<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Truth be told, ours has always been a missionary religion. Just start with Avraham ovinu. He made it his life's work to communicate to his fellow-men the truth about God which he had acquired. That was, indeed, the task set him: <i>v'nivr'chu v'cho </i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><i>kol</i></span></b><i> mishp'chos ha-a-damah</i>. The novi Yishayahu set Israel the ideal of becoming <i>or goyim</i>, and thereby <i>brocho b'kerev ha-aretz</i>. In the 8th chapter of Zechariah there is the remarkable prophecy: "In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying: We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." Throughout the Torah the conception of Israel is of a people with a mission, to transmit to others the teachings which had been entrusted to its care. <div>Granted all that, the question remains: how is it we have made no active attempts to practice that ideal? The answer is given by history. The literature of ancient Rome and Greece affords abundant evidence that Jews were then zealous in making gerim and were often successful. Josephus made this statement: 'The multitude have for a long time a great inclination to follow our religious observances, for there is not in any city of the Grecians nor any of the barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our customs had not come. So that if any one will but reflect on his own country and his own family, he will have reason to give credit to what I say.'</div><div>He would not have dared to write these words if it had not been a well-known fact that such was indeed the case. </div><div>The position was, however, changed when Xristianity became the dominant religious power in Europe. It made it a crime for a Jew to convert anyon e, and yet the activity continued. Here is the verdict on the point by the eminent Xristian scholar (Moore, <i>Judiasm</i>, I, p.353) : 'For the proselyte maker the legislation went on to equate the crime to <i>laesa maiestas </i>(treason), and finally made it simply capital, whether the convert was freeman or slave. Against all such attempts of pagan or Xristian rulers to shut up Judaism in itself and prevent its spread, the Jews persisted in their missionary efforts to make the religion God had revealed to their fathers the religion of all mankind.' </div><div>Missionary activity went on to such an extent that the church authorities grew alarmed and had to think out measures to prevent the religion of their adherents from being contaminated by Jewish influence. They found the principal solution in the institution of the Ghetto. Jews and Xristians were prevented from mingling, for the 'protection' of the Xristian. Non Jews were not allowed to reside in a Jewish house; a Xristian servant could not live with Jews. In spite of such restrictions there are records of conversion to Judaism. More stringent steps were then resorted to in order to put a stop to this. A case of proselytizing was often followed by a wholesale massacre of Jews or the expulsion of the entire community. In the face of this danger, the Jewish leaders were forced to put a check upon the missionary enthusiasm of their own people. From the 9th century onwards we hear of ordinances being promulgated in the synagogues forbidding a Jew to try to convert a Xristian, and the extreme measure was resorted to by rabbis of denouncing to the government those who were suspected of leaning towards Judaism. This had to be done for self-protection. All this is historical fact; therefore it is an exhibition of ignorance when Xristian writers in the past taunted Jews with the lack of missionary zeal and attribute it to the narrow, tribal character of Judaism.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "> </span></div></body></html>