Pipe Bomb Targets Messianic Jews

A bombing at the home of a Messianic leader in Israel has drawn attention to growing tension between ultra-Orthodox Jews and believers in Jesus.

Amiel Ortiz, 15, was nearly killed March 20 when a package delivered to his family’s home in Ariel exploded, leaving a gash across his throat and second and third degree burns on his body. Two of his toes were blown off, but Amiel’s father, David Ortiz, said doctors expected his son to walk out of the hospital on his own.

The bomb, hidden in a traditional gift basket for the Jewish holiday of Purim, was meant for David Ortiz, a gutsy evangelist who ministers among both Jews and Muslims. In the 1990s, the grand mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa, or religious order, to kill Ortiz because of his work among Muslims. In his hometown of Ariel, a Jewish city of 17,000, Ortiz leads a Messianic congregation and has been the subject of anti-missionary posters and pamphlets distributed by ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Because of his work on both sides of the fence, it wasn’t immediately clear whether Jewish or Muslim extremists planted the bomb, but Ortiz said the investigation is focusing on a Jewish assailant. “They [police] knew right away it wasn’t a Palestinian bomb,” he said. At press time, police were not commenting on the case.

This was the most violent assault against a Messianic Jew in Israel to date, but it highlights escalating tensions in the land. In the southern city of Arad, verbal and physical confrontations, arson attempts and harassment of Messianic Jews are a daily occurrence. An anti-missionary organization, Yad L’Achim (Hand to Brothers), keeps tabs on believers around the nation in order to prevent evangelizing.

Since the bombing in Ariel, police are beginning to take such threats against Messianic Jews more seriously. “What happened in Ariel has woken them up,” said Howard Bass, whose Beer Sheva congregation, Yeshua’s Inheritance, was twice attacked by hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews resulting in physical violence and vandalism. Bass said the police approached him the day after the Ariel attack with renewed interest in his own congregation’s grievances.

Even more than outright persecution, Messianic believers face “systematic governmental discrimination,” according to the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, which has documented nearly 200 cases ranging from denial of immigration requests to refusal to renew passports.

Aside from the watchdog anti-missionary groups, average Israelis know very little about Messianic Jews, who number 15,000 in a population of 6 million. Jewish believers in Jesus are derogatorily called “Christians” and described in news reports as a “controversial Jewish sect.”

The Messianic community strives to maintain a Jewish Israeli identity, serves in the army and celebrates Jewish, not Christian, holidays. It is also fiercely divided as to whether to openly share the gospel in a country tainted by forced conversions to Christianity dating back to the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades.

Meno Kalisher, pastor of the Jerusalem Assembly House of Redemption has been threatened by anti-missionary groups for publicly evangelizing, but understands the delicate balance in Israel. “We really want to do things wisely, we do not want to do things just for the sake of being provocative,” he said.

Ortiz, who has been accused by other Messianics of “rocking the boat,” said the attack has inspired boldness among others to share their faith. “The attitude of many believers is, We’ve been in the closet too long, and because of that we’ve been disrespected,” he said. “Thus far it [this attack] has led to revival in congregations here.” —Nicole Schiavi in Israel