Missionaries Expand Unprecedented DVD Campaign; Yad L’Achim Fights Back with Multi-Media PR Blitz
March 11, 2017
A warning notice by Yad L'Achim that was published in Yisrael Hayom, Israel's largest newspaper
The brazen missionary distribution of hundreds of thousands of DVDs in home mail boxes around the country continues, to the shock and outrage of wide segments of the public. Yad L’Achim reports that some areas are seeing a second wave of mass distributions.
In response, the counter-missionary organization has launched a PR blitz notifying the public of the danger and urging people to destroy the material in their mailboxes before it has a chance to enter their homes.
As reported earlier, Yad L’Achim’s legal team sent an urgent appeal to the Israel Postal Service, the police and the Communications Ministry calling on them to put a halt to the distribution via the post office, as it is in violation of the penal code that forbids missionary activity among minors, who are likely to be exposed to the DVDs.
At the same time, Yad L’Achim has been inundated with calls from postal workers who are torn between their obligation to deliver the mail and their pangs of conscience at participating in the distribution of missionary material. Yad L’Achim’s hotline is receiving an unprecedented number of calls from across the religious spectrum expressing shock at the DVDs that have been arriving at their homes.
Meanwhile, Jews around the country are taking the initiative to try and halt the spread of the missionary plague. In Ra’anana, the head of the Religious Council, Aryeh Friedman, announced that he intends to file a criminal complaint with the local police against missionaries distributing DVDs and other materials that can reach minors in his city.
Yad L’Achim is also sponsoring radio spots on local and national stations with the following message: “Beware! Missionaries! Yad L’Achim announces: Hundreds of thousands of DVDs are being distributed at this time in mail boxes around the country by a missionary cult intent on getting Jews to convert to Christianity. Destroy the discs immediately upon receipt. Protect yourselves and your children!”
The counter-missionary organization’s top officials have been granting media interviews to warn people not to view the DVD. A moving call was received by Yad L’Achim’s hotline from a woman who related that the DVD’s cover had piqued her interest and she put the disc in her purse to view it at her office. As she arrived at the office, she turned on the radio and heard an interview with Rabbi Shmuel Lifschitz, one Yad L’Achim’s leaders, in which he explained the dangers of the disc.
“I quickly threw it in the garbage and called to thank you for enlightening me,” the woman said.
Yad L’Achim officials were moved by calls from local media in cities where the disc was being distributed. These media outlets offered to run – free of charge – notices from Yad L’Achim warning of the malicious intent behind the DVD distribution: To get Jews to convert out of their religion.
If that weren’t enough, in a number of cities the heads of yeshivos and youth groups instructed their students to dedicate their evening hours to volunteering in Yad L’Achim’s campaign against distribution of the DVDs.
Yad L’Achim wishes to thank all those who called to volunteer to distribute preventive PR material and especially the many who arrived following publication of its warning notice in the mass-distribution newspaper Yisrael Hayom.
Nonetheless, due to the unprecedented scope of this missionary campaign, Yad L’Achim is asking for additional volunteers to join in the battle and help distribute preventive materials.
“We won’t desist until this campaign has been brought to a final end,” Yad L’Achim promised in a statement.
Attached is the radio announcement that was heard on local and national stations
