Howard Bass’ Nachlat Yeshua congregation is currently suing the Chief Rabbi of Beer Sheva Yehuda Deri and the Yad L’Achim anti-missionary organisation for causing a riot in their congregation in 2005.

Watch for yourself what happens:

Yad L’Achim leader Alex Artovsky is accused of playing a key role in organising and infiltrating the service – a charge which he denies. Artovsky is described by Haaretz as Yad L’Achim’s “chief of operations”, and by the Jerusalem Post as Yad L’Achim’s “chief field operative”. Artovsky, a former Russian policeman, has also boasted of spying on Messianic Jews who believe in Yeshua, demanded their sacking regardless of their profession, and accused Messianic Jews of setting up discothèques to lure Israeli youth. You can read an interview with Artovsky here.

Given that Artovsky is ideologically opposed to messianic missionaries spreading the gospel of the messiah’s arrival to Jews, perhaps he’d have something to say about the missionary R. Rotenbord. Here is Rotenbord explaining his missionary tactics to Nosson Avrohom in the Chabad journal Beis Moshiach: (page 21 of PDF)

R’ Rotenbord sees no problem with spreading the B’suras HaGeula [“Gospel of the Redemption”]. “People think that the topic of Moshiach is one of faith and not logic. Maybe it used to be that way but once the Rebbe taught his chiddushim, the topic is rationally understood too. If I see a Jew only accepts logical explanations, I get him to believe in Moshiach through logic. “At our shul there are all kinds of people, including Mizrachi and every one of them knows who Moshiach is and how to sing Yechi. They hear it from me in shiurim and at farbrengens and understand that it’s something true and ‘alive.’

Yet R.Rotenbord, as you may have worked out, is not a Jews for Jesus worker or a Baptist missionary, but a Chabad missionary. Rotenbord works for Lapid – a messianic Chabad group based in Russia.

Lapid clearly believe that Menachem Schneerson possesses elements of divinity and eternity; omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence; as Avrohom reports that Lapidencourage their followers to write to the Rebbe and receive answers to prayers (page 21 of PDF).

Avrohom also features Rabbi Ravina Aharonov (page 22 of the same PDF):

I spoke to Rabbi Ravina Aharonov, an activist who works for Lapid. He does tremendous work with kafkazim, immigrants from the Caucasus. There are no other shluchim in Eretz Yisroel who work with this population, whose members prefer to live in their own communities even after years of living in Eretz Yisroel. R’ Aharonov came to Chabad after attending the shiurim of Yad L’Achim activist, R’ Alex Artovsky. […] “In 5752 I emigrated to Eretz Yisroel and I wanted to continue my studies. I took Alex Artovsky’s classes and thanks to him, I was hosted many times by the Chabad community in Netanya and I learned there too. In my city of Chadera I connected with the shliach, Rabbi Klonymous Kupchik from whom I learned a lot.”

So Alex Artovsky, so opposed to Jews who believe that Jesus is the divine Jewish Messiah, is also an inspiration to Chabad missionaries who imply that Menachem Schneerson is the divine Jewish Messiah!

The idea of Schneerson being divine crops up fairly often in Chabad circles. In the Beis Moshiach journal you can read various articles speaking of the Rebbe’s atzmus elokus (divine essence).

In another issue of Beis Moshiach (page 8 of PDF) we read :

even if we agree that 770 [the house number of the Rebbe’s previous residence in Crown Heights, New York] is comparable to the Beis HaMikdash [the Temple in Jerusalem], that was true until Gimmel Tammuz [the day the Rebbe died] when we openly saw Elokus [divinity] in the Rebbe, but now that we don’t see the Rebbe or the revelation of Elokus [divinity], there’s no reason to go to 770, certainly not often.

Elsewhere in Beis Moshiach (page 10 of PDF), a panel of Chabad rabbis talk about the messianic age, and that the Rebbe will soon come to redeem the world.

Until then one must:

accustom ourselves to viewing the world as illusory, with only Elokus on our minds. It will soon be this way in Yemos HaMoshiach. The preparation for this is our avoda today, in the merit of which we will see the Rebbe come to redeem us and revealed Elokus in all of creation.

Prominent Chabad Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin has recently claimed that the Rebbe will:

“take us out of golus now [and everyone] will understand and see it’s the Rebbe who runs this world.”

The Campaign for Moshiach Consciousness’ Moshiach blog speaks about “a new theology for a new Torah” brought by the Rebbe, sounding suspiciously similar to the writer of Hebrews.

Only today, we find on ChabadInfo:

Being that Christianity was created by Jews – and to recruit Jews – it should not be shocking that they have adopted some of our basic beliefs. For one to discount an idea as a “Christian-non Jewish concept” without checking Jewish sources, is like giving credit to a new company, without seeing if they stole patents from an older company.

Alex Artovsky, who recently delivered a lecture at the Chabad of Rega Park, joins Shmuel Arkush and Bentzion Kravitz in the category of proselytising Jewish messianists who believe in a divine Messiah who oppose other proselytising Messianic Jews who believe in a divine Messiah.

The other major category of anti-missionaries are ex-Christian converts to Judaism like Gavriel Sanders, YY Rubenstein and Binyamin Klugger, who actively oppose Jewish converts to Christianity.

Fascinatingly, the anti-missionaries in both categories have far more in common with Jewish Christians than they may care to realise.

And, in disagreement about who’s really the Messiah, there’s no need for violence or intimidation of any sort.

Earlier this month, Leah Ortiz wrote, regarding the bombing of her son Ami:

We’ve been asked if anti-human rights groups like Yad L’ achim and http://www.jewishisrael.com/, which are dedicated to demonizing and harassing Messianic Jews, were involved. I will say that Teitel is a perfect example of a man that has taken their ideology and message of hate and suspicion, and has taken it to the next level of acting out that message.

Haaretz reported on Jack Teitel:

His deadliest bomb was sent to the Ortiz family in Ariel. In the end of 2007, he found out online that the messianic Jewish family was proselytizing, and began collecting information. He contacted them through a false name from an Internet cafe, and said he wanted to pray with the community.

“He used to sit here a lot,” cafe owner Moshe Cohen told Haaretz. “Two months ago he was sitting here, and 10 minutes later five detectives came in and took his computer and the security camera tapes. After that I saw him in the news.”

Teitel placed a package near the door of the Ortiz household. The cleaning lady brought it inside, and the family’s teenage son Ami opened the box, and was seriously injured by the bomb.

Here is Teitel’s email to David Ortiz:

From: Daniel Ivgeny
Date:12/12/07  20:19:10
To: ldortiz@netvision.net.il
Subject: Services

Rabbi David Ortiz,

I would like to join your services with my girlfriend Ronit, to see if we would like it. I am not very religious, but I feel very close to God.  I live in Eli, so traveling is not a problem.

Please tell me when you will have next service, and where we should go. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Of course, false identities and mis-information are the order of the day for Yad L’Achim.

This from the Yad L’Achim website:

We fight the missionaries in a variety of ways, some of which, due to their sensitive nature, can’t be described in detail. One of our most important functions is to track the activities of missionaries and respond to them in appropriate ways.

Then there’s this:

Fighting the missionaries, who have millions of dollars a year at their disposal, has long been one of Yad L’Achim’s top priorities.

And worst of all, this:

As head of Yad L’Achim’s anti-missionary department, Rabbi Artovksi monitors the activities of the more than 100 messianic congregations in Israel. But it isn’t enough to know what they’re doing today – which neighborhoods they are canvassing or which workplaces they have infiltrated. He makes it his business to know what they are planning for tomorrow.

“You’ve got to know what the enemy has in store for you,” Rabbi Artovski tells an interviewer in his office at Yad L’Achim’s headquarters in Bnei Brak. “When and where they plan to distribute missionary material, when and where they plan to hold baptism ceremonies, when and where they intend to hold seminars for the unsuspecting public.”

And how does he obtain such information? It’s difficult to imagine him, with his black beard and classic chareidi attire, knocking on the door of, say, Beit Immanuel in Jaffa and asking its leader, David Lazarus, for a sneak preview of coming missionary attractions.

“Intelligence,” he answers.

Like any army, Yad L’Achim understands that it needs accurate information to effectively fight the enemy. Scores of operatives are out in the field gleaning information and many others are in the office interpreting what it means and planning how to respond.

Part of the intelligence-gathering process involves informers at the highest echelons. The United States, Holland, Germany and Norway are major sources of funding and training for missionaries in Israel – and a source of information for Yad L’Achim.

“We have an army of informers at the very highest levels of J’s Witnesses and the Messianic Jews who give us accurate, up-to-date information,” says Rabbi Artovski.

The informers help Rabbi Artovski in two ways: They provide him with the kind of accurate information – for a price – and they shake up the higher echelons of the missionary organizations. “If eight years ago, there was an air of confidence among them, today there is suspicion,” Rabbi Artovksi explains. “They are paranoid and suspicious of one another.”

Yad L’Achim have developed a counter-culture in which it is acceptable to spy, lie and intimidate about Messianic Jews. Was Jack Teitel affiliated with Yad L’Achim at all, or did he simply find comfort in their ideology and tactics? What does Yad L’Achim do to ensure it doesn’t employ or contact people with murderous wishes? What does Yad L’Achim do to calm down tensions, or to reduce extremism?

Nothing, of course, for Yad L’Achim is itself a fascist organisation, supported by Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai. Unless Yad L’Achim changes soon, or Israeli authorities force it to change, then every Israeli citizen should be alert to a group which acts in total defiance to democratic law, and has nothing to offer normal people.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EyBuuUIc4M]

Here is a Yad L’Achim propaganda video with English subtitles, their head, Rabbi Livshitz and staff member, a French Catholic convert to Baptist Protestantism then convert to Judaism Binyamin Klugger, explain their methodology and tactics. This is how they see themselves and how they view and hate Christian mission and hate Messianic Jews even more! If Yad L’Achim was simply, as they claim, all about allowing people to hear the other side, that would be fair, however that is not the full story as we have posted numerous times on this blog, even in this clip you can see the bully boy tactics used to intimidate people who are not breaking any laws in the State of Israel.

http://www.yiddeleclips.com/watch_video.php?v=286031f8c32e698

A revelation from Chabad World:

Not too long ago, Yousef and his siblings, numbering eight in total, together with their mother, were living under extremely harsh conditions in the heart of the so-called Muslim Quarter in the Old City of Yerushalayim. They were Baruch Hashem among the fortunate, extricated from the abyss by the Chabad – led Yad L’Achim organization. Now, Yosef as he is called among Am Yisrael, is wearing tefillin, marking his bar mitzvah.

This is a stunning admission. Chabad is an organisation in which many members believe that a rabbi who died is the Messiah and promote “Moshiach” conferences in the heart of the Beit Menachem community in Stamford Hill where members believe that the deceased Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson is God incarnate.

Read the Hebrew at the front of the podium – Yechi adoneinu moreinu v’raveinu melech ha’moshiach le’olam va’ed – “Long live our Lord, teacher and rabbi, King Messiah, forever and ever”!

And Yad L’Achim accuses Messianic Jews of idolatry because we believe Yeshua rose from the dead! At least our Messiah was born in the right place!

Watch Chabad handing out flyers and proselytising Gentiles (especially from 3:30). You can even hear a Lubavitcher hasid cry out “Moshiach Wakba!” (2:13-2:17):

Chabad is a missionary organisation, and Yad L’Achim’s chief of operations Alex Artovsky provides inspiration to Chabad missionaries.

How much more clear can Chabad be that they are missionaries?

Do Yad L’Achim also persecute Chabad missionaries? Why not, if they go after Messianic Jews?

If missionary activity, and belief that God became a man and conquered death to fulfill his mission as the Messiah, is acceptable within Jewish communities, then why can’t Yad L’Achim simply reason and debate with Messianic Jews over who is really the Messiah?

And if it is only a faction of Chabad that hold to the idea that Schneerson is God, and Yad L’Achim consider this “idolatry”, then why aren’t Yad L’Achim focusing on purging this “idolatry” from within their own Lubavitch community before they focus on those outside it?

Whilst other Israeli anti-missionaries are genuinely concerned by Chabad, will they show similar concern for their Yad L’Achim employees?

Abraham Bilkin is Yad L’Achim’s regional co-ordinator in Netanya:

The operatives immediately phoned Rabbi Avraham Bitkin, Yad L’achim’s regional coordinator in the area, who was on his way to a “chalakah,” a ceremony in which three-year-old boys get their first hair cut (known as an upsherin in Ashkenazic circles). The ceremony had extra special meaning because the parents had been brought closer to Judaism by Yad L’Achim’s extensive outreach network.

Understanding that there was no time to waste – what with a baptism scheduled for the next morning – Rabbi Bitkin made a u-turn and headed for the woman’s home. He convinced her to join him at the chalakah, in Yad L’achim’s Netanya branch, and when she arrived she was engulfed in the feeling of a true Jewish simcha.

We learn from Yad L’Achim’s website that Bitkin works for Yad L’Achim warning of the danger of missionaries:

Yad L’Achim’s team, headed by Rabbi Avraham Bitkin, worked around the clock for three days to alert Jews in the area as to the real intentions of the friendly, clean-cut strangers who just wanted “a minute of your time.” They kept close tabs on the missionaries and tracked down all of the impressionable young Jews who came into contact with them.

“In every instance in which a missionary succeeded in engaging a Jew, we made sure to reach the youngster give him the whole picture,” said Rabbi Bitkin. “We were engaged in a defensive PR campaign that succeeded beyond all expectations.”

And who runs Yad L’Achim’s website?

This information is from Domain Tools:

Domain ID:D82565325-LROR
Domain Name:YADLEACHIM.ORG
Created On:16-Jan-2002 11:15:46 UTC
Last Updated On:19-Jul-2006 12:49:56 UTC
Expiration Date:16-Jan-2011 11:15:46 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:CSL Computer Service Langenbach GmbH d/b/a joker.com a German GmbH
(R25-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:CORG-15344
Registrant Name:Avraham Bitkin
Registrant Street1:Begin RD. 125
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Tel-Aviv
Registrant State/Province:
Registrant Postal Code:00000
Registrant Country:IL
Registrant Phone:+972.527741770
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:

bitkin770@hotmail.com is a reference to both Avraham Bitkin and 770: a number very precious to Lubavitchers as it corresponds to Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s former address: 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, New York.

In fact, the number 770 is so precious to Lubavitchers that many are convinced that Schneerson will reveal himself soon as this year is 5770. There is even a website with live feed from 770.

Alexander Bitkin’s name and email address appear on the Lubavitcher meshichist website ksol.org, where you can hear Lubavitcher melodies. The most prominent melody on the site is Eleazar Peretz’ new adaptation of the Yechi, to which you can listen here.

If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that Peretz does not sing the traditional “Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu Verabeinu Melech Hamoshiach Leolam Voed“, but instead sings “Yechi Adoneinu Boreinu Verabeinu Melech Hamoshiach Leolam Voed“. In this case, changing the mem to a bet means the word changes from ‘our teacher’ to ‘our creator’ – the Yechi statement now reading “Long live Our Lord, Our Creator and Our Rabbi, King Messiah Forever and Ever“.

Ironically then, the Yad L’Achim website is registered to a man who believes that a Jewish rabbi was actually the Lord and Creator of the universe.

Given Chabad’s heavy influence on Yad L’Achim – including the prominent role of Alex Artovsky (himself an inspiration to meshichist missionaries) – it seems rather ironic that Yad L’Achim spend all their time kvetching about one group of proselytising Jews who believe in divine, death-defying Messiah whilst they take orders from another group of proselytising Jews who believe in a divine, death-defying Messiah.

So are Yad L’Achim really trying to eliminate idolatry from the land of Israel, or just trying to eliminate the competition?

What makes their messiah real, and not just a wannabe?

As the trial date looms and anti-missionary mandarin Alex Artovski, ex-Soviet police officer, takes the stand to answer for the riot he is accused of inciting against a Messianic Jewish Congregation in Beersheva, lets remind ourselves of the violent invasion of a place of worship.

Calev Myers, a Messianic Jewish lawyer in Jerusalem has petitioned the Attorney General of the State of Israel according to section 50 of the Associations Law, 5740-1980, to dismantle the Yad L’Achim organization, led by Rabbi Dov Shalom Lifshitz, because of their promotion and instigation of persecution and denial of civil rights and democratic privileges to Israeli citizens whose faith they disagree with. i.e.  Messianic Jews and Christians in the State of Israel. Yad L’Achim’s anti-mission leader Alex Artovsky is due in court March 9th to face charges that he was involved in instigating a religious hate crime by inciting  a riot  involving hundreds of Orthodox Jews raiding a Messianic Jewish Congregation’s worship service back in 2005.  The petition also cites Yad L’Achim’s appalling track record against Israeli Arabs, Reform Judaism, Jehovah Witnesses, New Age groups, the Kabbalah Centre and non-Orthodox forms of Judaism, including kidnap, breaking-up families, breaching the privacy act, hate-spreach etc…   

The Petition states:

“And we stress that the longer the destructive incitement by Yad L’Achim continues without interference, the greater the chances for a repeat of the violence against innocent citizens, whose lifestyle is not to the liking of the Organization’s activists.” 

JewishIsrael have characterised Calev Myers’ fight for the civil rights of Messianic Jews in Israel as a crusade against Orthodox Judaism. How empty would such a statement seem if the KKK had said the Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in 60’s America were just a crusade against the White Man!  

The position of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice has also found support from the Haaretz editorial team, who wrote here:  

“Yad L’Achim is a blatant violation of Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.    

The organization’s shady links with the establishment are not new – for years, its activists have provided information to rabbinical courts seeking to stick their hands into sensitive cases at the Social Affairs Ministry. More than once the group has enjoyed the assistance of ultra-Orthodox politicians such as Menachem Porush, who as deputy social affairs minister in 1991 wrote to a court pleading for mercy toward the group’s activists who had kidnapped an orphan from relatives who were “not religious enough.” But the Interior Ministry employees’ collaboration with the group outdoes even that abhorrent precedent.   

The government must call its employees to order immediately, to explain to Interior Minister Eli Yishai that he is not responsible for maintaining the purity of the Jewish race according to the formula of ultra-Orthodox zealots, and that any collaboration with Yad L’Achim is, in effect, a grave instance of persecution.”   

The US State Department’s report on International Religious Freedom published , October 2009 named Yad L’Achim as an organisation that concerned them, Yad L’Achim was first named in the annual report in 2001.    

Here is Yad L’Achim’s response to a past State Department report. They describe missionaries doing exactly what the anti-missionaries are doing!   

Joseph adds:

As we’ve shown on this blog, Yad L’Achim is an organisation which is inspired by faith in the Lubavitcher Rebbe as the Moshiach.

Even though Schneerson is dead, they think he still controls the world. Many leading Yad L’Achim members consider Schneerson as a godlike being, or even as God himself.

They think all Jews should become born-again believers in the Rebbe, as opposed to born-again believers in Yeshua.

Why do they call Messianic Jews idolators then, if they mimic our theology? If they are convinced that Schneerson is Moshiach instead of Yeshua, they should explain why.

Instead, for whatever reason, they seem to be terrified of Yeshua himself, and so respond with terror against Yeshua’s followers.

The terror must end!