Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880-2000

by Ariel, Yaakov S.

• ISBN13: 9780807825662
• ISBN10: 0807825662
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

With this book, Yaakov Ariel offers the first comprehensive history of Protestant evangelization of Jews in America to the present day. Based on unprecedented research in missionary archives as well as Jewish writings, the book analyzes the theology and activities of both the missions and the converts and describes the reactions of the Jewish community, which in turn helped to shape the evangelical activity directed toward it.Ariel delineates three successive waves of evangelism, the first directed toward poor Jewish immigrants, the second toward American-born Jews trying to assimilate, and the third toward Jewish baby boomers influenced by the counterculture of the Vietnam War era. After World War II, the missionary impulse became almost exclusively the realm of conservative evangelicals, as the more liberal segments of American Christianity took the path of interfaith dialogue.As Ariel shows, these missionary efforts have profoundly influenced Christian-Jewish relations. Jews have seen the missionary movement as a continuation of attempts to delegitimize Judaism and to do away with Jews through assimilation or annihilation. But to conservative evangelical Christians, who support the State of Israel, evangelizing Jews is a manifestation of goodwill toward them.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
PART I. THE RISE OF THE MOVEMENT TO EVANGELIZE THE JEWS, 1880--1920
Eschatology and Mission	9	(13)
The Missionary Work	22	(16)
The Converts	38	(17)
The Jewish Reaction	55	(14)
The Reputation of the Missions	69	(10)
PART II. YEARS OF QUIET GROWTH, 1920--1965
Choosing Sides	79	(4)
Getting Acquainted with the Jews	83	(5)
The Yiddish Translation of the New Testament	88	(5)
The Moody Bible Institute and the Training of Missionaries to the Jews	93	(8)
The Rise of the American Board of Missions to the Jews	101	(13)
Tension and Rivalry	114	(9)
The Rise and Fall of the Presbyterian Mission to the Jews	123	(12)
The Chicago Hebrew Mission	135	(8)
American Missionary Work in Israel	143	(22)
The Converts' Community	165	(10)
The Missionary Impulse	175	(10)
A Less Heated Reaction	185	(10)
PART III. THE COMING OF AGE, 1965--2000
The Changing Times	195	(5)
Jews for Jesus and the Evangelization of a New Generation	200	(20)
The Rise of Messianic Judaism	220	(32)
The Missionaries Become Real	252	(18)
The New Face of the Missionary Movement	270	(17)
Conclusion	287	(6)
Notes	293	(36)
Bibliography	329	(26)
Index	355