Moishe Rosen
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Moishe Rosen (born 12 April 1932 as Martin Meyer Rosen) His given Hebrew name was Moshe or Moses and Moishe is the vernacular Yiddish. His parents were Ben Rosen and Rose Baker. He is the founder and former Executive Director of Jews for Jesus, an evangelical Christian missionary organization working to proclaim and promote the message of Christ amongst the Jewish People. Rosen was raised in Denver, Colorado. According to Rosen his mother's parents were "Reform Jews from Austria", his paternal grandfather was Orthodox, and although Rosen's father regularly attended an Orthodox synagogue[1] he was "not religious" and viewed religion as a "racket".[2]
Rosen married Ceil Starr on 18 August 1950; and they became Christians in 1953. After graduating Northeastern Bible College, Rosen made a commitment to be a missionary to Jews from 1956. He was ordained as a Conservative Baptist minister in 1957. He felt a need for a more visible kind of evangelism and developed new techniques of communication which culminated in what became known as The Jews for Jesus movement in 1969. In 1973 Rosen left the employment of the American Board of Missions to the Jews (now called Chosen People Ministries) to incorporate a separate mission which became known as Jews for Jesus ministries. In 1986 he received a Doctor of Divinity Degree from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland. He stepped down from his position as Executive Director in 1996, but continues to be employed as a staff missionary and remains one of fifteen board members.
Rosen is known as a flamboyant figure with a strong personality. He openly calls himself both a "Christian" and a "Messianic Jew" - Within the Messianic movement, which comprises a spectrum of beliefs ranging from evangelical Christianity with a Jewish flavour at one end, to beliefs and practices seeking to emulate Orthodox Judaism with Yeshua added at the other, Rosen is firmly at the "evangelical pole" of the spectrum. Despite some controversy, he has remained in the evangelical mainstream.
In 1997, the Conservative Baptist Association named him a "Hero of the Faith."
[edit] Publications
Rosen has authored numerous books. These include:
- Sayings of Chairman Moishe (1972)
- Jews for Jesus (1974)
- Share the New Life with a Jew (1976)
- Christ in the Passover (1977)
- Y'shua: the Jewish way to say Jesus (1982)
- Overture to Armageddon (1991)
- The Universe is Broken: Who on Earth Can Fix It? (1991)
- Demystifying Personal Evangelism (1992)
- Witnessing to Jews (1998)
- Christ in the Passover (2006)[revised and expanded]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.jewsforjesus.org/about/headquarters/moishe.
- ^ Jews for Jesus, Moishe Rosen with William Proctor, Old Tappan, N.J: Fleming H. Revell, 1974, p.21 Rosen sums up his religious training by saying, "My father's belief - 'religion is a racket'."
