In recent days, a viral two minute video circulated of two missionaries conducting evangelism in Jerusalem by several accounts, but most prominently Censored Man on Twitter. The video portrays the two women evangelizing and being aggressed upon by numerous orthodox Jews, both verbally and with several of the children reaching for the dresses of the women. The children especially can be seen waving rolled up sheets of paper at the woman while the adults were mostly shouting. The video ends with the women voluntarily withdrawing while being chased away, predominantly by the children while several bystanders did nothing. The primary missionary is Sarah Wallis and she has an evangelistic ministry that operates in Israel. Her YouTube channel has under 5K subs and her content consists of her sharing the gospel at various locations throughout Israel to both Muslims and Jews in the streets and at historical sites.
As the video circulated, it garnered reactions by several conservative pundits, most notably Ben Shapiro and Lauren Chen.
To his credit, Ben Shapiro, who has the largest conservative podcast, surprisingly labeled the behavior “vile and inexcusable,” but his sentiment is not shared by all within his religious community. Writing for the Zionist propaganda outlet IsraellyCool, David Lange has gone on the offensive against those circulating the video, including Lauren Chen and Ben Shapiro. Lange is a minor league ADL whose life revolves around labeling others as antisemites for disagreeing with him on matters of Jews or Israel.
In his initial article, “Libel Debunked: Jews Attacked Christian Tourists Minding Their Own Business,” Lange writes the following:
In other words, these women deliberately went to the Jewish Quarter on the holy day for Jewish people, and proselytized about Jesus to them. The proselytization is bad enough but to do so on the Jewish Shabbat seems to be an even more provocative act.
Again, I am not condoning the kids physically assaulting the women, but they are kids and have likely not encountered this situation often. All they know is the women were telling them things that go against their belief system and – worse than that – are forbidden for Jewish people.
I can assure you, if these women went to a Muslim area on their holy day, and did exactly the same thing, they would be lucky to escape with their lives. And that applies to a place like Gaza.
Though he does not explicitly condone the behavior of the orthodox Jewish children in the video, he essentially justifies their reaction and blames the missionaries for being provocateurs. This is the same logic employed regarding the “n-word” where black people are justified in their overreactions to a word that is only racially charged when one specific race uses it. And the fact that it was a Shabbat does not justify the behaviors of the children, nor does the use of electronics. As can be seen in the video, there are several vehicles, which are both electronic and internal combustion, thus they produce a flame, parked in the Jewish Quarter, yet there is no objection to these electronic devices. The women were attacked for their faith, not their use of electronic devices on a shabbat, plain and simple.
In a follow up article, Lange attacks Lauren Chen, who condemned the attacks along with Conservative Inc’s refusal to critique Israel.
Lange writes the following in attacking Chen’s tweets:
Her use of the word “shill” indicates to me she is no impartial person when it comes to Jews or the Jewish state, and she sees no problem with the women missionizing to Jews; on the contrary, she sees it as a religious imperative:
It turns out that the same women missionaries proselytized to Muslims also in the old city of Jerusalem – who also abused them – but you didn’t (and I suspect won’t) hear about it from Lauren Chen and the others claiming it showed a Jewish hate crime against Christians:
Basically, using the word “shill” makes one antisemitic in the eyes of Greenblatt-lite. And in his impartiality, none would ever possess a negative opinion of Israel outside of hatred. Already, Lange takes issue with the notion of missionaries proselytizing to Jews, which is an issue that arises from certain hyper-dispensationalists that claim Christianity but believe this grave error. But because they are lost souls without Christ, then proselytizing is imperative. This is why Christians, like Apologia Church, conduct street evangelism to Mormons near their temple in Utah or why Christians stand outside abortion factories preaching to women who seek to sacrifice their child. What Sarah Wallis is doing is not unique to her nor does she target Jews in a fashion that is different from Christians who evangelize other faiths.
Lange finishes his commentary by claiming that the inattention to the Muslims in Israel verbally assaulting Sarah as motivated by antisemitism, but what makes the behavior of the Jews stand out by comparison is the involvement of the children. With the Muslims, it was predominantly adults and expletives. In the Jewish Quarters, it was mainly children, which makes the two minutes more appalling and despicable that young boys were behaving that way towards women. And yes, that behavior was taught.
Sarah Wallis was doing her mission in one of the most difficult mission fields in the world, not because of outright persecution, but because of the hardened hearts of the populace. Far too few in Big Eva or Con Inc are willing to address valid criticisms against the nation-state of Israel, so credit to those of all faiths who did in this instance. As for Lauren Chen, who at times is too libertarian, she deserves credit for being perhaps the first major pundit to take aim at the video and she correctly articulated the imperative need to spread the gospel to all nations, including both Israel and Palestine.
One Response
Lange also went after a fellow Jewish ex-soldier and author on suspicions of being a Christian missionary:
https://www.israellycool.com/2017/11/09/hananya-naftali-god-put-me-in-idf-to-share-jesus-and-be-the-light-among-jews/