Billboards with “Jews.com” written on them have been appearing in recent weeks at various locations across New York City, including Brooklyn and Manhattan, as well as heavily Jewish areas of New Jersey.
They are not the first Jew-related billboards to be placed across the city; the bright pink “Jew Belong” campaign and Chabad’s “Born to be a Yid” adverts are omnipresent.
But while Jew Belong and Born to be a Yid are both campaigns run by Jewish organizations and are intended to strengthen Jewish identity among Jews, Jews.com is not.
The website is ostensibly an educational resource about the Hebrew scriptures. But after a short scroll, it becomes clear that the website is aimed at converting Jews to belief in Jesus.
All articles, videos, and question boxes by “Rabbi” Kurt Schneider begin by referencing passages from the Torah before progressing into an appeal for belief in Jesus as the messiah and encouraging Jews to reevaluate their preconceptions.
Site compares Hassidic rebbes to Jesus
Schneider speaks about hassidic Jews, viewing rebbes as intermediaries between them and God, for example, before telling the viewer that “Jesus is the true intermediary; he can bring you into a direct personal relationship with [God].”
“Jesus is not outside Israel’s story,” he says. “Jesus, known in Hebrew as Yeshua, is the messiah God promised to Israel.”
Jewish people have struggled to accept Jesus as the messiah because “He has often been portrayed not as a Jew but as a gentile” in culture and art, Schneider says.
“For centuries, much of Western art has presented Jesus as fair-skinned and European, disconnected from the culture, bloodline, and traditions of the Jewish people,” he says. “This has made it harder for many of our people to see him for who he truly is: The Jewish messiah.”
Schneider then cites a passage from Isaiah that says the messiah will suffer before he is recognized and honored, using this to prove his claim that Jesus has simply not yet been recognized by the Jews.
“I am appealing to you not to reject Jesus simply because he was crucified,” he says. “His earliest followers were Jews, and they bore witness that God raised him from the dead and that they had seen him alive afterward.”
Schneider is not a rabbi, nor has he ever been ordained as such. He was born to Jewish parents in Ohio but “came to Jesus,” in his words, and has since described himself as a messianic Jew focused on proselytizing.
At the age of 20, the Lord supernaturally appeared by sending him back 2,000 years “to visibly witness Yeshua being crucified,” he says, adding that his parents had him kidnapped by “the most famous deprogrammer in the country to deprogram me” and then sent him to a psychiatric hospital.
After his release, he went to Toccoa Falls Bible College, where he was awarded the Preacher of the Year Award. He then became a church minister.
Schneider runs the TV and radio ministry Discovering the Jewish Jesus, which is aimed at proclaiming “the messiah to Jewish people and the world.”
A lot of the content involves the bastardization of Jewish scripture, holidays, and traditions for proselytism, notably the reframing of Yom Kippur as a holiday about Jesus.
Christian proselytizing organization conducts campaigns in Israel
Schneider’s organization also sends missionaries to Jews around Israel and Africa to bring them to Jesus.
“God has placed a specific burden on Rabbi Schneider to lovingly, directly, and faithfully bring the truth of messiah Yeshua to Jewish people,” his website says.
As a result of this supposed God-given mission, the organization does a lot of work in Israel, including creating Hebrew billboard campaigns with the question: “What if he is right?”
His Discovering The Jewish Jesus broadcast reaches “200 nations worldwide” and “an estimated 97% of television homes in Israel,” according to the website. There is also a Hebrew version of the website.
While often claiming to be messianic Jewish and wearing a kippah and a tallit, Schneider has also publicly identified as Christian.
“A Christian is someone who is not born a Christian; technically, a Christian is someone who makes the decision to follow the Christ. I am a Jew, and I believe in the Jewish messiah,” he has said. “But if you want to use the Greek, then I’m a Christian.”
Schneider has not yet responded to a request for comment from The Jerusalem Post.