Persecuted Christian Recounts Holy Land Drama

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“This is a holy land—you have no business being here.” “You’re a bad man.” “You are dirty.” “You are a demon.”

I
wish I could say that when I heard these words, my first response was
to love the six men who were walking, just feet behind me, spitting the
insults. But indignation and anger were welling up inside, and the
biblical injunctions to pray for and bless those who persecute you
offered only momentary comfort.

The men following a
friend and me in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion were supporters of Yad
L’Achim, a far right-wing group of ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose
Christians in Israel. The group is known for the aggressive and often
questionable tactics they use against people who follow Christ, whom
they derisively call “missionaries.” The six men had all attended a
protest outside the home of a Jewish couple the group had so identified.

There the 20 protestors had swarmed 16-year-old Donna
Lubofsky, whom they said had converted to Christianity under the
tutelage of Naama Kogen, the accused “missionary” along with her husband
Serge Kogen. A woman at the protest called the girl a bad daughter for
rebelling against her parents and said she was “breaking their heart.”

It
didn’t matter that the women didn’t know Donna or her parents, and that
Kogen said she never tried to convert the girl. It didn’t matter that
Donna said she was still a traditional Jew, or even that police and a
court found no reason to charge the Kogens with trying to convert a
minor.

As I was walking away from the men, I was
astonished by the reactions of others. When I approached a man in a car
to ask for directions, the six men surrounded me and began shouting,
then told the driver not to help me. Eventually the man was so terrified
he refused to speak to me. My friend and I made it to a mall only to
find one of the members of the group waiting for us at the entrance,
arms crossed, gloating. My friend and I asked mall security personnel to
help us, but they and even men who appeared to be law enforcement
officers only backed away.

Every turn we took, the men
countered, running up and declaring to whoever would listen that we were
“missionaries” trying to convert Jewish children to the “cult of
Christ.” Hebrew-speaking friends of mine called police several times,
but after five calls over 90 minutes, we knew no one was coming.

My
friend went into a woman’s store, and the women there became so
incensed at what was happening to us that they screamed at the hard-line
group. When the women were told we were “missionaries,” one shouted in
English, “I don’t care. This is Israel!”

The women, by the
force of their indignation, compelled two security guards to do
something for us that they might have considered doing instead to the
six men—they escorted us out of the mall. We were able to find a taxi
and ride back to Jerusalem.

Like many who report on
persecuted Christians, as I left I was struck by the “touristic” nature
of the verbal abuse we had received; as an outsider I can leave the
country, but I do so knowing Naama Kogen, her husband and their four
children are sleeping in a home that people have threatened to burn
down.