An internal memo circulated among missionaries, and obtained by Yad L’Achim, reveals details of their ‘successes’ in Israel.

Yad L’Achim has obtained an internal memo that sums up the “successes” of a huge missionary campaign that is operating throughout Israel.

“During the course of the campaign, we have received 1,220 calls to our offices, most of them in response to billboard and bus ads,” says the memo. “We’ve distributed 9,700 flyers and made 7,927 phone calls, of which 3,397 resulted in making contact with people. We’ve received details regarding 712 Israeli Jews who expressed an interest in learning more about J.”

The theme of the campaign is a play on Hebrew words that says that J equals salvation. The theme is being promoted on bus advertising and on huge banners displayed at major intersections.

Recently, Yad L’Achim managed to obtain material circulated among the missionaries pronouncing that “the campaigns are set to start in 2008 and continue through 2013. These are perhaps the most important things we have ever done in fulfilling our mission of bringing the messianism of J. to the Jews.

The internal communication goes on to explain why Israel is the focus of the missionaries’ efforts. “In Israel there are some 5.4 million Jews, more than at any other time in history,” it says. “However, only a tenth of a percentage believes in that man. This is the one place in the world where when we go to the streets to make direct appeals we don’t need to wonder who is a Jew. All we need to do is go out and speak to anyone we meet.”

In recent weeks, the country has been flooded with notices of all kinds and sizes seeking to reach Jews. Hundreds of missionaries have manned dozens of intersections in the north of the country brandishing banners with their poisonous messages. On Sukkos, in an attempt to confuse innocent Jews, the missionaries held a lulav and esrog in one hand and the banner with the other.

In addition, buses around the country were plastered with advertisements bearing missionary messages.

In response, Yad L’Achim dispatched teams of activists to areas where the missionaries were active. They circulated in cars bearing loudspeakers and warned, in Hebrew and Russian, of the intentions of the missionaries and the serious danger they posed.

Yad L’Achim chairman Harav Shalom Dov Lipschitz fired off letters to the heads of Egged and Dan, the country’s largest bus companies, and they quickly announced that the signs would be removed.

Egged explained that the error was made by the company that handles its advertising. “We have an agreement with the Cana’an [advertising firm] that there is to be no missionary material advertised on our buses,” said Tomer Levi, of Egged. “In this case, the Cana’an company wasn’t careful to check the content of the ads.”

Dan’s spokesman, Eitan Foxman, also apologized and said the company hadn’t been aware of the content of the ads. “The ads were taken down and the subject was dealt with immediately and thoroughly.”

To make matters worse, the missionaries brag of their success in presenting President Shimon Peres with missionary material – apparently at some public event.

Yad L’Achim has learned that the missionaries use this fact in trying to distribute their material in crowded public places. “Do you want to receive the brochure that the president received?” they ask passersby.

“This is chutzpah that crosses all lines,” says Rav Lipschitz. “To present the president with such material and then to use this fact to entice others? They know no boundaries.”

Rav Lipschitz expressed amazement at the public’s quiet in the face of the missionary onslaught. “The indifference is incomprehensible,” he said. “How can it be that when it comes to a subject that is so important, so existential, that there hasn’t been an outcry from one end of the country to the other!”

Rav Lipschitz called on the Knesset “to pass a missionary law that will be the first and most important step in blocking their destructive activities.”

(YWN Israel – Jerusalem)