Will it be the Missionary Center or a Kiruv Center?

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flatbush1Chosen People Ministries (a Jews for J- missionary group) has spent $2.1 million to acquire a building and an additional nearly $1 million more on renovations to construct an 11,000 square foot missionary center in the heart of Flatbush; it will house a “synagogue,” Sefer Torah, classrooms, and dining hall with the specific intention of attracting the general Orthodox community and particularly 1) unaffiliated local Jews and 2) adults at risk from frum homes who have abandoned Yiddishkeit or are on the fringe. Vulnerable Jews will be invited for deceptive Shabbos and Yom Tov meals and services. Will they join? Who would turn down free meals and a warm, friendly, and welcoming atmosphere?

The missionary center, located on Coney Island Avenue between Avenues P and Quentin (in the former Yablokoff Funeral Home) makes it clear in their promotional material that Jews in Brooklyn are their prime targets, because there is little or no Kiruv going on in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is the only metropolis in North America without an all-encompassing Kiruv center. Denver, Colorado, for instance, has a tiny fraction of Jews compared to Brooklyn (proportionately there are more nonobservant Jews in Brooklyn than anywhere in America) and yet Denver has three Kiruv centers. Brooklyn has no major center.

Brooklyn Jewish Xperience (BJX), Brooklyn’s outreach organization, is at the forefront of outreach, reaching out to Brooklyn’s non-observant and less observant Jews. Almost 70% of Brooklyn’s Jews are non-observant. Every day BJX works around the clock, engaged in inreach and outreach, teaching Torah and Judaism to both those born to secular families, as well as young adults that were raised in religious homes but grew disenchanted or felt disenfranchised. Brooklyn Jewish Xperience’s innovative classes and programs and its warm, dynamic leadership has inspired countless to learn more about their heritage, prevented intermarriage and ensured Jewish continuity.

BJX is changing the fabric of Brooklyn. Roger bought Tzitzis; Jessica affixed a Mezuzah to her door. Sarah is going to study in Neve; Sammy is joining our chavrusah program. Paul, Erica, Danny, Boris, Angela, Mark, Debbie and numerous others enrolled in our “Laws and Philosophy of Shabbat” series. And that’s not all-students from frum families on the brink of giving up Yiddishkeit are now well adjusted frum adults.

Brooklyn Jewish Xperience needs your help to thwart the plans of the Missionary Center about to open in Flatbush. Instead of the fighting the missionary center by picketing and protesting we will foil their efforts by establishing Brooklyn’s first all-encompassing Kiruv Center. Thanks to the tireless and devoted efforts of pioneering leaders Moshe Caller, Shimon Lefkowitz, Leon Goldenberg, and Eli Goldbaum, Brooklyn will finally have a Kiruv Center. The BJX Kiruv Center will host BJX’s Kiruv Shul, daily classes, learning programs, and events for the unaffiliated and for frum people desperately in need of Kiruv and Chizuk. The Center will be located at 2915 Avenue K. Construction began last week. Now BJX needs support from the community to help build the BJX Kiruv Center so we can put the missionaries to shame. This is your chance to be part one of the greatest and most seminal endeavors in Jewish history.

The Chafetz Chaim declared that every Jew has a Torah obligation to reach out to their non-observant brethren. Today, with the threat from local Jewish missionaries, the fire of assimilation burning out of control, and the rampant off-the-derech phenomenon, every Jew must heed his call and respond.

BJX is a 501c3 organization, under the leadership of Rav Yitzchok Fingerer. Your donation is tax-deductible. You may donate securely online at http://www.thinkandcare.org./make-donation.html, send checks to Brooklyn Jewish Experience 998 East 21st Street Brooklyn NY 11210, or call 646-397-1544 with your pledge. The fire is almost out of control. Please donate now to save our Jewish heritage.

{Matzav.c0n Newscenter}


15 COMMENTS

  1. This is the world’s greatest Chilul Hashem!!! I can’t believe that Brooklyn that is so full of Yiddishkeit never made a Kiruv Center… Disgraceful and that the missionaries realized our blemish….. Why? Why?

  2. Do you realize that these savages are active here on Matzav.com’s comment section?

    Yes, all those promises of destruction is them. All those insensitive comments at times of tragedy are them trying to hunt at the “moment”.

    All those “autistic kid messages” baloney on here is them.

    All those “dream” concoctions are them.

    Dear Matzav.com, please take action. At least, please look into it. Thank you.

  3. Hitler Y”S never discriminated between Jews. Even a quarter Jew he sought to kill. Why do we discriminate?? We think we are holier than those who aren’t observant! They are our brothers and sisters and we will have to account for them. I would like to B”H help this Kiruv Center get off the ground to show Ribbono hel Oilam we care about His Kinder!

  4. We need a real BT yeshiva in Brooklyn, similar to a place like Yesodei haTorah in Baltimore.

    A place where a guy can learn Hebrew and the siddur in one year, Chumash and Mishnah in the next year, and make a leining on a blatt gemara, with Rashi, Tosfos, Rishonim after 4 years of study.

  5. There are many kiruv centers all across Brooklyn. We have to do more, but let’s not undermine the fantastic inreach (Our Place, Ohr Yitzchak, The Living Room) and outreach (Chabad, the schools for Russians and many) across Brooklyn.

  6. Here in Detroit, there was a Jew named David Ben Lew (sp?) who set up a Missionary to trick a certain type of natural born Jew to accept the “truth” and follow J. He had a cable show back in the 80s and stole Jewish neshomos that were simply ignorant.
    Anyhow, when we learned about it, we took matters into our own hands.
    The place has been closed for many years; about 25 years now.

  7. As R’ Avigdor Miller zt”l once said about a different missionary place that it should burn down to the ground with all the people inside it!!

  8. To # (Reality): Our Place and The Living Room are for kids on drugs/alohol. They are by no means inreach Kiruv Centers for stable people that are searching. Ohr Yitzchak is a Yeshiva…. Chabad and Russian schools are not Kiruv Centers. Go to any city outside of Brooklyn, even Manhattan, and you will see what a real Kiruv Center is. There is nothing in Brooklyn and the missionaries know it.

  9. The inreach groups you mentioned are basically there to help teens with issues (substance abuse, etc). Are you aware of an in-reach org for normal YJP or college students? I’m not. There’s definitely a need for inreach for Achenu beni Yisrael post high school. Also, where is there a Kiruv center for regular post high school YJP who are not Russian? It doesn’t exist.

  10. There’s a very big problem now in Israel which the typical Jew living in the U.S. and even in Israel is not aware of. That is the fundamental christians are trying to settle in Israel and especially in the heartland, Yesh, and in Yerushalayim. There are those that call themselves Ephramites who are trying to settle the north (they think of themselves as the lost tribes). Others are purchasing land and starting farms. It’s groise tzoros that is kept quiet and many in US do not want to believe it. In the meantime, they are stealthily missionizing those who are easy prey. Instead of these absurd comments above, learn and read a little of what is truly going on and is being aided by higherups in the knesset, etc. Go to JewishIsrael.com!

  11. I have worked in Kiruv as a volunteer, then professionally, and continue to participate as a volunteer. I worked at at one of the major global organizations and at a major national one in the US.

    In my experience, most of the teens going to drop-ins centers are not shomer shabbos and have questions that are being dealt with. Ohr Yitzchak offers dinner to those coming to shuirim and have rabbeim answering essential questions, as well as providing shiurim for those (college age and older) who are far out of touch. And there are frum rabbis at Hillel answering tough questions from frum students.

    Chabad does incredible work, and every Chabad house offers programming. These are not “Aish Centers”, JLI or Project Torch or the like, it’s a different feel.

    I agree that Brooklyn could really use anoter type of kiruv center modeled after others around the world. I’m just suggesting that we give some credit to those already engaged.

  12. Having personally rarely missed a chance to fight the missionaries, I must make an observation: The Missionaries are a symptom, not a cause of a disease. We will loose, as long as the establishment snubs other Jews who happen to come from outside their particular community, snub their brethren not for some religious consideration but purely for “you are not enough one of us” reason. We will loose, as long as our schools when it comes to the Jewish kids whose parents are deemed “not enough one of us” –

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