A national effort to mail to Jewish households a book urging Jews to convert to Christianity has appeared in Milwaukee.
Elana Kahn-Oren, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, told The Chronicle on Feb. 22 that she knows of about 25 people who have received copies of the book since about Jan. 25, and there may be more she doesn’t know about.
The book is titled “They Thought for Themselves: Ten Amazing Jews.” It is written and edited by Sid Roth. According to his website, Roth is a former businessman who was “raised in a traditional Jewish home,” but became a “Messianic Jew” in 1977.
The book, whose cover and jacket copy give no indication of its true contents, tells first-person stories with Roth’s commentaries of several Jews who became “Jewish believers in Jesus,” including Roth’s own story.
Roth has been mailing thousands of copies of the book to Jewish households around the country for at least three years, as evidenced by a news report in New Jersey Jewish News of March 31, 2010. Roth’s website states he seeks to mail two million of the books to U.S. Jews.
Kahn-Oren said that because the book is “deceptive” in giving no indication of its contents, people who receive it “are mostly not sure what it is” at first. Some have also told her they don’t know what to do with the book once they find out what it is.
On Jan. 27, the JCRC mailed a letter to Jewish community leaders to alert them about the book and Roth’s campaign. “Like other forms of ‘Hebrew-Christian’ missionaries, Roth tries to draw Jews away from Judaism with a range of tactics that are inherently offensive to Judaism and the Jewish community,” the letter states.
“Please be sure to communicate with your family, friends, students, and congregants that this book is an attack on Judaism and has no place in our homes, classrooms or synagogues,” the letter states.
Kahn-Oren urges community members who receive this or other similar books to “recycle them,” but also to let her know, as “they could be part of a larger campaign.”
To contact the JCRC, call 414-390-5781 or visit the JCRC section of the MJF website, www.milwaukeejewish.org.
Leon Cohen
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