CMJ USA

06/18/2026

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If you want the discount, 👀✅️ sign up for our pilgrimage to Greece happening this October!

Click here: https://cmj-usa.org/greece2026

06/17/2026

Rev. David Pileggi: Since 1945, post-Holocaust antisemitism in most Western and a few Eastern countries has come in waves. Historians differ, saying there are five or six waves, but this recent one that started immediately on October 7, 2023, has been the most violent, vociferous, ugliest, and dangerous. We can't fix the world, but our concern is ensuring we give no place for this in the church. There has been a huge amount of progress in Jewish-Christian relations and in addressing anti-Judaism since the Holocaust. It was the shock of the Holocaust that made churches, seminaries, and Bible colleges start to clean up their act. But now we are going backwards. We want to address this, take it out of the history department, and put it in the local church. When you talk about parables being in Hebrew and from the land of Israel, how does that help the Christian sitting in the pew? Secondly, how does that help us address the polite anti-Judaism that still leaks from TikTok to TikTok, from YouTube video to YouTube video, from preacher to preacher, and from commentary to commentary? How can we go further to clean up our act?

Dr. Steven Notley: It's important to begin by saying that we're tethered to a Jewish Messiah. When we say that the gospel is relevant to everyone and that Jesus enters everybody's world—which is part of the miracle of the incarnation—someone from Asia or South America can engage Jesus as part of them. That's fine. But we can never move away from recognizing Jesus's Jewish identity. If you are going to spout antisemitism, you're actually doing it towards Jesus as well. He is part of the Jewish people. I tend to shy away from politics. But when I'm in conversations with people who are not in love with the political decisions of the government in Israel, I tell them there should always be room to criticize governments. However, one has to be very careful that you are not feeding an undercurrent of anti-Judaism or antisemitism that resurged with October 7th. I don't think it was an accident that this surge happened on October 8th; there were calculations to that. We have to be very careful navigating it. I am a deeply devout believing Christian, but I'm also a critical scholar. There are times when you have to engage scripture with a critical eye. As Christianity moved forward, people spoke of the "parting of the ways" between Christianity and Judaism. I believe it took longer than a lot of people think, and it happened differently at different places. But those tensions are already present in the telling of our story in the gospels. There are passages we need to put warning cones around—like the declaration "may his blood be upon us and upon our children," which only shows up in Matthew's gospel. When I talk to my Jewish friends, I say, "Look, you have your own challenges because you pray the Birkat HaMinim in the synagogue, and Christians do not come out very well in that." For both communities of faith—I speak specifically for Christians—we have things we must be careful with. When the historical and social situation is right, those seeds rise up again, using the same texts. I think of depictions of 10,000 people crying "crucify him, crucify him," which has absolutely no historical basis, or all of Jerusalem turning on Jesus. These are seeds that feed a resurgence of anti-Jewish tensions. It doesn't surprise me to see these things recurring in our day, because things are ripe for those attitudes.

David: It does. What are some other examples of scriptures that come up and are misused by typical antisemitic tropes passed down in commentaries?
Steven: One that you hear, of course, is in Revelation: the "synagogue of Satan."

David: Very popular with anti-Semites.

Steven: People don't realize this is an internal Jewish recrimination; you can find the exact equivalent in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is an internal, very vigorous debate. It has nothing to do with Christians speaking wholesale of Jews in the synagogue. Having studied for 16 years in Israel, I know discussions get very vigorous, emotional, and impassioned. This type of rhetoric gets misunderstood and becomes fuel for the fire. A person has a certain inclination regarding the Jewish people and misuses the text, because that was certainly not its original intent. You can find the same terminology in the Dead Sea Scrolls—a different name for Satan, Belial, but the same idea.

Read more here:

The Church's Ministry Among Jewish People in the USA. Jesus is Jewish. Stop Antisemitism. Build Bridges.

06/15/2026

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim had been working to advance peace in the Middle East at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Just days before Yaron was about to take Sarah to Jerusalem to propose, they were gunned down by a terrorist screaming “Free Palestine” as they were leaving an event for young diplomats on May 21, 2025.

Yaron’s family is well known to us in Jerusalem and the body of Messiah was devastated by his death. Now, a year on, we are seeing unimaginable progress in the peace deals he worked so hard towards, with a breakthrough in diplomatic relations between Israel and Lebanon announced in Washington D.C. — the very place where he fell.

We talked to Yaron’s father, Daniel Lischinsky, about his son’s legacy as we come up to his “Yahrzeit,” the year’s anniversary of his death — a significant milestone in Jewish tradition.

“That’s the thing, everything he did was quite confidential,” said Daniel. “When he spoke to us, he would say, “I cannot speak on the phone” but we knew that he was involved in the Abraham Accords. He was very in favor of the Abraham Accords.”

With five children, Daniel and his wife Ruth had to economize on bedrooms, a factor that proved to be significant in the direction of Yaron’s life. “Hanan was his best friend. They grew up together in the same room.” Yaron was a sportsman at heart but Hanan influenced him to read. “He was not a person of books, but Hanan was. From childhood, Hanan was already an intellectual, and he had books in the room… Yaron got interested, slowly, slowly, more and more in reading, and developing his intellect.”

Hanan had served in IDF intelligence, which also had a bearing on Yaron’s path in life and career in Middle East Affairs. He ended up working for the Middle East Department in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. ”He was a Middle East analyst,” Daniel summarized, involved in public diplomacy and international relations built privately.

“Their department was only two people, so he was involved in everything,” said Daniel, explaining that Yaron and his boss, the Minister-Counselor for Middle East Affairs at the Embassy, were responsible for the entire division.

“He had so much initiative. He liked to meet with people from think tanks and other embassies, other diplomats of course, it was part of his work. He went representing the Israeli embassy a lot because his department was only two people, so sometimes, like on the night when he was killed, his boss went to another meeting, and he went to this meeting,” said Daniel, referring to the Young Diplomats Reception hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC). “He often represented the embassy, like a diplomat.”

“They were preparing him to be a diplomat in the future,” he added.

Read more here:

The Church's Ministry Among Jewish People in the USA. Jesus is Jewish. Stop Antisemitism. Build Bridges.

06/11/2026

Rev. Cariño Casas asks the question: If she could see the clarity of the Jewishness of the Bible, why can't the Jews?

She reflects about her time in deep prayer for the Jewish people, and how it grew and shaped her.

06/09/2026

Rev. Cariño Casas shares how this year's pilgrimage to Greece will follow Paul's path through Greece!

Starting in the north, in Thessaloniki, this pilgrimage will follow in chronological order where and when Paul walked in Greece!

If you're interested in watching the full informational video, click here:

https://youtu.be/x9vd9kkJlXw?si=vxDqaKLnA4GbSkNF

06/08/2026

CMJ USA Director Cariño Casas and Assistant Director Krystal Hustead represented the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People at the Ascent Summit 2026 in Falls Church, VA. We were glad to meet Christians working for the Gospel across the United States. We excited by the new potential ministry partners we connected with.

We were so encouraged to meet author and teacher Beth Moore and hear her speak on how to persevere in the call of God even in the midst of opposition.

06/03/2026

Wake up, breakfast, laundromat, bomb shelter...

In this clip from the (915) Talk podcast, Cariño Casas reflects on her time in Jerusalem last year and how the falling missiles have become a routine part of everyday life in Jerusalem.




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06/01/2026

Interested in learning more about our pilgrimage to Greece?

Sign up for our info Zoom meeting on: June 6th at 5:00pm EST

Click here to learn more: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/QARxdkNKQTGbXeZ0fG6OTw #/registration

05/28/2026

To when our 2025 pilgrimage group went to Corinth and Cenchrea, Greece!

Want to be in our next pilgrimage group?

🔗 Click the link:

https://cmj-usa.org/greece2026

05/27/2026

What does it mean to “rightly divide truth from myth” when it comes to the Jewish people, Israel, and the Church?

Excerpt:

Carl: In time I began to notice and observe that there were negative attitudes in the church toward Jewish people and it really struck me one day when one of my former students came to my office and he said he'd written a book and wanted my endorsement if I could offer it to him. I read the book. It was a book that reflected an antisemitic attitude toward the Jewish people, blaming the Jewish people for the problems that we have in the United States, saying that the liberal Jews had infiltrated the government, the courts and the businesses and that the Jewish people were to blame. When he came back to my office, I told him frankly, "I hope this book is never published because it is antisemitic."

That just catapulted me into seeking to protect Christians from negative thoughts about the Jewish people. I remember the first time I visited Yad v'Shem, the memorial to the Holocaust, and I recognized the damage that antisemitism can bring to the world and especially to the Jewish people.

In 2024, I was in Israel at the Jerusalem University College and attended a Christ Church where David is the rector. In his sermon he mentioned that he was taking a group to Poland and that they were going to study the history of the Jewish people in Poland and their experience in the Holocaust. I went up to him after the service and I said I'm really interested in the Jewish people and I teach understanding Judaism at Western Seminary. I remember David's words of response to me. He said, "Carl, this trip is for you."

As Nancy and I explored what the trip was going to entail, we decided we needed to do this. It was a great experience being with David and Carol, and I realized that I needed to write on this subject. I began developing my book, Understanding Judaism, which has been recently published. In the book I tell of the different streams of Judaism. I tell of the history of Judaism. I tell of the Holocaust—I devote four chapters to the Holocaust—and then Jewish culture, Jewish home life and then dealing with my own experience in Judaism.

I have a Jewish son-in-law, and we love him. He's a wonderful man, wonderful father, wonderfully caring for his family. We've enjoyed getting acquainted with his family as well. I've talked to my son-in-law about the Lord, and he's heard my message. We're seeking to love him, and we don't know what the Lord has for him. We're praying that God would do a work in his life as he's done a work in all of our lives. If God can bring the Apostle Paul to saving faith in the Lord Jesus as his personal Messiah, he can do the same thing for my son-in-law.

Read the full article here:
https://share.google/6IQBihHRImqUEQyti