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many years servicing both the
private and the public sectors.
Ms. Fleischer said, 'We're not like
the public schools. We're part of
a community. I see my students
and their parents at synagogue
and the supermarket. We live in
the same neighborhood. A public
school teacher doesn't see his or
her students unless it's in the
classroom."

Shula Fleischer:
A narrow view?

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Joyce Brodsky Serri
Abbott Middle School

Open Season
On The Jews

810-855-3757

22

A R

T

G L A S

I 'want it known that I live in
the district that I work for. My
daughter attends the school I
teach in. There are six other em-
ployees (teachers) whose children
also attend our school. We live,
work and yes, even grocery shop
in our community. I see my stu-
dents at the JCC, at the syna-
gogue and even at the beach. I
know that I am not an isolated
public school case.
I resent statements made by
someone who should be more
knowledgeable that darken the
public's persona that somehow
private school teachers are more
involved with their communities
and care more about kids than
those of us in the public school
system. I invite you to check the
numbers more closely and see
just where all these public school
teachers are hiding themselves.
Start in my community, start
with my school.

S

On June 13, the Southern Bap-
tist Convention passed a resolu-
tion which called for the Baptists
to direct their "energies and re-
sources toward the proclamation
of the gospel to the Jewish peo-
ple." In essence, this puts the
force and power of the largest fun-
damentalist Christian denomi-
nation — with over 37,000
churches and 15,000,000 mem-
bers in the U.S. — squarely on
the side of bringing Jews to Chris-
tianity.
The reality is that while the

Baptists have been attempting to
downplay its impact, the resolu-
tion has major implications for
both the Christian and Jewish
communities.
In the U.S., there are approx-
imately 200 Hebrew-Christian
congregations. They call the con-
gregation a "synagogue," the
leader "rabbi" and there is never
a cross in plain view — it looks
too Christian. Of these 200 con-
gregations, over 30 are affiliated
with the Southern Baptist
church. The only other denomi-
nation to have more affiliated
congregations is the Assemblies
of God.
The Baptists have indicated
that they are "only" committing
$50,000-$100,000 of national
church monies to "bring the
gospel" to the Jews. This repre-
sents basically the salary of the
full-time missionary that they
have appointed to spearhead the
ministry. So how much of an im-
pact can this have?
Significant impact.
The role of this new mission-
ary is to encourage each individ-
iiql Baptist church to get involved
in "reaching" the Jews. But not
honestly and in a straightforward
manner. Rather, the churches are
encouraged to use the deception
of telling Jews that they can be-
Jewish and Christian at the same
time. They are encouraged to cre-
ate Baptist affiliated Hebrew-
Christian congregations. While
the national church body hasn't
allocated a significant amount of
money for this effort, the indi-
vidual churches have not weighed
in as yet. If only 25 percent of the
37,000 Southern Baptist church-
es take this on as a project, and
contribute only $1,000 — that
amounts to $9.25 million. If only
1 percent of the affiliated church-
es sponsor a Hebrew-Christian
congregation, the number of con-
gregations will triple. If there are
approximately 250,000 Jews in-
volved in Hebrew-Christianity to-
day, what is the impact of close
to one million Jews on our com-
munity and our families?
The Baptist resolution also
sends a message to rest of the
Christian community. Put away
your "interfaith councils," "ecu-
menical services" and statements
of mutual respect. It's open sea-
son on the Jews.

.

Mark Powers
Executive Director,
Jews For Judaism,
Baltimore

Publicity Deadlines

The normal deadline for local news
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day, eight days prior to issue date.
The deadline for birth announce-
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prior to issue date; out-of-town obit-
uaries, 10 a.m. Tuesday. three days
prior to issue date.

