Antidote to hatred

Aaron Abramson, the newly appointed CEO of Jews for Jesus, is the first Israeli to lead the 51-year-old outreach organization. Born in Detroit, he moved to Israel at age 15 and received an Orthodox Jewish education before beginning a spiritual search that led him to faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Now he heads a ministry that works in 11 countries seeking to reach Jews with the love of Christ, a task laden with new challenges amid the war between Israel and Hamas. Here are edited excerpts of our interview.

At WORLD, we’ve reported on rising anti-­Semitism in the U.S. I’ve heard American Jews say that they feel their sense of security was swept out from underneath them after Oct. 7. Do you share that sense of surprise? It is a little shocking, and it doesn’t make sense logically. Jewish people represent a very small percentage of the overall population, and yet they’re the focus of the news. I’m aware, as a believer in Jesus, that there’s a diabolical side to this—that the enemy doesn’t love what God loves. Yet it is still a little shocking. My family left Europe to come to the United States because it’s been relatively a safe haven for Jewish people. Today we’re seeing the U.S. has become rather scary for some Jewish people. We’re encouraging Christians to reach out to their Jewish friends and say, “Hey, I’m praying for you right now.” Even something small like that can make a difference.

Tell me about your history. Your father was Jewish, but your mother had a Catholic background. How did they raise you? I had a bar mitzvah and some Jewish things like that. When I was around 12 or 13, my parents also started to explore this Jesus piece, and I didn’t really know what to think about it at the time. My mom eventually converted to Judaism, and my family moved to Israel. I attended an Orthodox Jewish seminary, a yeshiva, and lived in an Orthodox Jewish environment for a while. Meanwhile, I was asking, “Is this who God is and what God has for me as a Jewish person?”

Then you served three years of compulsory service in the Israeli military. I understand you had a friend who was killed by Hamas? My military roommate was kidnapped by Hamas one day on his way to the base. He was then tortured for several days before eventually being executed by his captors. It was a traumatic experience which left me questioning the existence of God.

Then what? Once my military service ended, I traveled and encountered Christians who shared the gospel and challenged me to read the New Testament. And after reading it and asking God, “Could this be true?” I felt drawn to Jesus. I just couldn’t get enough. I kept reading Gospel after Gospel, for six, eight hours. I started to turn my life toward Jesus and say, “What would it look like to follow You?” When I went back to Israel and tried to share my faith with other Jewish friends, I [thought], “Wow, this is hard work. How do I do this?” So I found Jews for Jesus—people that were doing it—and they said, we’ll help train you. And so I’ve been on staff since 1999.

Since then, Jews for Jesus has grown from having just a couple of employees in Israel to nearly 60 there today. As an Israeli, what do your experiences and perspective bring to the organization, especially in light of current Middle East conflict? Having lived an Israeli life, served in the Israeli military, and directly experienced conflict helps me as a leader explore how to support those experiencing the current conflict because I can empathize with it. I’ve visited our team there and seen Israelis grappling with what has happened since Oct. 7. Many of our team were called up to reserve duties. We also had staff that were in Gaza.

How did Oct. 7 and the subsequent war affect your outreach efforts to Israelis? Everybody was in shock, but our team pivoted quickly and said, “What would Yeshua do—what would Jesus do? How can we serve Israelis right now who are hurting and in need?” People were being displaced. We partnered with local Jewish and Arab Christian congregations and other ministries, opened up our space, and provided toiletries, food, basic supplies. We started delivering meals. It was a powerful witness that led to opportunities for personal connection. When people experience something like this, they start asking deeper spiritual questions. In the first three months of the war we had over 600 orders for Hebrew-language New Testaments for Israelis who reach out to us and want to explore faith in Jesus.

What about outside of Israel? Jewish people in a lot of different places are feeling less confident being public about their Jewishness. So we’ve opened up our spaces wherever we are just to invite Israelis and Jewish people in. For example, at our New York base near Greenwich Village and NYU, we run an art gallery space and coffee shop. We invite people to come in and talk, get a free cup of coffee and a baked good, and connect and share how we’re feeling as we’re going through this. We want to provide space for Jewish people to come to feel safe, to engage with other Jewish people, whatever they may believe. And in the midst of that, many of them are getting to hear more about the hope that we have as Messianic Jews, what Jesus has done for us and how He’s impacted our lives.

What role does social media play in public perceptions of Jews, Israel, and the war against Hamas? The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is complex. If we try to simplify it into a social media post, you’re reducing it down beyond the actual story. Younger audiences are looking at slogans being shared online and might not even know which “river” and which “sea.” You’ve got people who are more similar than different and yet end up getting such extreme worldviews.

How do you encourage hope among your employees and the people you’re helping in dark times? We have one of the greatest solutions to anti-Semitism. We’re not coming to this battle empty-handed. We want Jewish people and Arab and Palestinian people to hear about the hope we’ve discovered. So we go back to the gospel. Jesus said, “You will have hardship, but take heart, for I’ve overcome the world.” Division and hatred and wars shake us to our core, and they make us ask deep questions like, “Why, God? Why is this happening?” Look at Israel and the exile, look through the Hebrew Scriptures, and you see how challenging times would bring men and women back to the Lord and back on their knees. In a sense, it’s drawn us back onto our knees to say, “God, You save us.” So we have hope. We feel an immense sense of purpose.