Some well-meaning Jews are worried about Sarah Palin.  (http://www.jewishjournal.com/thegodblog/item/palin_and_jews_for_jesus_20080903/)   A few weeks ago, the pastor of her church invited David Brickner, the Christian who founded the silly organization “Jews for Jesus,” to speak at her church in Alaska’s fourth largest city, Wasilla.  I am not one of those who is bothered by attempts to proselytise us.  But I know that others are - and one of them is Governor Palin, who has announced that she does not agree with the views of David Brickner.
What I want to make clear to my anxious Jewish readers is that it is not only Bible-belt or wild-west evangelicals who support “Jews for Jesus.”  I first became aware of this some 12 years ago when I had an office near New York City’s Grace Episcopal Church in Greenwich Village, a beautiful gothic revival church built in 1846.  Walking by the church’s notice board one spring day around 1995, I noticed that a speaker from Jews for Jesus was going to speak to a church group.  I hurried back to my office and, quaintly, naively, wrote a friendly letter to the then-rector, pointing out that he must not be aware of how offensive the presence of such a figure would be to Grace Church’s Jewish neighbors.  I got no answer.

I should not have been as surprised as I was.  Since then, I have realized that, perhaps as easy cover for their anti-Zionism, the mainline Protestant churches make a great noise about their occasional condemnation of “Jews for Jesus” and similar group.  But this fastidiousness has simply not trickled down to the parish level.

A quick tour of Presbyterian and Episcopalian Church Web sites reveals meetings, lectures, prayer services in aid of, and financial support for “Jews for Jesus” missions in “nice” churches from coast to coast.  The Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill, NC, has a link to Jews for Jesus on its Web site’s directory of Christian online links (www.rtpnet.org/tchf/xian-res.html).  Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles Web site advertises for tenors and basses “for The Liberated Wailing Wall, Jews for Jesus’ mobile evangelistic music team. Must be a Jewish believer in Jesus.”  Boston Jews for Jesus had a regular Friday evening gathering - Friday is the Sabbath for Jews, by the way - at Newton Presbyterian Church.  Covenent Presbyterian in Sarasota, Highland Park Presbyterian in Dallas, the Trinity Episcopal Church in Whitinsville, Mass.  - all of these have connections with Jews for Jesus that are untroubled by conscious.  These are not small churches in small cities in Alaska of which we know nothing - in fact, I’d wager that they are dominated by Democratic-voting, enlightened, Palestinian-supporting liberals.

Andrew Sullivan is horrified by the fact that Governor Palin’s pastor was moved by a young man by encountering David Brickner, the Christian pastor who leads “Jews for Jesus.”  But the liberal Christian shuls I mention, and no doubt many more, welcome and support “Jews for Jesus.”  Would he be surprised that the majority of their congregations support both Obama for President, and the creation of gay marriage? I would guess that they do.

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