Tovia Singer

Rabbi Tovia Singer
Position Founder and director
Organisation Outreach Judaism
Personal details
Occupation Rabbi

Tovia Singer is a rabbi, and founder and director of Outreach Judaism.

Contents

Outreach Judaism

Singer is the founder and director of Outreach Judaism, a Jewish counter-missionary organization.[1] It describes itself as "an international organization that responds directly to the issues raised by missionaries and cults, by exploring Judaism in contradistinction to fundamentalist Christianity." [2] Singer cautions regarding congregations that "are designed to appear Jewish, but are actually fundamentalist Christian churches, which use traditional Jewish symbols to lure the most vulnerable of our Jewish people into their ranks".[3] Singer brought Guma Aguiar to Judaism; Aguiar was born to a Jewish mother, but raised as a Christian.[4] Outreach Judaism was described by J. Gordon Melton in 2002 as an example of "the current state of Jewish counter-cult activity".[5]

Other activities

From 2002 to 2010 Singer hosted The Tovia Singer Show on Arutz Sheva's Israel National Radio. When Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ was released, Singer stated on his 25 September 2003 show that "by the time the first nail is hammered into the cross, viewers in Germany will be passing around knife sharpeners in the theater." Following the movie's debut, J. Shawn Landres and Michael Berenbaum wrote, "not only was [Singer's prediction] inappropriate but also proved itself entirely wrong, as Germany was the only country in which leaders of the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish communities cooperated to issue a joint statement criticizing The Passion."[6]

In 2006, Singer interviewed Wafa Sultan on the show.[7]

Singer is also a public speaker and the author of the book and audio series Let's Get Biblical. According to David Brickner it has "grabbed the attention of many evangelicals simply because it has been so widely distributed."[8]

Works

Notes

  1. ^ Michael C. Duke, "Messianics pervert Passover at some Houston-area churches", Jewish Herald-Voice, April 2, 2009.
  2. ^ About Us, Outreach Judaism website. Accessed January 9, 2011.
  3. ^ Simon Schoon, "Noachides and Converts to Judaism", in Jan N. Bremmer, Wout Jac. van Bekkum, Arie L. Molendijk. Cultures of Conversions, Peeters Publishers, 2006, ISBN 9789042917538, p. 125.
  4. ^ James Montague. "Israel's Abramovich uses football to unite Jerusalem", The Jewish Chronicle, October 15, 2009.
  5. ^ J. Gordon Melton, "The Modern Anti-Cult Movement in Historical Perspective", in Jeffrey Kaplan, Heléne Lööw. The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization, Rowman Altamira, 2002, ISBN 9780759102040, p. 285, note 4.
  6. ^ J. Shawn Landres, Michael Berenbaum (eds.) After the Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences, Rowman Altamira, 2004, ISBN 9780759108158, p. 10.
  7. ^ Michael Cappi. A Never Ending War, Trafford Publishing, 2007, ISBN 9781425115678, p. 326.
  8. ^ David Brickner, "Encountering Jewish Resistance", in J. Dudley Woodberry (ed.) Reaching the Resistant: Barriers and Bridges for Mission, William Carey Library, 1998, ISBN 9780878083800, p. 90.

External links