Unbelievable. A rabbi, sofer, mohel, kohen performing pidon habens, avrech in Kabbala Yeshiva - and undercover missionary Goy! Michael Elk a.k.a. Michoel Elkohen.
One Mussar Haskel: You never know ANYBODY for sure. Another - Some people will do ANYTHING to convert Jews.
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amotherinisrael.com
In around 2010, I was in touch with a fellow blogger named Michael Elkohen, a self-styled sefardi “kabbalist.” An interview with him appeared on Alan Brill’s Kavana blog in 2012. Michael, whose original name was Elk, also went by the name Tzadok.
Michael put me in touch with his wife, Amanda, who asked to write a guest post for this website. I’ll share more on that in a minute. I met Amanda a couple of times and we stayed in touch over the years, although less so recently. I posted a brief obituary of her on Facebook when she died of cancer a few months ago. I even attended her funeral at Har Hamenuchot on Zoom. Amanda was well known on Facebook and in Jerusalem. Many friends posted about her joy of life, her enthusiasm, and her sincerity.
The next day, I received a message from Judy Lash Balint, a journalist based in Jerusalem. She shared documents showing that Michael and Amanda were paid Christian missionaries. Since then, evidence has shown that not only were they not Jewish as they had claimed, they had convinced the Interior Ministry to allow them to make aliyah as Jews. Today, the story appeared in the press for the first time, currently only on Haredi Hebrew sites. Here it is in English.
When I first heard, I took down the obituary and began contacting Amanda’s and my mutual friends. It was difficult. How do you decide when to share a secret? You can’t know if the people you are telling want the facts or not. Once you share a secret, it can’t be undone. I am still extremely upset that I had not been told earlier. Fortunately, most people accepted the truth and were grateful. Some helped behind the scenes in various ways, gathering information and notifying authorities. I sent those who were skeptical to Judy, who has been following the Elks for a number of years.
The organization Beynenu issued the following statement today:
Beyneynu has been investigating this case for many years, and taken great care in verifying each piece of evidence before exposing this case to the public. The case was set to be exposed and dealt with this week, but due to one of the missionary’s children proselytizing in school – it was exposed suddenly. We are confident that the Jewish leaders will act strongly against this threat, and quickly put protective measures in place to protect the Jewish community. For more information, please contact Shannon Nuszen, Beyneynu- 058-405-3533 or shannon@beyneynu.com
I know of no evidence that the Elks proselytized Christianity to Jews in the Orthodox Israeli or online community. But they, especially Amanda, still had influence. The blog post, about a religious female pediatrician who supposedly pressured Amanda to abort her fetus at 40 weeks of pregnancy, was almost certainly fabricated or greatly exaggerated. I regret the sensationalist headline, although at least I had the good sense to include a question mark. The post was picked up by an anti-abortion website in the US, which was no doubt the intention. I feel used and manipulated. [Today, April 26, 2021, I removed the content of the post.]
Also, Michael worked at a Jerusalem gym that is known to cater to the Messianic Jewish community.
Living in Israel as an immigrant, as I have for over thirty years, is hard. One of the things that makes it bearable is the close connections I’ve formed with others in my situation. When you meet another English speaker among of a group of Israelis, you may form an instant bond, even though you might have had nothing in common in other circumstances. It makes me angry that the Elks took advantage of our warm and welcoming community in such a terrible way.
I’d like to emphasize that the issue is not their belief in Christianity, but the deception. The Elks used their erstwhile Jewishness, and supposedly deep and sincere religiosity, which had no basis in reality, to collect money, meals, and childcare multiple times during the length of Amanda’s illness and after her death. (I was told that the funds raised through GoFundMe, set up after her death, were frozen and not distributed. I personally, and I am sure many others, gave funds directly to the Elks’ bank account during the illness.) Christians deserve help as well as Jews, but not under false pretenses. Amanda had claimed that her grandmother had lived as a Christian, but a secret diary discovered after her death documented her time as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. Yet the grandmother was born in the US and lived there her entire life.
One reason given for delaying the revelation of this news was to protect the Elks’ five children who had recently lost their mother. We hadn’t known whether the five children had been raised as Christians. That question was answered last week when a teenage daughter told a friend that Jesus loved her. The girl told her parents, who told the principal. When rabbis, who had already been planning to make an announcement, noticed that Michael began to edit his Facebook profile, they published the information. In a way I’m glad that the children knew that they weren’t Jewish, so that they will have an easier time in a new community. Needless to say, any problems that the children will have in the future is a direct result of the parents’ ongoing deception, not of those who broke the news.
In around 2010, I was in touch with a fellow blogger named Michael Elkohen, a self-styled sefardi “kabbalist.” An interview with him appeared on Alan Brill’s Kavana blog in 2012. Michael, whose original name was Elk, also went by the name Tzadok.
Michael put me in touch with his wife, Amanda, who asked to write a guest post for this website. I’ll share more on that in a minute. I met Amanda a couple of times and we stayed in touch over the years, although less so recently. I posted a brief obituary of her on Facebook when she died of cancer a few months ago. I even attended her funeral at Har Hamenuchot on Zoom. Amanda was well known on Facebook and in Jerusalem. Many friends posted about her joy of life, her enthusiasm, and her sincerity.
The next day, I received a message from Judy Lash Balint, a journalist based in Jerusalem. She shared documents showing that Michael and Amanda were paid Christian missionaries. Since then, evidence has shown that not only were they not Jewish as they had claimed, they had convinced the Interior Ministry to allow them to make aliyah as Jews. Today, the story appeared in the press for the first time, currently only on Haredi Hebrew sites. Here it is in English.
When I first heard, I took down the obituary and began contacting Amanda’s and my mutual friends. It was difficult. How do you decide when to share a secret? You can’t know if the people you are telling want the facts or not. Once you share a secret, it can’t be undone. I am still extremely upset that I had not been told earlier. Fortunately, most people accepted the truth and were grateful. Some helped behind the scenes in various ways, gathering information and notifying authorities. I sent those who were skeptical to Judy, who has been following the Elks for a number of years.
The organization Beynenu issued the following statement today:
Beyneynu has been investigating this case for many years, and taken great care in verifying each piece of evidence before exposing this case to the public. The case was set to be exposed and dealt with this week, but due to one of the missionary’s children proselytizing in school – it was exposed suddenly. We are confident that the Jewish leaders will act strongly against this threat, and quickly put protective measures in place to protect the Jewish community. For more information, please contact Shannon Nuszen, Beyneynu- 058-405-3533 or shannon@beyneynu.com
I know of no evidence that the Elks proselytized Christianity to Jews in the Orthodox Israeli or online community. But they, especially Amanda, still had influence. The blog post, about a religious female pediatrician who supposedly pressured Amanda to abort her fetus at 40 weeks of pregnancy, was almost certainly fabricated or greatly exaggerated. I regret the sensationalist headline, although at least I had the good sense to include a question mark. The post was picked up by an anti-abortion website in the US, which was no doubt the intention. I feel used and manipulated. [Today, April 26, 2021, I removed the content of the post.]
Also, Michael worked at a Jerusalem gym that is known to cater to the Messianic Jewish community.
Living in Israel as an immigrant, as I have for over thirty years, is hard. One of the things that makes it bearable is the close connections I’ve formed with others in my situation. When you meet another English speaker among of a group of Israelis, you may form an instant bond, even though you might have had nothing in common in other circumstances. It makes me angry that the Elks took advantage of our warm and welcoming community in such a terrible way.
I’d like to emphasize that the issue is not their belief in Christianity, but the deception. The Elks used their erstwhile Jewishness, and supposedly deep and sincere religiosity, which had no basis in reality, to collect money, meals, and childcare multiple times during the length of Amanda’s illness and after her death. (I was told that the funds raised through GoFundMe, set up after her death, were frozen and not distributed. I personally, and I am sure many others, gave funds directly to the Elks’ bank account during the illness.) Christians deserve help as well as Jews, but not under false pretenses. Amanda had claimed that her grandmother had lived as a Christian, but a secret diary discovered after her death documented her time as a Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz. Yet the grandmother was born in the US and lived there her entire life.
One reason given for delaying the revelation of this news was to protect the Elks’ five children who had recently lost their mother. We hadn’t known whether the five children had been raised as Christians. That question was answered last week when a teenage daughter told a friend that Jesus loved her. The girl told her parents, who told the principal. When rabbis, who had already been planning to make an announcement, noticed that Michael began to edit his Facebook profile, they published the information. In a way I’m glad that the children knew that they weren’t Jewish, so that they will have an easier time in a new community. Needless to say, any problems that the children will have in the future is a direct result of the parents’ ongoing deception, not of those who broke the news.
