T Y P O L O G Y of T H E IN THIS ISSUE:“ The ... - Moriel Ministries

in Memory
Passing of Jews for Jesus Founder
From David Brickner, Executive Director
of Jews for Jesus
Moishe went to be with his Messiah and
Lord on Ma y 19th. We are rejoicing for him
but appreciate your prayers for the Rosen
family and for our whole ministry as we
mourn our loss. In lieu of flowers, the family
wishes that gifts be made in his honor
to Jews for Jesus [1], 60 Haight Street, San
Francisco, CA 94102 for the Moishe Rosen
Center in Israel. You can do this online at:
jewsforjesus.org/moishetribute [2]
Jacob’s Thoughts
I (Jacob Prasch) writing from Holland
mourn the passing of my friend and our
brother Moishe Rosen, founder of Jews for
Jesus. Few have had the impact on my own
life and ministry as Moishe Rosen and I am
hardly alone in saying this.
I was saved through a twisted cult called
Children of God and subsequently in another
called Forever Family (later named Church
of Bible Understanding). These cults damaged
others and me both spiritually and psychologically,
yet God had a purpose for me
being in both for a season. They had a radical
zeal in the age of a lukewarm church that was
tragically misplaced and misdirected where
backslidden leaders misled and abused members
of these terrible groups. But the zeal
itself was real. I spent the first years of my
20 Moriel Quarterly • June 2010
M o i s h e r o s e n
Notes: photgraph of Moishe Rosen taken from http://www.jewsforjesus.org
new life in Jesus being confused in these crazy
groups or simply backslidden (the groups
themselves were backslidden like their leaders
Mo Berg and Stuart Traille), men who began
right but ended badly — very badly.
Enter Moishe Rosen, Jews For Jesus had
the same zeal and radical approach to evangelism
even in the face of opposition and as
close to persecution as believers could get in
the USA. Having attended the Jewish Community
Center in my youth there was a cultural
element that appealed to me. The emphasis
on Old Testament Messianic typology
and the Messianic theology I learned from
Jews For Jesus, academics like Rachmiel
Fryland (who was on the verge of becoming
a rabbi when the holocaust interrupted his
plans before he was saved) and my father in
the Lord Dr. Louis Goldberg of the Jews For
Jesus board who performed the nuptials for
my Israeli wife Pavia and myself.
Jews for Jesus was a very different organization
in those early days, a tribe of Jewish
hippies. Indeed, Moishe got in trouble
with established Jewish missions societies
for reaching out to the hippies not dissimilar
from the ordeal faced by Chuck Smith
in the early days of Calvary Chapel. It was
quite a time indeed. Jews For Jesus had the
radicalism of the other “Jesus Freaks” (as we
were then known), but due to Moishe Rosen
instilled the stability the other groups lacked
due to the kind of people he involved in Jews
For Jesus along with some tremendous Bible
teaching.
As with any dynamic leader, Christian
or secular, and as he knew himself, Moishe
had both his strengths and weaknesses. He
made wise decisions and as he refers to in his
departing letter, some he wished he had not
made. But he never regretted having accepted
His Messiah Yeshua and bringing the Good
News of the true Messiah back home again to
Israel and putting the Jews on the map once
again. Although I knew Moishe was like myself
— Pre-Millennial in his doctrine — I
regret now that I never asked Moishe if he
personally had the sense that what he was at
the forefront of doing was of prophetic eschatological
significance vis a vis the predictions
of Romans 11 for the Natural Branches
to be grafted back in again.
One thing I know for sure is that I would
not be in the ministry today if it were not for
the way that God used Moishe Rosen and
Jews For Jesus in my earlier years as a believer.
In fact I may not have been walking
with Yeshua at all. It was through Jews For
Jesus that I began to stabilize and grow in
my faith in the aftermath of my experience
in cults and being saved out of the erratic
drug culture of the 1960’s early 70’s in a very
turbulent era sociologically, politically, and
spiritually complicated by my later cocaine
addiction and strong involvement in the occult
and in the Marxism I came to adhere to
as a science student.
Due to the influence of Moishe, Jews For