yiddish newspapers
being sold on street magazine racks
The Chosen People magazine and The Shepherd of Israel were key parts of the ministry to the Jewish people. The Chosen People magazine
served to build relationships and solidarity with Christian friends, while The Shepherd of Israel served as an evangelistic tool for Jewish
seekers. As the “people of the book,” the Jewish people have always had a close relationship with literacy, reading, and study. And many times
Jewish people were open to reading evangelistic literature and Hebrew or Yiddish New Testaments on their own. In 1921, we started sending
200 copies a year of The Shepherd of Israel to Jerusalem, to a British missionary supported by our Mission—Frank Boothby. Boothby operated
a small storefront called “The Gospel Gate Room,” which he kept stocked with gospel tracts, Bibles, and our newspaper. Boothby reported
that the Jewish people of Jerusalem loved the Yiddish periodical and would come by the building to pick up new editions. Boothby faithfully
continued in this ministry until his death in 1940. He was our first missionary in the Holy Land.
MAY 2020 | 05