Evangelicals’ Aid in Fund Raising Poses Dilemma for Jews : Judaism: ‘Born-again’ Christians, including singer Pat Boone, have been financially supportive of Israel, but there is concern that they also give a high priority to conversion efforts.

What could be nicer than a still boyish-looking Pat Boone looking into the television camera and sincerely appealing to his evangelical friends to donate money to the United Jewish Appeal’s Operation Exodus, which supports Soviet Jews emigrating to Israel?

But Boone embodies one of the more difficult dilemmas posed for Jews by Christian evangelicals. Although he certainly helped to raise some needed cash last year, his great enthusiasm for Israel turns partly on his belief that it will help advance the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Evangelicals hold that the return of all Jews to Israel is one of the signs of the approaching return of Jesus.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein tried to arrive at some solution when he founded the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in 1983.

About 38% of Americans, an estimated 68 million people, call themselves “born-again,” or evangelical Christians, according to the Princeton Religion Research Center. Conservative evangelicals have traditionally supported Israel, based on their interpretation of the importance of the Jewish state in Bible prophecy.

Eckstein regards them as a well of support for Israel waiting to be tapped.

This year, Eckstein, who serves as executive director of the organization, invited Boone to help out on a telethon to raise money for Operation Exodus. The average gift, Eckstein said, was $90, three times the average gift brought in by telethons.

Rafael Farber, Israel’s commissioner of tourism in North America, also knows what evangelicals can bring in. He said 40% of his $2-million annual marketing budget targets Christians through television commercials and ads in Christian magazines. Each month, 3,000 Christians call a special 800 phone number to get a “Christian tour kit” and letter from Boone.

“We’ve just begun to tap the evangelical market,” he said. “We’re speaking about tens of millions of people.”

That support could be financial or political, he notes, given the growing influence of evangelicals in politics. But Eckstein says many Jews do not realize that evangelicals are a diverse lot.

He says the politically right-wing segment of evangelical Christianity accounts for no more than one-third of the movement, while the larger, more moderate center is growing in importance.

“It’s not going to be quite the same as in the Reagan period,” he said of the road ahead. “It’s not going to be the same kind of knee-jerk support for Israel. It’s going to have to be educated and directed, but it is out there.”

Rabbi Leon Klenicki, director of inter-religious affairs for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, is another Jewish leader who favors strengthening the ties. He is practicing what he preaches by working on a project with the National Assn. of Evangelicals to help Jews understand evangelicals and evangelicals understand Jews.

“We haven’t paid enough attention to the evangelical movement,” Klenicki said. “Working with them allows us to eliminate anti-Jewish feeling.”

But some Jewish leaders are wary of support by evangelicals.

“It’s dangerous to take the support of Israel and not look at the other side of the coin,” said Rabbi A. James Rudin, director of inter-religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee.

“They may be supportive of Israel, but they have another equally important agenda: conversion. Don’t be fooled or heartbroken if the same people out in a Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) parade a week later lend their churches to Jews for Jesus,” he said.

Boone is supportive of Jews for Jesus, a group that targets Jews for conversion and upholds the evangelical view that Jews are “religiously incomplete.” But he says he sees no contradiction between his support of Israel and of groups that proselytize.

Rabbi Ben-Zion Kravitz of Los Angeles, who heads an anti-missionary group called Jews for Judaism, opposes the Israeli tourist office programs. He is concerned that they will bring more Christian visitors to Israel who will try to convert Israelis.

Kravitz estimates that 150,000 Jews have converted to Christianity for reasons other than intermarriage, and he attributes most of those conversions to the efforts of Christian evangelists.

Eckstein says Jews concerned about such programs should devote more time to working with evangelicals and helping them understand Jewish concerns.

“Fear, suspicion and an inability to talk to them is ubiquitous among Jewish leadership,” Eckstein said. “The Jewish community isn’t willing to make the investment with evangelicals to sensitize them. How can we expect them to be aware and sensitive to our issues if we’re not willing to make the investment?”