27 April 2005

Media gone wild

Today's Herald Sun in Melbourne wrote a fairly pathetic article filled with misinformation. Have a read, and hey, why not write a letter to the editor?

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,15094523%255E2862,00.html

Thanks!

4 comments:

Bob Mendelsohn said...

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/

story_page/0,5478,15094523%255E2862,00.html

Sorry, the URL was cut off in the last post. If you have any trouble getting the article in view, let me know, and I will email you the whole thing or you can just go to the Herald Sun website

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/

and find the article on your own. Good luck

bob

Nathan Colgate said...

It is dissapointing that they mentioned you only as an afterthought, despite your central role in the story.

And for future reference, you can use basic HTML to create links in your posts.

Bob Mendelsohn said...

Nate, what also disappoints is that we gave contacts to over 60 local churches throughout Melbourne and the writers chose to lowlight (opposite of highlight) the work of St Mary's.

Bob Mendelsohn said...

Hi Mitch,
No advert is forthcoming, but here's the letter I wrote back to the Herald Sun.

I'd like to answer the charges about us by the writers of Wednesday's article.

Painting people as rivals in a turf war filled with vandalism and antagonism or across a footy ground handballing from one to another doesn’t describe the reality of Jews for Jesus operations.

We are Jews. We were born Jews and will die Jews. We don’t turn Jews into Gentiles. The bait and switch routine that your writers Houlihan and Rose seek to reinforce is ill-informed. Here is what we did and what we do.

During the Grand Prix season in Melbourne, we hand delivered over 120,000 flyers on the streets of the city. As a result of that, along with billboards and major newspaper adverts, over 300 enquirers gave us their details for further follow-up. We continue to get more enquirers even weeks later. We sent letters from our Jews for Jesus national office in Sydney. We invited people to participate along with us in finding the joy and forgiveness that only comes from faith in Jesus, our Messiah. In that letter we mentioned that we would try to find some folks near them with whom they could (also) process this information and work it through.

This is sensible and realistic. From 900 kilometres we are not able to answer all the questions so many have and had during our campaign of sharing the love of Messiah. We have extended their opportunities for questioning and answering, if they want.

There is no pressure on anyone to join any church. No one “signs up to be a [member of] Jew[s] for Jesus.” Different churches and organizations did send notes inviting people to various programmes and events, some have rung, and others have done personal visits. But to each one is offered a choice, one that I wish all people would allow. When I grew up an Orthodox Jew I was not given a choice to believe or even consider Jesus as our Messiah and Saviour. He was unmentioned.

Now that I’m an adult, I want everyone to be given this choice. I’m so glad for all those people, both Jews and non-Jews who want to learn. And for Anglicans like Dr Durie and others throughout Melbourne who want all people to have such a choice. Hostility and vandalism don’t help the atmosphere for choices to be made. And neither does name calling or derision such as Paul Gardiner intimates. People should have a choice. This is no front; it’s cooperation.

Faithfully,

Bob Mendelsohn, National Director
Jews for Jesus International
www.jewsforjesus.org.au

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