The office of new Chief of Staff. Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot has promised the Yad L’Achim anti-missionary organization it will act to “prevent recurrences” of a recent event where missionaries tried to indoctrinate soldiers.
Yad L’Achim said Tuesday that the Chief of Staff’s office responded to its complaint that hundreds of soldiers had been bused to an International Christian Embassy event, reported here, paying tribute to the heroes of last summer’s Operation Protective Edge counter-terror campaign in Gaza.
“This was a particularly serious breach, since soldiers were taken from their military bases to attend a missionary gathering,” according to Yad L’Achim, which added that 300 soldiers, including a brigadier-general and members of an elite combat unit “were forced to listen to a speech preaching Christianity from an American missionary.”
It added, “One of the translators at the event was Doron Schneider, the head of the ‘Messianic Jews’ congregation in Maaleh Adumim.”
IDF regulations forbid missionary activities, and Yad L’Achim, lodged a complaint and demanded an investigation.
The IDF responded that the incident is “being checked by commanders in order to prevent similar gatherings from taking place in the future.”
Yad L’Achim stressed that it expects to receive answers from the chief of staff regarding other missionary events in the IDF, and it noted that Tel Aviv missionary Yaakov Demkani appears at many bases and to deliver missionary messages.