When Efforts to Convert Jews Become Harmful

A growing number of reports have recently emerged of missionaries targeting Jews for conversion. Some of these have even involved Christians disguising themselves as observant Jews in order to infiltrate Orthodox communities in the United States and Israel. In one such case, in Jerusalem, a missionary passed himself off as a normative rabbi and kohen -- or member of the hereditary biblical Jewish priesthood -- performing ritual "services" that not only were founded upon false pretenses but deeply violated the spiritual life that religious people consider to be at the sacred core of their very existence.