Yad L'Achim

Yad L'Achim operates across two broad mission areas: countering Christian and other non-Jewish missionary activity targeting Israeli Jews, and intervening in situations where Jewish women are cohabiting with Arab or Palestinian men.[1][6]

The organization maintains a Special Operations branch whose stated flagship project is the extraction of Jewish women and children from Arab villages.[4] Its website, as cited in multiple U.S. Department of State reports, characterizes these operations as "military-like rescues from hostile Arab villages" and frames the organization as a "Jewish rescue corps."[3][6] Yad L'Achim also says it provides safe shelter, therapy, assistance with divorce proceedings, and reintegration support after a rescue.[4]

In the anti-missionary sphere, the organization has pursued legislative advocacy, media campaigns, and direct street-level activity. Rabbi Lifshitz said Yad L'Achim was pushing for legislation that would bar members of any religion from attempting to convert others.[7] The group petitioned the communications minister and broadcast regulators over a Christian television channel.[8] It sent Pope Francis a letter urging action against missionary activity in Israel and separately asked YouTube to remove religious and missionary content shown to children.[9][10]

In a 2008 interview, chairman Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifshitz said Yad L'Achim had been active for 50 years and claimed that it had operated without violence; the article did not independently establish that chronology.[7] U.S. Department of State reports in 2010 and 2011 subsequently identified Lifshitz as the organization's leader and described Yad L'Achim as an ultra-Orthodox anti-missionary group.[1][2] Later reports documented its continuing anti-missionary campaigns and its interventions involving Jewish women and Arab or Palestinian men.[11][6]

Yad L'Achim's documented anti-missionary efforts include public demonstrations, poster campaigns, engagement with government ministries, and online campaigns. In June 2016, hundreds of demonstrators organized by the group gathered outside a hall in Rishon Lezion where Jehovah's Witnesses had scheduled a Bible lecture, with many attendees prevented from entering; police opened an investigation that was later closed without charges.[12] That same year, the organization reportedly encouraged Jews to leave a Christian-sponsored sightseeing event, which its activists characterized as a missionary gathering; thousands reportedly departed the event's finale in Caesarea when Christian preachers began speaking.[12]

In June 2023, activists from Yad L'Achim and the group Lehava attempted to disrupt a gathering of Messianic Jews at the Clal Center in Jerusalem; police dispersed the protesters and arrested one individual for attacking officers.[5]

The organization has also sought to influence broadcast and communications policy. In 2020, Yad L'Achim petitioned Communications Minister David Amsalem regarding the Christian channel SHELANU TV, which had begun broadcasting in Israel through the HOT cable platform. It argued that the channel was designed to promote conversion and that programming aimed at "all ages" could expose minors to missionary content. The minister said he would not allow a missionary channel to operate, and the independent cable and satellite broadcasting council said it was reviewing the channel's compliance with its license.[8]

Ahead of Pope Francis's 2014 visit to Israel, the organization sent him a letter alleging that missionaries in Israel targeted Jews of all ages and backgrounds — including disabled, sick, and elderly individuals as well as new immigrants — sometimes by offering material assistance as an inducement to conversion. The letter claimed that at least 150 missionary communities operated freely in Israel and called for a blanket ban on proselytization among members of all religions; these were the organization's own claims as reported by Ynetnews.[9]

In 2018, Yad L'Achim posted videos of activists confronting alleged proselytizers and claimed to have "rescued" individuals from Messianic Jewish congregations.[11] It separately sent YouTube a request to remove religious and missionary content after parents contacted the organization about advertisements shown to children; YouTube did not respond to the request.[10] In 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the organization said it was working near border crossings to warn Jewish refugees about Christian missionary groups. It reportedly hired a Jewish refugee from Odesa to identify and redirect fellow Jewish refugees to Chabad centers rather than to missionary-affiliated assistance tents.[13]

A second major axis of Yad L'Achim's work involves what it calls rescuing Jewish women from cohabitation with Arab or Palestinian men. U.S. Department of State reports in 2014 and 2015 described the organization offering "escape" assistance by facilitating the covert departure of women and their children from shared homes.[14][15] Later reports continued to document such interventions and cited the organization's description of some operations as "military-like rescues from hostile Arab villages."[3][6]

Yossi Eliav, identified in a Jerusalem Post report as the organization's director of Special Projects, described the extraction of women and children held against their will in Arab villages as the Special Operations branch's flagship project. The report recounted one case involving a woman identified as Tamar, whose surname was withheld for safety; Yad L'Achim devised an escape plan and helped her and her children flee from Uzbekistan, where her children had been taken from her.[4] The organization subsequently supported her through divorce proceedings, therapy, and reintegration.[4]

A 2006 report situated some of the organization's work within a local campaign in Bnei Brak's Pardes Katz neighborhood, where rabbis and residents called for tenants not to rent to Arabs and non-Jews. The organization's local branch manager, identified only as Tzipora, said the group's focus was "not anti-Arab and not against the Arab public," and that its concern was exploitation and underlying social problems. She said the branch had logged 478 complaints in 2006 involving girls from age 11 to women in their forties, and that it employed a social worker to assist them.[16]

Not all women contacted by the organization have characterized its outreach as welcome. In a 2018 profile of Jewish-Arab couples, Georgette Masrawa said Yad L'Achim representatives periodically contacted her and tried to persuade her to leave her husband. She rejected the premise, describing her husband as wonderful and their home as loving and respectful.[17]

Beyond women's extraction, the organization has reportedly pressured Jewish girls not to date Palestinian men, operated a hotline encouraging people to inform on Jewish-Palestinian couples, and distributed fliers warning Palestinian men to stay away from Jewish women.[18] It has also assisted individuals with Jewish heritage who approach the organization from outside Israel. A 2019 Maariv report described a Jordanian man who discovered that his mother and grandmother were Jewish and contacted Yad L'Achim; the organization said it had assisted approximately 150 people with comparable backgrounds during the preceding year and a half.[19] A 2026 Ynet report described the group accompanying a mother and her children for several years, helping her begin divorce proceedings, and supporting a formal process through which her three children returned to Judaism with their Muslim father's consent and the approval of a Jerusalem rabbinical court.[20]

Yad L'Achim's public significance is reflected in its repeated involvement in border-control, religious-services, broadcast-regulation, and court-related disputes. These episodes show the organization interacting with government agencies and regulatory processes, although the cited sources do not describe it as a government body.[1][8]

The U.S. Department of State's 2010 report said the Ministry of the Interior maintained in its border-control databases denunciations of suspected missionaries supplied by anti-missionary groups including Yad L'Achim, and that individuals suspected of missionary activity faced detention, visa difficulties, or denial of entry.[1] The report also recorded allegations — attributed to the Jerusalem Institute of Justice and representatives of affected religious communities — that Yad L'Achim pressured landlords, employers, and ministry officials to act against groups it labeled dangerous cults; these were reported allegations rather than established findings.[1]

In 2014, the Ministry of Religious Services upheld a complaint against a Yad L'Achim advertising campaign in which the organization promised that a prominent state-employed rabbi would pray for donors. Civil-service rules prohibited state employees from fundraising for organizations other than the state.[14]

Former Yad L'Achim staff members established the Israeli Center for Victims of Cults, whose staff received annual government funding to assist individuals described as cult victims. A 2022 Department of State report noted that Scientology Israel alleged the center had targeted it.[6][21]

U.S. Department of State reports have documented recurring concerns about Yad L'Achim's methods. The 2010 report said the Jerusalem Institute of Justice received more than 30 complaints in 2009 about posters — bearing individuals' photographs, names, and addresses — warning the public to "avoid the dangerous missionaries."[1] The 2010 and 2011 reports also said the organization sometimes identified people as missionaries incorrectly.[1][2]

The 2010 report recounted litigation over a 2005 riot at the Nachalat Yeshua Messianic congregation in Be'er Sheva. Yad L'Achim anti-missionary director Alex Artovsky and Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yehuda Deri were accused of inciting the disruption, and the report said Yad L'Achim had publicized false rumors that the congregation planned to baptize busloads of Jews. It said video showed hundreds of Orthodox Jews ransacking the congregation, assaulting people, and taking over the site. The Be'er Sheva Magistrate's Court ruled against the congregation in May 2010, and the congregation was considering an appeal.[1]

The Pnina Pie Bakery case in Ashdod drew particular attention. After Yad L'Achim publicized a sign identifying the bakery's owner as a Messianic Jew, the Ashdod and Chief Rabbinate authorities revoked the bakery's kosher certification. On June 29, 2009, the Supreme Court ordered the license restored, finding the revocation was based solely on the owner's religious identity and had no connection to kashrut requirements; the report noted the license had not been restored by the end of the reporting period.[1]

The 2014 Department of State report included an allegation — explicitly characterized as such — that Yad L'Achim had in some cases facilitated the removal of children from the custody of the women's Arab spouses.[14][22] This was not established as a legal finding in the cited reports. The organization has also been criticized for mislabeling religious activity: journalist Giulio Meotti argued in a 2012 opinion piece that it was inaccurate to characterize all pro-Israel Evangelical Christians as missionaries, as he said Yad L'Achim did.[23]

In 2011, a dispute over a proposal involving approximately 1,000 Christians who planned to convert to Judaism and settle in Samaria illustrated the contested nature of the organization's interventions. Yad L'Achim ran a publicity campaign alleging the initiative was a covert missionary operation; Knesset member Leah Shemtov countered that the participants had Jewish backgrounds, sought full Orthodox conversion under Chief Rabbinate supervision, and genuinely intended to become Jews and Israelis, describing the organization's evidence as "half-sentences" attributed to a single individual. The reporting did not resolve the disagreement.[24][25]