Letter From A Grateful Mother
I would like to express thanks and gratitude to Rabbi Kravitz who was there to help us in a time of crisis. One of my sons, at only 15 years old, accidentally got caught up in Jews for Jesus Christian missionaries. Unbeknownst to us, his classmates dared him to call the missionary hotline displayed around the neighborhood, to debate the missionaries over the phone.
After several months of this "pastime" my son told us that he doesn't anymore trust what we have taught him since birth about his Jewish heritage and the Torah commandments. Perhaps, he said, the Christians are right, and that God has given up on us for being unworthy. We were shocked and scared, to say the least. Teenagers are impulsive and who knew what his next step might be? The missionaries had told him that he's old enough to choose, and he doesn't have to choose Judaism just because his parents had.
I've learned a lot about parenting and about Torah over the years, but never did I think I'd have to become a counter-missionary to my own child!
We mobilized immediately and searched for resources. Jews for Judaism was an obvious one. The easy to read articles directly dealt with the arguments the missionaries had taught my son. We also watched some of the readily available videos on YouTube. This was enough for us of course but convincing our son was an entirely different matter. He wasn't ready to listen to us about this major issue. Any attempted explanation or discussion was met with indifference or hostility. He did not trust us on the subject at all, in fact he trusted the missionaries over us! We were advised to no longer discuss it with our son at all, and just to be the loving parents.
We searched for people to speak effectively with our son. Some of them were unreachable or returned an email five months later. Others said they'd speak to him for a large sum of money. I thought about how my son would feel, if he would trust the words of someone, we paid to speak to him.
Then we contacted Rabbi Kravitz who responded to our email right away. He provided his phone number, although he was away overseas and had an important family event happening! We were very touched by Rabbi Kravitz's patience and generosity with his time.
Rabbi Kravitz spoke to our son over the phone for a while and then offered another phone conversation. This was all while Rabbi Kravitz was getting ready to attend his important family event. My son was very impressed and although he still had a long road ahead, he committed himself to finding answers to the contradictions in his mind. My son continued on to read the entire Jews for Judaism website and watch all the videos on their YouTube channel. For some time after, Rabbi Kravitz continued to check on my son's welfare, offering more time and attention to help him. We will always be grateful to Rabbi Kravitz and Jews for Judaism.
It's almost nine months later and my son is no longer questioning Judaism. He is confident he has found the right answers, still one of his favorite hobbies is to search the Tanach and commentaries for proofs that Christianity cannot possibly be true. He is writing down all that he has learned in the hope that his work will help someone with the same dilemma in the future.
It is important to note that my son has been in the Yeshiva system for all his school years and is growing up in a religious home. I am sure that the background knowledge he was raised with made it easier for him to recognize the truth, but it did not completely protect him from the brainwashing methods of the missionaries. I do believe he was brainwashed, as his actions and statements portrayed that everything he once knew no longer was in his brain, it was emptied and replaced by Christian arguments.
I believe it should be a crime for missionaries to target Jews or to be speaking with Jewish children. My son told me that every child in the neighborhood knows the number to the missionary hotline as there is a truck that drives around town with loud music and lights, advertising the number. There is also graffiti sprayed all over the neighborhood with hints to missionary activity such as "Isaiah 53."
I know we did what we had to for my son but what about the other children around or his classmates? I doubt their parents know of or recognize the danger.
Thank you again Rabbi Kravitz and Jews for Judaism for being there for us.
— A Grateful Mother
3/20/2024