There was almost a major row at Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim last Sunday, Nov. 18, when a man who identified himself as Mitch Goldman, the director of Jews for Jesus in New York, entered the sanctuary.

The half-dozen teens in the audience and the 20 or so adults who had chosen to join them that morning had come expecting to hear Rabbi Tovia Singer speak about how to counteract efforts to convert them to Christianity — not one of the converters themselves.

There was decidedly muted applause and mutters of "Why weren't we told…?" and "Why are we even giving him the respect of letting him speak here?"

Education director Tamara Ruben, who runs the Cranford synagogue's Teen Scene program and had organized the talk, told the students that the decision to invite Goldman had taken much soul-searching, and her introduction was noticeably cool. She said the temple's leader, Rabbi Akiba Lubow, was too busy and that other rabbis she asked to debate him had all refused. "They didn't want to give him that credibility," she said.

Only Singer had agreed to come — but said he would arrive only after Goldman had left.

Goldman, who was wearing a "Jews for Jesus" T-shirt under his jacket, proceeded to lay out the story of his own conversion. He said that it was the hardest decision he had ever made, knowing how it would alienate family and friends, but he was confronted with a truth that gave him a spiritual comfort he had never known before. He cited verses from the biblical books of Isaiah and Psalms that he said prophesied the virgin birth and the crucifixion. Goldman said he still would not go into a church; rather, he attends a "messianic" congregation, of which there are many in the area.

Members of the audience challenged him with statements about the hatred shown to Jews in the past, and asked why, if the case for Christianity was so convincing, so much violence had been used to convert people. When he left, there was an obligatory patter of applause.

"Why did we invite this creep here?" one person asked.

Another offered an answer: "The best way to fight a disease is to understand it."

Then Ruben saw Singer at the door of the sanctuary and introduced him. Everyone turned around to see him. There was the same man — with the T-shirt replaced by a jacket and tie. The collective "Huh?" was followed by big grins of realization and an audible "Ahhh!" and a roar of applause.

Same man, same voice, same oratorical skills — but a very different audience response.

Singer, the founder and director of the Monsey, NY-based Outreach Judaism, drew laughter and nods of agreement as he went on to speak about his efforts to counter missionaries and cults that target Jews for conversion.

Ruben smiled broadly, clearly much relieved. "I was wearing a bulletproof vest for that," she said, admitting that she had been extremely nervous about the congregation's response to "Goldman's" appearance. She said, "As an educator, I was torn, but I wanted these precious young people to know how eloquent these people can be."

Singer stressed two points at the outset. While there are millions of people determined to convert Jews, most Christians one meets are enormously respectful of Judaism and Israel and have no such intention.

"For them, Judaism is the mother faith," he said.

Secondly, no one should engage in a debate about the relative merits of Judaism versus Christianity with a Christian unless that person is attempting to convert you. "If you do, you're lowering yourself to the level of a Mitch Goldman," he said.

He made clear, however, the vast scale of the Christian evangelical movement that does aim to "save" the Jews. Missionaries are well trained, he said, and many carry guidebooks on how to get across their message without raising alarms. For example, they avoid using words like "Jesus" or "church."

But slick as those methods are, he said, the most successful missionaries are not messianic Jews or church professionals, but rather those deeply committed lay Christians one might meet playing basketball or in the cafeteria at work.

Singer challenged the biblical citations offered by "Mitch Goldman" but said that when it comes to arming the young to resist the converters' appeal, deep knowledge of Judaism provides better protection than scriptural disputation. He compared the task to training people to recognize counterfeit money; knowing the real thing in every detail works better than studying forgeries.

"Unless you are thoroughly informed, don't engage with them," he said.

Chatting with the teens afterwards, Ruben asked them about their reactions. Though none had ever been approached by anyone trying to convert them, they said Singer's Goldman character made them angry. One girl said she was offended by the way he criticized Christianity as a way of convincing them that he is still a Jew. Another said simply, "‘Jews for Jesus' is an oxymoron."

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'Messianic' congregations