"I suspect extremists did this … we all need to be more tolerant and accepting of the differences we have as a society," JBC Pastor Charles Kopp told reporters. The fire at the JBC, which was extinguished early Wednesday, October 23, damaged chairs and other fittings, church officials confirmed.
Police official Ben Ruby claimed Bibles were also burned, but church spokesman Joseph Broom later denied these claims, saying the Bibles were spared in the second major attack on the building in over two decades.
CHURCH REBUILD
The JBC was rebuild after ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists burned it down in 1982, church officials said. In addition a firebomb apparently damaged the church’s bookstore some years ago. The attack has been linked to Jews strongly opposed to what they see as efforts, especially by evangelical Americans, to convert Jews to Christianity.
Some demand that evangelical Christians have no presence in Jerusalem, the Jewish state’s capital, where groups such as the pro-Israel International Christian Embassy Jerusalem are based.
The JBC has made clear however it wants to reach out to different communities. The church formerly belonged to the Baptist community, but is now shared by several congregations, including including foreign workers, Sudanese refugees who came to Israel through Egypt,
and two congregations of the "Jews for Jesus" who believe that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah as foretold in the Bible. Orthodox Jews believe that the Messiah still has to come.
MAYOR ANGRY
In published comments however, Uri Lupolianski, Jerusalem’s mayor, condemned the attack, saying difference of opinions should not lead to violence. "The efforts of the arsonists to harm the fabric of intercommunal relations in the city will not succeed and the warm relations between the communities will be preserved," he said.
The US-based Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League also strongly condemned the torching of the JBC church as an apparent hate crime. "We urged authorities to do everything in their power to protect all religious sites and see that the perpetrators of the crime are brought to justice," in said in comments published by The Jerusalem Post.
Yet despite the condemnations, Evangelical missionaries active among Jewish people have been increasingly forced underground while Jews believing in Jesus as Lord and Savior are holding church services in secret amid fears for authorities and Orthodox Jewish groups, BosNewsLife learned from sources in Israel, speaking on condition of anonimity.
