Time for Jewish Evangelizing

If we’re serious about renewing Jewish life in the future, we must confront the challenge of evangelizing for Jewish tradition in public space. One of the reasons that the tension between the tribal and the universal in Jewish life isn’t addressed directly is because most Jews lack confidence in their knowledge of Jewish tradition to talk about it in the public square. But the faith communities that have grown the most rapidly in this country in recent years are those that have the self-confidence to go into public space and proclaim: You should be a Mormon! You should be a Christian! If we learn anything from living in a free-enterprise society, it is that if you have a good product the key to growth is strong marketing.

The word “evangelism” sits uneasily with Jewish people. We have been at the wrong end of it for too many centuries. Too many of our people have died at the hands of those who believed that their god and their religion was the only true way. But we entered the world as a proselytizing religion. Maimonides includes converting people to Judaism as one of the 613 mitzvot. I think that it is time for the Jewish community to start inviting people, publicly, to become Jewish.