Times Herald-Record
cmckenna@th-record.com
Photos: Scenes from Days of Moshiach: Images from the DVD
Kiryas Joel - The DVD that came in the mail Saturday certainly looked enticing for Orthodox Jewish families.
The package was written in Hebrew; it had a disc tucked inside with a drawing of a robed, Old Testament figure blowing a ram's horn. Anyone who played the DVD found a smoothly produced recreation of biblical stories with a voice-over in the familiar cadences of Yiddish.
But the DVD, which was recently sent to about 80,0000 households throughout Kiryas Joel and other Orthodox communities in New York and New Jersey, carried an unexpected message for intensely religious Jews awaiting the arrival of the Messiah:
He already came.
It turns out the video was not a Shabbos greeting, but the sophisticated product of the Jews for Jesus organization and other evangelical Christians, hoping to convince viewers that Jesus was the Jewish savior prophesied in the Old Testament.
The DVD is called "Days of Moshiach," using the Hebrew word for Messiah.
"The Hasidim actually believe in Moshiach; they look for a Messiah," Stephen Katz, a spokesman for the group that produced the video, said yesterday. "We believe that the 'Days of Moshiach' DVD answers that hope."
Katz said DVDs were sent to homes in Kiryas Joel; the Monsey area of Rockland County; the Borough Park and Williamsburg sections of Brooklyn; and Lakewood, N.J.
Conversions might be slow in coming.
Yiddish and English newspapers serving the Orthodox communities are blasting angry warnings about the DVD, described by the weekly Monsey Advocate as a "virulent piece of missionary propaganda."
"It is suspected that this is the beginning of a wider assault aimed at entrapping the Yiddish-speaking public, particularly innocent children," the newspaper declared.
The DVD also disturbs Joel Levy, the New York regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
"It is deceptive because they are not Jewish and they are trying to create the impression that they are," said Levy. "They ought to say, 'We are Christians and this is what we believe.'"
Katz denies the DVD is deceptive. He said it tries to counter the "distortions, misinformation and, frankly, denigration of Yeshua" - Jesus - "that the Hasidim are familiar with."
It begins with the story of Abraham and Isaac and other Old Testament accounts to show how the coming of Jesus was foretold, he said.
"If there's any shot to communicate with this difficult-to-reach group, this seemed like the best way," said Katz, the Washington, D.C., director of Jews for Jesus, which is based in San Francisco.
But theology aside, technology might prove a larger hurdle for Katz's group. However appealing the packaging, most of the thousands of Kiryas Joel households that got the "Days of Moshiach" DVD don't have televisions or computers on which to view it.