The Moonies gathering at Jerusalem's Independence Park last
week was a big flop, drawing only Christians from abroad and
a group of Arabs from Eastern Jerusalem, along with a handful
of Jews who were unaware of the dangerous nature of the
event.
The "Peace Gathering," organized by the Israeli branch of the
International Inter-Religious Association for World Peace,
was supposedly intended as "a bringing together of Jews and
other religions." A few days earlier Lev L'Achim discovered
that the group behind the event is the Moonies, which an
inter-ministerial committee in the Israeli government once
declared a dangerous cult whose heads also published
innumerable antisemitic remarks against the Jewish people.
Before the event, cult members tried to persuade both
observant and secular Jews to participate in the gathering,
but following extensive counter-propaganda and reports in
Yated Ne'eman most Jews avoided the gathering. Lev
L'Achim volunteers were on hand at Independence Park to hand
out leaflets explaining the cult's dangerous nature to people
coming to the event.
Approximately 3,000 people attended, mostly Christians from
abroad and a few hundred Arabs from Eastern Jerusalem. About
50-100 Jews could be seen in the crowd, none of whom were
observant, despite massive and costly publicity sponsored by
the cult members during the days leading up to the event.
Another big failure was the absence of all the public figures
the organizers had invited--rabbonim, heads of local
authorities and Knesset members--following a concerted
information campaign by Lev L'Achim on the threat the cult
poses.
