It’s a canard that refuses to die, a canard illustrates the high level of anti-Christian prejudice still common in the haredi and the right-wing Israeli Zionist Orthodox communities, despite the fact that believing Christians are some of the closest allies Israel has.
Above: Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
Zionist Orthodox Lay Leader Resigns Over Money "Tainted" By – Christians
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
It’s a canard that refuses to die, a canard illustrates the high level of anti-Christian prejudice still common in the haredi and the right-wing Israeli Zionist Orthodox communities, despite the fact that believing Christians are some of the closest allies Israel has.
Modern Orthodox Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein founded the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews thirty-one years ago in Chicago and has built it into a fundraising powerhouse, using late night infomercials and mass mailings to church lists to raise money to feed elderly Holocaust survivors in Eastern Europe and to aid similar projects in Israel.
But the money Eckstein raises comes from Christians, and that raised suspicions among haredi anti-missionary groups that the IFCJ is a front organization for various attempts to convert Jews to Christianity.
Eckstein’s organization has a zero tolerance policy for attempts to convert Jews to Judaism, and in the organizations 31-year history, there has never been any credible evidence to show that IFCJ supports missionary activity.
But that hasn’t stopped haredi and right-wing Zionist Orthodox (harda”l) from prohibiting Jews from taking money from the IFCJ, and it hasn’t stopped the wild rumors, lies and half-truths about the IFCJ from circulating widely throughout those two communities, often to support what would otherwise likely be seen as outlandish anti-IFCJ statements by those communities rabbinic leaders.
For example, the late top Ashkenazi haredi leader, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, ruled that organizations that take money from the IFCJ flout the Torah's prohibition against idolatry and aid future missionary activities by granting the IFCJ legitimacy.
In late spring, Israel’s Ministry of Education abruptly decided to return $10 million in promised funds donated by the IFCJ to pay for summer camps for disadvantaged children after haredi and harda”l rabbis complained. The ministry did this even though the camps were run by it, not by the IFCJ, and despite the fact that no proof of the IFCJ alleged nefarious activities exists. (The ministry claimed it would pay the entire cost of the summer camps, including the $10 million the IFCJ was to have paid, so not children would be denied a summer camp experience. However, it is unclear if it actually did so.)
Now Mina Fenton, the former head of the Jerusalem branch of the Zionist Orthodox Emunah Women's Organization, has resigned her position with Emunah after the organization accepted a large donation from the IFCJ meant to be used to buy clothing for needy families for Rosh Hashana.
Why did Fenton resign?
Because, based on the same lies, half-truth and rumors haredi and harda”l rabbis and activists have circulated over the past several years, she reached the decision that the IFCJ is a spiritually impure organization and the funds it raises are also spiritually impure, because they come from Christians.
“I left in a very agitated state because of this new alliance between Emunah and the ICFJ. I believe we are not allowed to take these funds from Christian groups. These are tainted funds, and all of the senior rabbinical leaders of Israel – Rabbi Avraham Shapira z”tl, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu z”tl, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef z”tl and among current leaders Rabbi Tzefania Drori, as well as many others, have forbidden their use,” Fenton told Arutz Sheva, adding that an Orthodox organization like Emunah should not be taking money from Christians in defiance of rabbinic orders.
But what if those rabbis are wrong? And what about other Orthodox rabbis who either support IFCJ directly or who allow organizations to take donations from the IFCJ?
“Of course there were some rabbis who gave their permission to take these funds, but I have met with them and tried to point out that they are mistaken, because they didn't have access to all the facts. As a result, I decided to resign an organization I have been with for three decades, because of its cooperation with IFCJ,” Fenton said.
It is again worth pointing out that none of the purported evidence against the IFCJ has ever proved to be true.
Fenton has long history of anti-Christian activism and an article she wrote in 2013 got its publisher – the right-wing Zionist Orthodox yeshiva Machon Meir – sued for libel. Fenton's claims were shown to be lies, and the Israeli court ordered Machon Meir to remove the article from its website, issue a public apology and contribute 10,000 NIS ($about $2,700) in the name of another Jewish Christain aid organization, Christian Friends of Israeli Communities Heartland, to the Yad Sarah charity's branch located in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ariel.