerable privileges. Other countries extended more or less direct diplomatic protection to their religious institutions in the Holy Land. What is more, the establishment of Israel and the return of hundreds of thousands of Jews to their homeland provided theological validation for a certain type of missionary organization. These groups (Adventists, Pentacostalists, the Church of God, and associations of converts, mostly American) regarded the establishment of a Jewish state as fulfillment of biblical prophesies, auguring the Second Coming of Christ. They were convinced that the Jews would now convert to Christianity and acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah on the Judgment Day. As far as they were concerned, the establishment of a Jewish state was a sign of the times, indicating that the conversion of the Jews was imminent and requiring them to make every effort to expedite it. Although missionary activity gathered momentum after 1948 for all the reasons noted above,and although Israel’s religious establishment considered every priest or clergyman to be a potential missionary among the Jews,not all of them actually engaged in missionary activity. The exception were those clerics who were active among the localArab and Christian communities—Greek Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Marronites, Armenians, Copts, and Episcopalians. Nor did the custodians of the Holy Places engage in this activity. Missionary work was confined, therefore, to two groups. The first consisted of Catholic priests who sometimes acted on an individual basis, but usually through schools, charitable bodies, medical associations, and hostels, mostly in towns with a largely Jewish population, such as Jerusalem, Jaffa, Ramla, Haifa,Acre, and Tiberias.The second group was composed of Protestants who were not affiliated to communities in Israel, whose activity was mostly missionary oriented, and who were also active in Arab villages.2 There was a significant difference between the two groups.The Protestants publicized their activities widely in order to recruit funds abroad, and they were usually open in their efforts (the most forthright among them were the Baptists,who even attacked the religious establishment in Israel). They won considerable attention in 1962 when they established the village of Nes Amim, which was settled by Christians from abroad.3 Catholics, on the other hand, were officially instructed to refrain from convincing Jews to convert except...