MESSIANIC CONGREGATION BEER SHEVA TARGETED BY ULTRA-ORTHODOX

On Saturday morning, November 28, 1998, the messianic congregation in Beer Sheva was surrounded and entered by Ultra-Orthodox Jews with the purpose of disrupting Sabbath services. Three police wagons were called to diffuse the crowd of over 1000 protesters.  After being held in the building for two hours the police called in reinforcements to escort the women and children to safety.  As they moved through the crowd they were cursed at, spit on, roughed up, rocks were thrown, and children were deliberately frightened.  The leader’s wife was hit in the head with a rock and a car was damaged.  The Jerusalem Post reported on the incident on Dec. 4, 1998 “This wasn’t a demonstration: this was a mob.”

The Ultra-Orthodox protesters had erroneously heard that 150 children had been kidnapped in order to perform baptisms.  Death threats were made in order to prevent expected imposed baptisms.  Some in the crowd were reported as saying they would take the children by force if necessary.  Of course, there has never been a single case of kidnapping by Messianic Jews and this congregation does not practice infant or small children baptisms, yet this lie persists.

No arrests were made because the police said the protesters were not threatening, no damage was done, and no one was hurt.  They also reported to the press that no complaints were filed so there would not be an investigation.  This is in spite of the fact that a member of the congregation filed a formal complaint about the damage to his car, and the congregation made a collective complaint.
 

The second incident at the Beer Sheva Messianic Congregation It was about 12:30 on Jan 30, and the Saturday morning service had just ended. People noticed a special atmosphere there that morning: An atmosphere of real prayerfulness. Several minutes later, Howard Bass, one of the elders there, came back inside the building, looking rather troubled, and asked another believer for his camera, urgently; he wanted to take some pictures of a handful of ultra orthodox men who had appeared at the entrance to the congregation, and started heckling the congregates. They were shouting the worst kinds of obscenities about Yeshua and Howard. Yakim, my brother-in-law, came out to see what was going on, his wife, Debbie following him with their baby in her arms. To their surprise, they were both personally greeted by the leader of the small orthie gang:

"Ah! Yakim, our precious Yakim, how are you? And here's your precious wife, and our little baby! How are you? Do you know, I came specially for you!"

The leader was identified later as Yirmy Kalifah, the assistant of Yehuda Deri, the new chief Sepharadic Rabbi of Beer Sheva. He immediately resumed swearing and cursing at poor Howard and he kept talking to Yakim and Debbie, telling them they are good Jews who should "come back home". Elchai, their 3 year old son got scared and started crying. Kalifa kept on, and Yakim asked him if he really thinks that by cursing and threatening He would persuade them to come back home.

At the same time, the police arrived at the scene, and immediately forced the other members of the small gang to back off and allow congregates to leave the building for their homes. However, the police kept away from Kalifah, allowing him to continue undisturbed throughout the event. As people started leaving the building, many of them were assailed by angry cursing, shouting, more blasphemy - and some threats:

Edi and Naomi Hestler, a couple from the congregation, were told to expect a visit from the orthie mob on the next day: "We know where you live……!" This must have been quite nerve-wrecking, since when the orthies do attack, they appear very suddenly out of nowhere, in the hundreds, break into the home, break and smash everything they can – and within minutes they all vanish as quickly and suddenly as they had arrived and before the police arrive on the scene. Not that the police would really do much good anyway: even in the instances where they arrive at a scene where orthies are storming a house for several hours, as they did about three months ago in Jerusalem: A judge later demanded answers from the police on why, during a four-hour
riot where they destroyed and burned an apartment of suspected missionaries, the police never arrested even one person - and left the scene twice...

Kalifah went on, following Yakim and Debbie to their car, and alternating between cursing and asking them to return home to good'ole Judaism.  Debbie asked him to please back off because he was scaring her son. This caused him to shove his head as close as possible to Elchai's face, and shout "So he should be! Scaaaaared! He should learn how evil his parents are!" He then told Yakim "We must talk, you are a precious Jew and must return home. We can talk in my office in Beer Sheva, or in your home in Arad". This alarmed us all when we heard it - Debbie and Yakim have only just moved from Beer Sheva to Arad, and the orthies already know about it.

As it turns out, Yakim recognized that Yirmi had been to his place of employment one day earlier on Friday, supposedly to check the Mezuzah's. He talked to staff members about Yakim and he called Yakim's boss and told him lies about Yakim. This is a highly sensitive issue, since Yakim is in charge of a boarding home for children from difficult families, who have been given up or actually taken by the state. Any accusation of improprieties would be serious in such cases. Yakim's boss called him and said he doesn't believe what Kalifah said, but still summoned him for a talk. At this talk, the boss told Yakim that Kalifah had brought up serious accusations against Yakim, such as that he baptized children and had recently taken one of the children from the boarding home to the local Messianic congregation. As he told Yakim, he does not believe these accusations, but on the other hand, he is worried that the issue will become public debate, and there may be a public outcry about a supposed missionary working with kids in a state-owned operation.  In light of these possibilities, he asked Yakim to step down and give up his job.  Yakim has a wife and two young children to support, the boss doesn't believe the accusations - but he is asked to step down... He is now considering what he should do.

Obviously, there is need for much prayer for this congregation: