Fake rabbi plants billboards across New York City advertising Christian proselytizing website

Billboards bearing the single word “Jews.com” have appeared across New York City, including Brooklyn and Manhattan, and in heavily Jewish areas of New Jersey. They resemble earlier Jewish-themed campaigns, but the message behind them is different.

The “Jew Belong” and Chabad “Born to be a Yid” campaigns promote Jewish identity and are run by Jewish organizations. Jews.com instead directs visitors toward belief in Jesus. The website initially presents itself as an educational resource on the Hebrew scriptures, but its articles, videos and question boxes quickly turn into appeals for Jewish readers to accept Jesus as the messiah.

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Jesus is the true intermediary; he can bring you into a direct personal relationship with [God].

The material is presented by Kurt Schneider, who uses the title “Rabbi.” He compares the role of Hasidic rebbes, viewed by some Jews as intermediaries between people and God, with Jesus. “Jesus is the true intermediary; he can bring you into a direct personal relationship with [God],” Schneider says. He also writes, “Jesus is not outside Israel’s story. Jesus, known in Hebrew as Yeshua, is the messiah God promised to Israel.”

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Jesus is not outside Israel’s story. Jesus, known in Hebrew as Yeshua, is the messiah God promised to Israel.

Schneider argues that many Jews have struggled to accept Jesus because Western art often portrays him as fair-skinned and European rather than as a Jew. “For centuries, much of Western art has presented Jesus as fair-skinned and European, disconnected from the culture, bloodline, and traditions of the Jewish people,” he says. “This has made it harder for many of our people to see him for who he truly is: The Jewish messiah.”

He cites Isaiah to argue that the messiah would suffer before being recognized, and urges Jewish readers not to reject Jesus because he was crucified. Schneider says he was born to Jewish parents in Ohio, later converted to Christianity and became a self-described messianic Jew focused on proselytizing. He is not a rabbi and has never been ordained. His account of his life includes a claimed supernatural vision of Jesus’s crucifixion, an alleged kidnapping arranged by his parents and later study at Toccoa Falls Bible College, where he received a Preacher of the Year Award before becoming a church minister.

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For centuries, much of Western art has presented Jesus as fair-skinned and European, disconnected from the culture, bloodline, and traditions of the Jewish people. This has made it harder for many of our people to see him for who he truly is: The Jewish messiah.