Says Likud chairman sharing building with Jews for Jesus is "symbolic."
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMANfeiglin looks up 298.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Likud leadership candidate Moshe Feiglin blasted incumbent party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday for housing his Tel Aviv campaign headquarters in a building that has a "Jews-for-Jesus" center in its lobby.
Reporters who attended a photo-op that Netanyahu held at his second-floor headquarters ahead of Tuesday's Likud primary were surprised to see the Dugit Messianic Information Center in the lobby of the building near Tel Aviv's trendy Sheinkin Street.
The workers at the center said Netanyahu had popped his head into the center once and asked what it was and when they told him, he said "good," but he did not accept their invitation to come in for coffee.
Feiglin said Netanyahu's sharing a building with Jews-for-Jesus was symbolic of how disconnected he was from Judaism. He said that he had turned down a blank check from Jews-for-Jesus and he accused Netanyahu of accepting the campaign office rent free.
"They offered me all the money I want, even $50 million," Feiglin said. "Netanyahu never proved in his personal life that he has any connection to the holiness of Judaism. He is completely disconnected from everything Jewish. Because of this, he belongs in Meretz and not in the Likud."
The Dugit employees said it was not a missionary organization. But their Web site describes their efforts to get as many people as possible in Tel Aviv to declare Jesus as the Lord. A spokesman for the Yad L'Achim anti-missionary organization said Dugit tries to convert Jews to Christianity. He said Netanyahu had torpedoed anti-missionary legislation in the past because of his ties to Evangelical Christian leaders.
Netanyahu's office responded that they rented the office from a Jewish businessman with no ties to Jews-for-Jesus, and that they are paying rent on the office.
