May 31, 2007 By David Suissa Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz If there's one subject that can spark a juicy debate among lovers of Israel, it is what to do with these millions of Jesus-loving evangelical Christians who love Israel to death. Personally, I'm blinded by how everybody picks on Israel, which makes me desperate to find anyone who will help defend her. Is there a country in the world that gets picked on more than Israel? Have you seen those polls in Europe that make Israel the "world's most dang

By Rachel Heller Along with homework time, crafts and supervised games, grade school students in several Los Angeles Unified School District elementary schools this spring are getting something different at their after-school programs: spiritual awareness. Dozens of San Fernando Valley children are enrolled in Spirituality for Kids (SFK), a program founded and run by officials of the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles, whose curriculum teaches socially conscious behavior. Brought to the campuses of

August 28, 2003 By Rabbi Ben-Tzion Kravitz It was Sunday afternoon, July 6, 2003, and I was approaching the end of a successful three-week mission to Israel dedicated to responding to a new wave of missionary activity. In addition to lectures, news interviews and meetings with government officials, my colleagues and I distributed thousands of copies of a new Hebrew version of Jews for Judaism's counter-missionary handbook "The Jewish Response To Missionaries." That day I was traveling by car, wi

Christian missionary groups have been planting literature targeting Jews at unsuspecting Jewish venues in the Los Angeles area recently, according to an alert sent out by Jews for Judaism, an anti-missionary group. Rabbi Benzion Kravitz, director of Jews for Judaism, says that a 75-page booklet containing the "Gospel According to Luke" in Hebrew and English has popped up at several synagogues. Stacks of The Jewish Journal at newsstands were also targeted by the Hope of Israel missionary group, w

July 11, 2002 Rabbis on Duty Pair responds within an hour of LAX shooting. By Tom TugendRabbi Dan Shevitz was one of the first on the scene to comfort those at LAX.The July 4 attack at the El Al check-in counter, in which a gunman killed two people, occurred at 11:32 a.m., and within an hour, two Los Angeles rabbis, who double as police chaplains, were on the scene to comfort airline passengers and crew. Rabbi Dan Shevitz of Temple Mishkon Tephilo in Venice happened to be at the Venice poli

November 4, 1999 By Curt Schleier By Curt Schleier Share I'm not surprised that Southern Baptists are praying for the conversion of the Jews. I'm praying for Southern Baptists. I pray that they see how hypocritical and offensive it is for them to say they love Jews and in the same breath trash our religion. Judaism is trashed when a Southern Baptist leader says that God doesn't hear our prayers and when their new prayer guide states that we should see the futility of repentance. They

July 31, 1997 Up Front The Play's Not the Thing According to reviews, "Mendel and Moses," a musical playing at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, isn't much of a play. But it is provoking -- at least in some corners of the Jewish community -- significant controversy. Rabbi Benzion Kravitz, founder and director of the anti-cult group Jews for Judaism, is appalled that not only did The Jewish Journal run a review of the small-stage show about a stereotypical Jewish man who goes back in time

Evangelical missionary David Herzog stooped to a new low deceiving the Jewish community with ads which intentionally avoided any mention of their Christian evangelical agenda. The half-page ads ran for several weeks in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. They promoted a Beverly Hills event offering “supernatural healings” based on what the ad termed Jewish mysticism. The ads were devoid of any phone number or website that would have facilitated an easy investigation into the true nature of the progr