Tovia Singer

"Outreach Judaism" redirects here. For Jewish outreach in general, see Jewish outreach (disambiguation).
Rabbi Tovia Singer

Rabbi Tovia Singer during the debate with Dr. Craig Evans
Position Rabbi
Synagogue Beit Torat Chaim (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Position Founder and Director
Organisation Outreach Judaism
Personal details
Born (1960-09-20) September 20, 1960
Pennsylvania, USA
Nationality American
Occupation Rabbi
Alma mater Yeshiva University

Tovia Singer (born September 20, 1960) is a rabbi, the founder and director of Outreach Judaism.[1] In Indonesia, Outreach Judaism's program is managed under a local Jewish foundation, Eits Chaim Indonesia Foundation which describes itself as an advocate for the Jewish faith, the Jewish people and the State of Israel for Indonesia.[2]

Outreach Judaism

Singer is the founder and director of Outreach Judaism, a Jewish counter-missionary organization.[3] It describes itself as "an international organization that responds directly to the issues raised by missionaries and cults, by exploring Judaism in contradistinction to fundamentalist Christianity." [4] Singer cautions regarding congregations that "are designed to appear Jewish, but are actually fundamentalist Christian churches, which use traditional Jewish symbols to lure the most vulnerable of our Jewish people into their ranks." [5] Outreach Judaism was described by J. Gordon Melton in 2002 as an example of "the current state of Jewish counter-cult activity."[6]

Other activities

From 2002 to 2010 Singer hosted The Tovia Singer Show on Arutz Sheva's Israel National Radio. The show launched again in October 2013. The radio show had many interesting guests and Rabbi Tovia Singer interviewed Israeli and American politicians, rabbis, terror victims, authors and many more. Among them who came on the live show with him were: 47th Governor of Texas Rick Perry; American stand-up comedian in political satire, Jackie Mason; former US ambassador for the UN, John R. Bolton; businessman Ronald Lauder; Israeli Ambassador Dore Gold; American-born Israeli historian, author and politician, Michael Oren; Dead Sea Scroll expert Prof. Lawrence Schiffman; American conservative political activist, Alan Keyes; Israeli politician, Danny Danon; former American ambassador and an ardent anti-communist, Jeane Kirkpatrick and many others. Singer was also one of the first who interviewed Walid Shoebat. In 2006, Singer interviewed Wafa Sultan on the show.[7]

Singer is the author of the book and audio series Let's Get Biblical: Why Doesn't Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah? His new expanded edition is a two-volume book that takes a critical look at long-standing Christian charges against the Jewish faith.[8] According to David Brickner it has "grabbed the attention of many evangelicals simply because it has been so widely distributed."[9] A book review by Jewish Values Online described Singer as "a master of his material" and that "his meticulous research and command of Biblical sources is most impressive." [10]

Singer is also a well-known Jewish speaker and debated the head of Jews for Jesus, Jhan Moskowitz[11] and Pastor Paul Humber.[12] In 2014, he debated the Christian New Testament scholar Dr. Craig A. Evans at Houston Baptist University.[13] He has also debated Michael L. Brown on the Sid Roth program.[14] It was the latter debate that brought Singer to his policy today to always bring his own TV and recording crew, and always conduct the debate in front of a live audience. 25 years after the debate, Singer revealed on air what happened between Brown and himself following the debate, and how it led to the absence of a second debate between them.[15]

In June 2014 he discovered a few tribes in West Papua, Indonesia, who came from Peru a few hundred years before. Their ancestors escaped the persecution of Jews by Spain, who followed them to Latin America after the Spanish Expulsion. Until today, the descendants of these Peruvian Jews in Papua have kept some of the Jewish traditions, although most of them had converted into Christianity. Singer spoke about this discovery in an interview with Jeremy Gimpel on Voice of Israel, which was published in Jan 2015. According to this interview, Singer's lecture series in Papua has brought them out of Christianity and returned them back to the Jewish faith.[16] From that point on, Singer moved to Indonesia to volunteer as a Rabbi in the most predominantly Muslim country, where Judaism is not acknowledged as an official religion, to help lost Jewish descendants of Indonesia build their Jewish lives.

Together with Eits Chaim Indonesia Foundation,[17] whose founders are of Dutch Jewish descent, Singer started the only Jewish Center legally acknowledged by the Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs - Torat Chaim. Since Judaism is not yet a recognized religion in Indonesia, religious freedom for Torat Chaim and its members is guaranteed and protected by the Christian Desk of the Indonesian Religious Affairs Department.[18]

Works

Audio and Video Lectures

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Outreach Judaism LLC
  2. ↑ Yayasan Eits Chaim Indonesia
  3. ↑ Michael C. Duke, "Messianics pervert Passover at some Houston-area churches", Jewish Herald-Voice, April 2, 2009.
  4. ↑ About Us, Outreach Judaism website. Accessed January 9, 2011.
  5. ↑ Simon Schoon, "Noachides and Converts to Judaism", in Jan N. Bremmer, Wout Jac. van Bekkum, Arie L. Molendijk. Cultures of Conversions, Peeters Publishers, 2006, ISBN 978-90-429-1753-8, p. 125.
  6. ↑ J. Gordon Melton, "The Modern Anti-Cult Movement in Historical Perspective", in Jeffrey Kaplan, Heléne Lööw. The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional Subcultures in an Age of Globalization, Rowman Altamira, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7591-0204-0, p. 285, note 4.
  7. ↑ Michael Cappi. A Never Ending War, Trafford Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4251-1567-8, p. 326.
  8. ↑ Rabbi Tovia Singer, "Let's Get Biblical: Why Doesn't Judaism Accept the Christian Messiah?", 2014, ISBN 978-0-99609-131-2,
  9. ↑ David Brickner, "Encountering Jewish Resistance", in J. Dudley Woodberry (ed.) Reaching the Resistant: Barriers and Bridges for Mission, William Carey Library, 1998, ISBN 978-0-87808-380-0, p. 90.
  10. ↑ "The Jews and Jesus" on Jewish Values Online.
  11. ↑ Is Jesus Prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures? on YouTube 2010
  12. ↑ Is Jesus Prophesied in the Jewish Scriptures?] on YouTube 2012
  13. ↑ Is Jesus the Promised Jewish Messiah? on YouTube 2014
  14. ↑ Is Jesus the Jewish Messiah? on YouTube 1991
  15. ↑ Rabbi Tovia Singer Answers Why He Never Debated Michael Brown Again; Min 02:01:50 on YouTube 2016
  16. ↑ Rabbi Tovia Singer: 100's of Lost Jews in Muslim Indonesia on YouTube 2014
  17. ↑ Yayasan Eits Chaim Indonesia
  18. ↑ Rabbi Yosef Serebryanski, "Jews in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea", The Jewish Press, August 28, 2015.
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