Called to Controversy: The Unlikely Story of Moishe Rosen and the Founding of Jews for Jesus by Ruth Rosen

Ruth Rosen wrote an excellent biography about her father, Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus, a Christian missionary group devoted to sharing the gospel with Jews.  She explains how her father was raised in a nominally Jewish household, where many Jewish traditions were followed just because that is what you are supposed to do when you are a Jew, but without any real regard for the Lord. I understand that, because that is similar to the Reform Judaism that I was raised in.  Moishe, who was named Martin and only later changed his name to Moishe, became a Christian as an adult and felt that he was supposed to share Jesus with his fellow Jews.  Ruth shares about his missionary work and how he wound up starting the Jews for Jesus organization.  She shares about his character strengths and flaws and the book is filled with quotes by Moishe and others who knew and worked with him.

I found the book to be very interesting.  When I was a teenager, I went through an anti-missionary program that was put on in one of the Jewish youth groups that I was active in.  As a result, I thought that Jews for Jesus was a deceptive group that pretended to be Jewish in order to draw Jews in and then convert them to Christianity.  This book shares some of the problems that Moishe had with som Messianic Jewish groups because they wanted JFJ to be more Jewish and found it too Christian for their liking.  I had thought that JFJ was the same as Messianic Judaism and it is interesting to learn that not only are they not the same, but they had conflicts among themselves.

I got this book free to review from Booksneeze.