 Today, there are over 75 million born-again Christians in North America, many of whom are convinced that in order for Jesus to return, the Jewish people must first be converted to Christianity. These Protestant Christian denominations contribute more than $300 million annually to aggressively convert Jews worldwide. Several Christians have established special messianic synagogues to attract Jews. Such synagogues have grown in number from 20 to over 700 in just the last 40 years. Missionaries convince their recruits that they are not complete as Jews unless they accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and that a Jew retains his Jewish identity even after converting to Christianity. In the last four decades, more than 400,000 Jews worldwide have been converted specifically by missionaries who use deceptive tactics that masquerade Christian beliefs in the guise of Judaism. The Gospel is preached by messianic rabbis wearing yarmulkes and prayer shawls at Shabbat and holiday services. These Hebrew Christians promote their Christian faith by using the new name Messianic Judaism. These missionary groups, over 1,000 in North America alone, are active worldwide and can be found in every Jewish population center. Several groups have found in Messianic Jewish day schools for children and Yeshivas, where they produce ordained Messianic rabbis. There are now over 100 Messianic congregations in Israel and over 175 in the former Soviet Union. These groups pray almost exclusively upon uneducated, unaffiliated and alienated Jews. These missionary groups have also influenced many evangelical churches to adapt the same deceptive techniques to proselytize Jews. For the first time in history, Jews are welcomed into the church and told that they can retain their Jewish identity while worshiping Jesus. Church members then introduce the Jew to someone Jewish who has accepted the Lord. This method of proselytizing increases the number of contact people who serve as conduits to the Messianic Jewish missionaries and include Christian associates at work, at school and in social settings. Many churches now run programs to teach Christians how to effectively evangelize their Jewish acquaintances. Contrary to popular belief, it is not only emotionally unstable Jews who fall prey to missionaries' efforts. In fact, all Jews are susceptible. Missionaries often target college campuses, hospitals, drug rehabilitation programs, seniors residents, shopping malls in Jewish neighborhoods, as well as the Israeli community, Soviet immigrants and intermarried couples. They deliberately misquote, mistranslate and misinterpret Jewish scripture and rabbinical texts in an attempt to prove that Jesus was both the Jewish Messiah and God. Their delegitimization of Judaism in concert with their misleading exploitation of Jewish symbols, religious artifacts and even traditional music serves to confuse the potential convert making him or her a lot more vulnerable. And while it was once very common to see such Jews for Jesus' missionaries on street corners handing out pamphlets to entice Jews, their battleground has now moved to the internet where they are able to seduce many more Jews in the Christianity from the comfort of their home, office and, of course, portable devices. I'd like to take a moment to focus on the obsession to convert Jews specifically and the tactics that are used to convert Jews. Missionary groups use three sets of tactics to attract Jews. Firstly, they imply that a Jew can retain his Judaism even after converting. Secondly, they frequently misquote, mistranslate and misrepresent Jewish scripture and rabbinical texts in order to substantiate their claims. And thirdly, they attempt to delegitimize Judaism by claiming that Christianity is the only spiritual path to God and to salvation. Now, in addition, many missionary groups employ scare tactics and intimidation to discourage individuals from talking with rabbis, thereby preventing them from having an opportunity to hear an opposing viewpoint. Such deceptive tactics are morally objectionable not just to Jews, but to non-Jews as well. Numerous Christian groups have publicly condemned the Hebrew Christian movements. It's a large problem. Despite such widespread condemnation, the efforts of the Hebrew Christians have met with alarming success. It's been said that more Jews have accepted Jesus as their Messiah in the past 20 years than in the past 20 centuries. Now, this statement does not include forced conversions carried out under the rest such as those of the Morales during the Spanish Inquisition. Most authorities say that there are now over 400,000 Jewish converts to Hebrew Christianity worldwide. The Talmud teaches us that whoever saves a single Jewish soul, it's as if he saved an entire world. This passage underscores the importance of helping each individual. Even if only one Jewish person were being misled, our concern would be great. When you multiply this by hundreds of thousands, the anguish and concerns far more pronounced. Most people have heard of the missionary group Jews for Jesus. Yet, oddly enough, there's no Buddhists for Jesus or Hindus for Jesus. Apparently, Christian evangelicals are more obsessed with converting Jews than converting any other group. Now, there are both theological and psychological reasons to explain this historical obsession. I'd first like to talk about the theological obsession. The Christian gospel is described as being, quote, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, referring to Gentiles. Fundamentally, vegetalist Christians interpret this to mean that they have a mandate to convert every person, but especially Jews. Many fundamentalist Christians believe that the Jews are the key to bringing about the second coming of Jesus and salvation to all mankind. Not to prove their point, they quote the passages, Salvation is from the Jews and also, you will not see me until you, that is the Jews, say, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Some believe that Jesus' return is dependent upon the conversion of exactly 144,000 Jews and that the rest of the Jews will be wiped out during the great tribulation that will accompany the return of Jesus. Now to the psychological obsession. Since the concept of a Messiah was originally and exclusively a Jewish concept, the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by Jews has always posed a serious paradox and a dilemma for the Christian church. Therefore, in the eyes of many evangelical fundamentalists, each conversion of a Jew to Christianity becomes a collaboration of their faith. For centuries, the response to the Jewish rejection of Jesus has been persecution of Jews rationalized as God's divine punishment for having rejected Jesus. The fire of prejudice was fueled by New Testament passages such as, you, Jews, are of your father, the devil. And the Jews who killed both Jesus and the prophets and drove us out, they are not pleasing to God. All the people answered and said, his blood be upon us and our children, referring to the Jews. Most fundamentalists will argue that the perpetrators of the history of atrocities against the Jews were not true Christians. However, according to many historians, it's precisely such New Testament rhetoric that is responsible for creating the atmosphere in which such events can happen. Today, after almost 2000 years of Jewish rejection of Jesus, the dilemma still exists. It's out of this tremendous theological and psychological need that the fundamentalist Christians have committed millions of dollars to develop new and sophisticated and often deceptive techniques to convert Jews.