One Israeli man's mission to bring 'gospel back to Jewish people'
A Jew? A Christian? A "Jew for Jesus"? Jacob Damkani isn't as focused on his own mission as he is on challenging replacement theology.
By LESLIE CRISS / NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI DAILY JOURNAL - TUPELOUpdated: NOVEMBER 21, 2017 15:41Jacob Damkani(photo credit: ADAM ROBISON / NORTHEAST MISSISSIPPI DAILY JOURNAL / TNS)
(TNS) - Jacob Damkani is a man on a mission. In his case, it’s a mission to his people: the Jews.Damkani is the founder of Trumpet of Salvation to Israel, a Tel Aviv-based ministry whose goal is to “bring the gospel back to the Jewish people.”The 65-year-old Damkani was in Tupelo, Mississippi, last week as part of his first trip back to the States in eight years, conducting interviews and promoting A New Spirit, a recently released movie adaptation of his life story.Damkani is warm and intense, with a resonant baritone voice, a thick gray beard and curly hair. Compact and vigorous, he begins his days back home with a 5 am swim in the Mediterranean Sea.As a young adult, he moved from Tel Aviv to Brooklyn, New York, and lived in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community before moving to Asbury Park, New Jersey, where he ran a gift shop.“I got to be friends with Bruce Springsteen. It was before he became a big deal. He’d play at the Stone Pony, and we had a few conversations,” Damkani said in an interview from the studios of American Family Radio in Tupelo.It was while living in New Jersey that Damkani made a profound shift in his beliefs, a shift that led him from Asbury Park to Woodland Hills, California – home to a religious community called Last Days, led by popular Christian recording artist Keith Green, who died in 1982.Damkani lived in the community and studied under Green for a year in 1978, in the waning days of the Jesus Movement. A casual observer would say he became a Christian, but the keenly intelligent Damkani, never at a loss for words, whether in Hebrew or English, put a finer point on his change of heart.“Wait a minute. When we say ‘Christian’ we think of another religion,” he said. “But the idea that Jesus came to establish a new religion is far from the truth. Jesus never intended to bring a new religion, and the church has to understand that Jesus is the natural continuation of God’s promises made to Israel. Men made a new religion of it, and the Jews will not accept a new religion. That is the obstacle for the Jews. I didn’t become a Christian if that means following a new religion. If it means a follower of Messiah, then OK, I’m a Christian.”Damkani left the States and moved back to Israel in 1981, with his heart set on bringing this message to his people, and on helping others – especially Gentile believers – do the same. In 1984, he established Trumpet of Salvation to Israel. For 34 years, the group has been teaching Gentile believers how to reach Israeli Jews in a culturally sensitive and effective way.
