**Awesome Story 
'THEY'RE STILL A FIG LEAF FOR THE CHRISTIAN MISSION'
JTA — Aaron Abramson’s American upbringing is apparent when he speaks Hebrew, the language he learned as a teenager after his hippie parents decided to move the family from Seattle to Israel and become religiously Orthodox.
Abramson’s rise makes him a prominent new face of a perpetual Christian missionary effort aimed at converting Jews into belief in Jesus as the Messiah. After serving on staff for years, he takes over an organization that, without much notice from the Jewish community, has grown into a global operation with a budget of more than $33 million and a staff of about 250 spread across 13 countries.
No denomination across the Jewish world sees belief in Jesus as compatible with Judaism — a rare point of consensus between the religious streams. But so-called “Messianic Jews” insist that they represent a legitimate form of Jewish identity, almost like another denomination in itself.
According to Abramson, the organization has talked to some 40,000 Jews about Jesus over the past year and is aware of about 250 people who became “Jewish followers of Jesus,” a term his movement prefers over phrases like Jewish Christians or Jewish converts to Christianity.
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www.timesofisrael.com
'THEY'RE STILL A FIG LEAF FOR THE CHRISTIAN MISSION'
JTA — Aaron Abramson’s American upbringing is apparent when he speaks Hebrew, the language he learned as a teenager after his hippie parents decided to move the family from Seattle to Israel and become religiously Orthodox.
Abramson’s rise makes him a prominent new face of a perpetual Christian missionary effort aimed at converting Jews into belief in Jesus as the Messiah. After serving on staff for years, he takes over an organization that, without much notice from the Jewish community, has grown into a global operation with a budget of more than $33 million and a staff of about 250 spread across 13 countries.
No denomination across the Jewish world sees belief in Jesus as compatible with Judaism — a rare point of consensus between the religious streams. But so-called “Messianic Jews” insist that they represent a legitimate form of Jewish identity, almost like another denomination in itself.
According to Abramson, the organization has talked to some 40,000 Jews about Jesus over the past year and is aware of about 250 people who became “Jewish followers of Jesus,” a term his movement prefers over phrases like Jewish Christians or Jewish converts to Christianity.
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With a new leader and revamped strategy, it’s a second coming for Jews for Jesus
This month, Aaron Abramson becomes the third to hold the title - and the first Israeli - since the controversial organization was founded in San Francisco some five decades ago
www.timesofisrael.com
