Messianic Christian Couple in Israel Accused of Converting Minor

Ultra-Orthodox Jews harass, threaten pair even though 16-year-old has not converted

By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (ANS) -- Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that a hard-line Jewish ultra-Orthodox group in Israel that singles out Jewish Christians known as Messianic Jews for harassment and abuse is taking aim at a couple it claims is manipulating minors into becoming Christians

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A neighbor confronts 16-year-old Donna Lubofsky about her faith. (Photo: Compass)

CDN said that the Yad L'Achim group this week placed leaflets around the home of Serge and Naama Kogen, 37 and 42 respectively, in Mevasseret Zion, a suburban community located just west of Jerusalem.

"The same week someone took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper giving the couple's address and telling residents they were part of a missionary group 'targeting' the community," said the story. "The Kogens are native Israelis and hence not part of any missionary group. The advertisement invited the public to a protest planned against the Kogens, and on Sunday (June 26), about 20 of the group's supporters demonstrated outside the couple's home.

"The protests came after Yad L'Achim lost a court case against the Kogens and their congregational leader, Asher Intrater."

The group, CDN continued, had accused them of "proselytizing" minors. During the protest, a distraught 16-year-old girl, the alleged target of the couple's "missionary" efforts, said all of Yad L'Achim's claims were false. Donna Lubofsky maintains that she has never converted to Christianity.

She wanted to speak at the protest to give her side of what happened, but the organizers wouldn't let her, she said. "They are all liars, all liars! Ask them, why won't they let me speak?" Donna told Compass at the protest. "They won't let me speak because what they are saying is untrue. They [the Kogens] never tried to get me to believe. They are just good people."

For more information, please go to: www.compassdirect.org

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Dan Wooding, 70, is an award winning British journalist now living in Southern California with his wife Norma, to whom he has been married for 47 years. They have two sons, Andrew and Peter, and six grandchildren who all live in the UK. He is the founder and international director of ASSIST (Aid to Special Saints in Strategic Times) and the ASSIST News Service (ANS) and was, for ten years, a commentator, on the UPI Radio Network in Washington, DC. He now hosts the weekly "Front Page Radio" show on KWVE in Southern California which is also carried on the Calvary Radio Network throughout the United States. The program is also aired in Great Britain on Calvary Chapel Radio UK. Besides this, Wooding is a host for His Channel Live, which is carried via the Internet to some 200 countries. You can follow Dan on Facebook under his name there or at ASSIST News Service. He is the author of some 44 books. Two of the latest include his autobiography, "From Tabloid to Truth", which is published by Theatron Books. Wooding, who was born in Nigeria of British missionary parents, has also recently released his first novel "Red Dagger." .