I don’t know if you have noticed it yet, but in what is called, “Old Thornhill”, that is north of us on Yonge St, there is a sign on an attractive storefront with the words, “Gates of Zion” in English and the Hebrew equivalent, Shaarei Tzion.

What is it?

Well, it appears to be a Shul, a storefront shul opening its doors in a less obviously Jewish area. Is it outreach? Perhaps a new effort to reach Jewish students?

Not at all, it is the new home of a centre of missionary activity that previously was called “City of David” and had operated in the plaza by Bathurst & Steeles.

Simply put, it is, in my opinion, a church masquerading as a synagogue. Similar to the famous Jews for Jesus and other similar Hebrew/Christian missionaries, the Gates of Zion is the enemy. Let us strip away our PC, their goal is to convert Jews to Christianity and they do it in what I believe is a deceptive & destructive manner.

They are the ones who play on the ignorance of our brothers & sisters, they are the ones who remind us how seriously important our outreach activities are- they take Jews and take away their heritage replacing it with a falsified form of Christianity wrapped in a Talis.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not writing about Christians. They believe in their religion, they practice their religion and have very little in common with the people behind Gates of Zion.

I am writing about a church that, I believe, uses Jewish ritual & Jewish customs and corrupts them to a point that they can be used to convert Jews into the belief system of Christianity and then have the audacity to call themselves a Synagogue and their minister a rabbi (sic).

The saddest part of it all is that we have had and continue to have the ability to stop this charade in its tracks. We have, without question, an effective way to make the entire Hebrew/Christian movement a thing of the past, no longer a threat to any Jew and totally ineffective.

That is education, outreach & community.

The only Jews that can be enticed into the arms of this enemy, is a Jew who is not knowledgeable of his or her own beliefs and not a part of a caring Jewish community.

We all talk about the importance of outreach, of Jewish education and of opening our homes and community to Jews who have not had the opportunity to experience Judaism fully. Yet, if we would really take this to heart, truly reach the disenfranchised, the lonely, the uneducated then no Jew would fall for the deception that calls itself Gates of Zion (Shaarei Tzion). If we really would open our heart, our home and give of our time to our fellow Jews we could easily put an end to any Jew being unable to critically evaluate the half truths and “out of context” quotations that the missionaries use.

Any success that the Jews for Jesus, City of David or Shaarei Tzion has, is a direct result of our not acting on out heartfelt belief of reaching out to our fellow Jews.

Every time a Jew feels lonely, unwanted or ignored by our community they become easy prey for the tactics of these deceptive missionaries. Every time a Jew does not have sufficient Jewish knowledge to realize that they have been brought into a church masquerading as a Shul, they become targets for conversion.

The bottom line, we think that it is nice to reach out, it is great that we open our homes, hearts and wallets to help Jews become more actively and knowledgably Jewish, and, we are correct, it is. Yet, we do not see the seriousness of the battle being waged.

Every Jewish soul whom we allow to remain uneducated, to feel alone, to not understand what it means to be a Jew is one more Jew who is targeted by the enemy, the one’s, in my opinion, who wish to totally destroy the neshama within each of us, who corrupt and manipulate our beliefs and use them to take our children, our brothers and sisters away from us.

Gates of Zion (Shaarei Tzion), in one of its various forms or another will continue to battle us for Jewish souls. They will continue to adapt and search for those Jews who have been forgotten or lost and do whatever they can to take them away from Judaism, separate them from our community and destroy the spark of Jewishness that is hidden deep within each of us.

Yet, we have the solution- the atomic bomb, if you will, to stop them. We have the Torah, we have the warmth of community, and we have the joy of holidays and Jewish life. For, you see, it is not just nice of us to reach out, it is a matter of life and death.

If, like me, you are one of those with a more than a few years behind you, you should remember the famous quote of the character Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us”.

Such places as the “Gates of Zion” are certainly the enemy. Yet, on a more profound level, it may be true, if we do not take the need and urgency of outreach to heart, the enemy may very well be us, our complacency, our insensitivity, our lack of action for our Jewish brothers & sisters who need us desperately.

Let us do all we can to reach our own people, the time is now and the battle continues.