Conversion of a Young Jewish Rabbi

I was born in an orthodox Jewish family. When I was but four years of age, my parents took me to England and put me in charge of the late Rabbi Horowitz of London to fully teach me the basis of rabbinical life. At the age of seventeen years I completed my course of instruction as a fully legalized rabbi, but was too young to take the responsibilities of a district or synagogue. At that time I returned to the United States and soon drifted into socialism and became a socialist orator, traveling from city to city and state to state, until I left the first principles of my rabbinical teaching.

While traveling through Canada I became acquainted with an anarchist and partly accepted his belief. I strayed so far away from my early teaching that from time to time while speaking, I would hold up my Hebrew Bible and tear it to pieces, cursing God and denying that there was a God. I really became so hardened that I almost believed in my heart that there was no God. On the twenty-sixth day of October, 1907, I came to Chicago, and while I was speaking that night on the platform, holding the Hebrew Bible, tearing it, and ready to curse God, there came a sudden strong voice, as it were, and, to my surprise, repeated to me the following words: “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”* (Zechariah 12:10)

While I listened to this, I thought that someone was behind the platform speaking these words. I looked behind the platform, but could find no one. When I resumed my speech, the voice came again speaking the same verse, and I became almost paralyzed for a while. After the meeting was over, as I walked toward my apartments, I heard the voice for the third time, speaking to me in stronger terms than ever. The miserable feelings came stronger and stronger. In fact, I began to look for peace to my conscience, but did not know how to find it. In this trouble of soul, no one among all the orators, Jewish rabbis, or religious people of different denominations came up to tell me how to do better nor to give me advice.

I left Chicago for New York, but could not find rest. The words of that voice never left me day or night. One night, while walking the streets of New York looking for something to comfort me, I saw a sign reading, “Men Wanted for the United States Army.” At nine o’clock the next morning I went to the recruiting station and asked for an application form. The man at the station thought it strange that a Jew would come to enlist, but he gave me an application form. I filled it out and was examined and sent to Ft. Slocum, New York, where I was sworn in for three years’ faithful service for the United States Army. After I enlisted I began to look for peace; but the more I looked, the worse and more trouble came to me. In fact, persecutions from different soldiers were very bitter because I was a Jew and did not do what they were doing.

While in Ft. Slocum I contracted fever and was taken to a hospital. From Ft. Slocum I was sent to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, where I was assigned to Battery B, First Field Artillery. There was only one Jewish man besides me amongst over three hundred Roman Catholics, and they believed in making things hot for us, so the more I looked for peace the worse misery and persecutions I found.

On Decoration Day, 1908, they were playing football, and after the game they went into the kitchen, procured large butcher knives, and came out to cut the “sheenies” up. When we saw them coming with the knives, we ran into the tailor shop and locked ourselves in, hiding underneath mattresses between the covers. They broke the door, but through Providence they could not find us. Then for the first time since I had embraced socialism I began to think there was a God, since our lives were so spared.

On the sixth of June we went bathing in the Red River on the reservation, and the boys came and turned us head down and feet up in the water and wanted to drown us, but it seemed that through Providence I was once more saved from being destroyed by these blood-thirsty men. Upon our return, we found the tailor shop flooded. This was reported to the commander, but no action was taken in regard to this or any other case of persecution.

We decided to desert the army after payday. When payday came, I had coming to me about $200 from the tailorshop and $13 as pay for the month from the army, but out of the $200 I collected only about $70. That afternoon we walked to Lawton, Oklahoma, to get the train from there to St. Louis. Upon our arrival at St. Louis, the other man got a job, and I wrote to my uncle in Chicago, who sent me a ticket to come to Chicago. When I arrived there, he advised me to go to Canada and said that he would support me all the time that I was there, as they would apprehend me in the United States for a deserter.

I went to Canada, but was still in much distress. Sometime later I had a desire to leave Vancouver, British Columbia, and go over the border into the State of Washington, but went under the assumed name of Friedman. While under that name I looked for a position, but could not find one; so I cabled to my parents for money and two weeks afterward I received enough money to open up a little store. I took for my next name Feldman. I opened a bookstore, but within three months I lost almost $3,000. Then I left Seattle, Washington, for Tacoma under the name Gray.

Three weeks later I left Tacoma for Portland, Oregon, under the name of Grayson, where I looked up a friend of mine. He was at that time manager of the Oregon Hotel. The next morning I was more miserable than ever before and thought that I was sick. The night preceding I related to my friend all my troubles, with the exception of my being a deserter from the army.

While I was looking for a charity physician who could give me something to relieve my distress and trouble, I found a Salvation Army man and asked him if he knew of any physician who worked for charity and would give me treatment. He told me that he had a friend who was a physician and who was a lover of Jewish people. This was the first time that I ever heard that a Christian loved a Jew.

I went to the office of the doctor, whose name was Estock, and he gave me a cordial welcome. Putting his right hand on my right wrist and his left hand around my neck, he said that he loved the Jews because his Savior was a Jew and that he was glad God had sent me to his office in answer to his prayers. I was dumbfounded and unable to answer. The doctor said, “You do not need a physician for your body, but you need the Lord Jesus to heal your soul, for your trouble is with your soul, and the Lord Jesus is able to save you from your distress and troubles.” He gave me a little bottle and said, “Here is a little medicine, but you do not need it. The only thing that will help you is prayer, and I will phone to my wife and ask her to pray for you, and I will also pray for you. This will be the only way you will get peace.”

The next morning as I was offering my thanks to him he said, “Do not thank me, but thank God that He sent His only begotten Son, that through Him such poor unworthy people as we should be saved through His love.”

“What can this mean?” I answered. “Is there a God that will love such a man as I am? A man who curses Him? A man that stamped His Bible under his feet and fought against Him? Is it true that He will love me so?”

The doctor answered, “He died for such men as you, that He might save you.” He further said, “My house belongs to the Lord, and I owe everything to Him. The God of Abraham and Isaac is my God, and the God of David and also the Prophets. He is my God, and He is your God, whether you want Him or not; and I beg you to come with me to my house.”

“It is impossible for me to go into your house,” I answered, “because I do not believe that there is a God, and if there is one, I am unworthy to go into such a house.”

He continued to plead with me, and so I went with him. I lived at the doctor’s house for thirty days. We had the strongest arguments on Scriptures, he trying to prove to me that Jesus is the Messiah that came to save His people from sin. I contradicted every word of his with the Old Testament Scriptures.

On the thirtieth day in the doctor’s house I was more vile than ever before. I got up in the morning looking for the first chance to get even with the doctor because of his persistence in mentioning the Lord Jesus on every occasion. When I came downstairs, they were ready for breakfast. I sat at the table brewing within myself, full of hatred, malice, and bitterness against them because of their holding up to me the Lord Jesus as my only Savior. While at the table I could not withhold my bitterness, and when they read the Scriptures after the meal, I began to laugh, mock, and curse, calling them all kinds of vile names.

While I was doing this they went down on their knees to pray as they did every morning. Looking up to me, the doctor said, “My friend, if you will not respect God nor respect me as your only and personal friend in the city, for the Lord’s sake respect this house, for this house is consecrated unto God.”

These words sank deep into my heart, and I kneeled down still with bitterness in my heart against Jesus and the doctor. While I was down on my knees, I was cursing, mocking at them and their Lord. The doctor prayed first, then his wife, and then his little boy, who said, “Lord Jesus, You have promised to save him; won’t You save him?”

These words broke my heart, and I began crying, “If there is a God, come and prove Yourself.” The carpet around me was wet with the tears which I had shed in crying for God to come and prove Himself. I felt within myself a love for the Lord Jesus and soon had a living faith that the Lord Jesus died for me and that through His death I was saved. After I rose from my knees, the doctor, his wife, and the little boy stood with eyes full of tears, rejoicing with me that there was power in the blood of Jesus Christ to save such a vile sinner as I was.

One hour later I left the house of the doctor to tell my friend, the manager of the hotel, that the Lord Jesus was now my Savior and that he had saved me from my sins. He took a heavy chunk of wood and hit me on my right side, nearly breaking my ribs.

I said, “May God forgive you for this and not hold it against you,” while the tears were streaming down my face. This is the first time in my life that I ever said to anyone, “May God bless you!” Then I said to him, “If it were only yesterday that you had done this to me, I would have killed you; but now the Lord Jesus has taken anger out of my heart, and I will endeavor to pray for you that God may have mercy upon you.” Walking out of his hotel crippled as I was and holding my side with my hand, I said again, “God bless you!”

While walking down the street, I saw a company of mission workers on the corner of Jefferson and Washington Avenues. I pushed myself through the crowd, seeing that there were some Jews there, and I began to preach to my own people for the first time that the only way of salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ. In answer, there came rotten eggs and rotten tomatoes at my head and body until I was covered from head to foot.

After the meeting I walked on singing a song and rejoicing that the Lord Jesus had seen fit to save such a poor sinner as I was. Thus ended my first day as a convert. I thank God for the first pay I ever received in the gospel—a crippled side and rotten eggs. I continued to preach the gospel to my people in Portland for several days.

Three days after my conversion, while I was on my knees praying, it occurred to me that I had better write to my relatives and tell them what love the Lord Jesus had for me, and that He had died to save them as well as me, and that He was the only true Messiah. I reasoned for several days against this; but at last I had to write, because I saw that the Lord was on one side, and my relatives on the other side, and that I had to choose between them. So I wrote to them, sending to each a separate letter telling them that Jesus was my Savior and that He is the only and true Messiah.

Sometime after this, answer came from my relatives that they could not believe that there was any power to save me, because, if I could leave my first principles and leave my own people, the teaching which I was brought up under and drift so far away as to curse God, they did not believe there was any power to save me. I kept sending them Testaments and Gospels, but still they could not believe.

One day I went to see my sister and told her the truth. She at first did not believe me, but I asked her to attend a street meeting which I was to hold, and she heard me preach Christ. She then wrote to my mother, who began to grieve herself to death because I had accepted the Lord Jesus for my Savior. Then they wrote me different letters and were patient with me, thinking that they would win me back to Judaism. When they saw there was no hope of getting me back, they were done with me.

On one occasion while standing in the street and preaching, there came a thought to me with great force, “If the authorities get you for a deserter, what will you do?” This question troubled me so that I could not continue my meetings. I went to the doctor’s office and said to him, “Dr. Estock, do you know what they do to a person that has deserted the United States Army?”

“They give him three or four years in the military penitentiary,” he answered.

“Do you know that I am a deserter from the United States Army?”

He looked at me puzzled and said, “How can this be?”

“It is true, and I must give myself up to the army authorities before they get me and disgrace my belief in the Lord Jesus.”

I proposed giving myself up the next day, but the doctor told me to be in no haste and said he would ask several people of God to pray for me to learn what the mind of God was before I took another step. After a few days they came to the conclusion that they would send me to Canada, where I should be out of the jurisdiction of the United States and should be free. Thinking that this offer was of the Lord, I accepted it and left for Toronto, Canada. Upon my arrival at Toronto I felt the Lord speaking to me and saying, “The more you run away from my law, the more miserable you will feel. Go back to the United States.”

This was while I was in the hotel at night and I could not sleep. I felt very miserable to know that the step I had taken in coming to Toronto was not God’s will and in His order. I had only $3.10 in my possession. In the morning I went to the ticket office to inquire how much it cost to go to Buffalo. They told me it would cost $3.10. I then purchased a ticket for Buffalo. When I arrived I telegraphed to the doctor, stating that I was glad that I had come back to the United States to give myself up to the army authorities. The doctor replied by telegraph, stating that I was out of God’s will and order in coming back to the United States to give myself up, and that therefore he could not have fellowship with me any more. Bitterly weeping over the message, I said to myself, “Now the only friend I have is gone.” But this promise encouraged me, that my God would never turn against me nor forsake me. There I was, left without a friend and without money in my pockets to procure a night’s lodging.

As it was bitterly cold, I prayed to the Lord that He would send somebody along that would take me home with him. As I was praying, a man passed by, and I asked him if he knew whether there was any child of God in the city. He said a woman who was his neighbor was a child of God, and he took me to her home. It was true that she was a child of God and her home a godly one.

Soon after this I went to Pittsburg, and the Lord opened up the hearts of a few Jewish people, who sent me to Washington. As I walked up to the barracks, fear came over me, and I decided to go to Baltimore, where I remained with a Jewish missionary until the last of April. Then I returned to Washington, went to the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Langfitt, and told him why I was giving myself up.

He said, “Are you a Jew and a believer in Jesus? Are you willing to give yourself up for His sake? Do you know what it means to give yourself up? It means three or four years in the penitentiary, and to be dishonorably discharged.”

I told him that I would gladly do anything to make this matter right before man and before God.

“I am also a Jew,” he replied, “and I do not know how you can believe in Jesus and suffer these things for His sake.”

Then he doubted my being a deserter. I begged him to put me in the guardhouse and to go and investigate the matter.

He said, “I wish that I had the power to set you free now; but you are too honorable a man to call the guard to take you to the guardhouse, and so I will walk there with you myself.”

Upon coming to the guardhouse, he called the sergeant of the guard and said, “Sergeant, do not search this boy, for I know that he will not take in anything but that which is lawful.”

He then asked me whether I wanted to stay in the big cell with the rest of the prisoners or go into one small cell by myself. I asked him for one by myself so that I might study the Bible.

When he was bidding me goodbye, he said, “For the first time I shake a prisoner’s hand, and I must say that I do not look upon you as a prisoner but as the most honorable man that we have in this post, and I must confess that you have done a most honorable thing in the sight of man and God, and I will help you with all that lies within my power to make everything easy for you.”

The next morning the lieutenant-colonel came into the guard-house asking for me. When I came near the door, he reached out his hand and grasped mine, saying, “Neither my wife nor I have slept during the night, and I have decided to recommend you for a year’s clemency, so that you will have only two years to serve.”

It did not sound very good to me, but I went into the guardhouse and prayed. The thought came to me, “Can you not trust the Lord to carry you through all these difficulties?” I said to myself, “Yes, I leave all in the hands of the Lord.”

After a few weeks the court was detailed. The president of the court was Captain Joester, who, I was informed, was an infidel. The next man of his court, Captain Ottwell, was a Christian Scientist, and the rest of the court, including eleven officers, were Roman Catholics. They detailed Lieutenant Rockwell to be my counsel for defense.

He came up to the courthouse and said, “You are a Jew, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe in Jesus Christ, do you not?”

“Yes.”

“I have no use for Jews, especially for a turncoat, and I will see that you get the limit of the court.”

This broke me all up, and I said, “Lieutenant, if you can, God will let you go ahead.”

I then walked into my cell and knelt down to pray, broken-hearted. The scripture came to me, “Ye shall not fear them: for the Lord your God he shall fight for you.”* (Deuteronomy 3:22) I rejoiced to know that the Lord was fighting my battles and that He would do it well. Thirteen days afterwards I was tried.

When I came to the court, the lieutenant came to me with a piece of paper in his hand and said, “I am sorry for the words which I spoke to you, but I have suffered for them, and with God’s help I will recommend you to clemency. The same Lord that saved you has also saved me.”

The judge of the court asked me what I would plead to the charge.

“I plead guilty to the charge of desertion and violation of the forty-seventh article of war.”

He asked me again if I knew what it meant to plead guilty. I answered that I knew.

He then asked me what my plea on the specification of the forty-seventh article of war was.

“Guilty,” I answered.

He said to the court, “I want to make plain to this boy the solemnity of these charges, that he may know the consequences thereof.” He then asked me if I had any pleas to make.

I told him no, and repeated the scripture that the Lord had given me: “Ye shall not fear them: for the Lord your God he shall fight for you.”* (Deuteronomy 3:22) I said, “I fear you not, for my Lord will fight for me and will deliver me.”

Then the counsel for the defense arose and made this statement:

“Fellow officers, you all know what a bitter man I was against the Jews. You know that I was not going to make any plea, but to let this boy get all that the court could give him, and be sorry afterwards that the court could not give him more. But the same God that he serves troubled me and made me sick, as you know, until I realized that the same God must be my God and the same Savior my Savior; and furthermore, the same Jesus that saved this Jewish boy has saved me also.”

The court was greatly surprised, but my counsel went on further and handed the court a paper and explained verbally the different reasons for his pleas until tears came to the eyes of Captain Koester, Captain Ottwell, and the different members of the court. Four of the worst officers arose and recommended me for eighteen months’ clemency and thirteen dollars a month fine and reinstatement to duty.

The recommendation of the court was sent to the Department Commander of the East, Major-General Leonard A. Woods, who earnestly considered the case, according to his statement, for several hours, not knowing what to do. He also expressed himself by saying that if he had full power to release me, he would gladly do so, without any punishment. Also, through prayer and petitions to the Lord the case reached President Taft, the Adjutant-General of the army, and then it reached Brigadier-General Davis, who was the Judge-Advocate General of the United States Army. They also had notified the Department Commander to be as lenient as he could before the case had reached the War Department in Washington.

In fifteen days after my trial, the sentence came back approved by the Department Commander for eighteen months’ clemency and thirteen dollars’ fine a month and reinstatement to duty to serve out my enlistment.

While I was in the guardhouse in Washington Barracks, District of Columbia, serving the sentence imposed upon me for the charge heretofore mentioned, I was sawing wood one day, when a fellow prisoner hit me with a piece of wood behind my ear and knocked me down. About two months later this prisoner was saved, and the other prisoners became bitter against me, for they believed that I was the cause of the conversion of one of the worst men in the guardhouse. I learned later that a number of the officers were converted.

After I left the Washington Barracks, I went to Ft. Slocum, New York. From there I was sent to Ft. Sheridan, where I was assigned to Battery F, Fifth Field Artillery. After I had been there two days, I asked permission of Lieutenant Osborn to hold religious services in front of the battery. On account of its being so cold, he told me to go into the pool room and hold services if I thought my God was living.

I went into the pool room, where they were playing pool, and began to preach the gospel. Two balls were thrown at me, and I was also hit across the back with the thick end of a cue. They took me to the hospital and after a short time came back and said that the Jew would not preach Jesus Christ any more. After another week I felt impressed to preach the gospel again. While I was preaching, the cook came out of the kitchen with a pail of hot lard and threw it on me. I was burned on both of my hands and arms.

While I was at the hospital, black poison set in, and the doctor said my arm must be cut off. I told him that I would not submit to any operation; that as I suffered this for the gospel’s sake, the Lord would heal my arm. Five weeks later he looked at my arm, as the poison was getting worse in my system, and he said, “If I do not cut off this arm, you are going to die from the effects of blood-poisoning.” I said that I still had faith in God that He would heal this arm for His glory.

“What church do you belong to?” he inquired.

“I belong to the church of God,” I answered.

“Your arm cannot heal,” he replied and began to laugh.

Several days afterward the poison had come up to my shoulder. When the doctor saw it, he said, “The only thing to do is to cut your arm off at the shoulder.”

I told him that I had more faith than ever in God that He would heal my arm, even after my whole body should be poisoned. I believed that the Lord would heal me for His glory.

That night my fever was 104, and the doctor was called. He gave orders to put me into a bathtub full of ice-water, but after I came out I was much worse, and they said I could not live through the night. At five o’clock the next morning a sudden change came and my arm turned a yellowish color and the discharge ceased little by little. When the doctor came, he said, “I had thought that the arm must be cut off, but now it will get well.” In two weeks I was able to use my arm as well as ever and was again assigned to duty.

After coming out of the hospital I preached much more “the unsearchable riches of Christ,”* (Ephesians 3:8) for which at different times I was cast into prison. The post-commander of Ft. Sheridan told me that I might just as well use the gymnasium hall to preach the gospel six nights in the week. While I preached there, a number of souls were brought to the Lord.

While I was at Ft. Sheridan, a letter came to me from my mother stating that if I wanted to save her life I should turn back to Judaism and forsake the impostor Jesus, and that if I would do this they would receive me back again with full honor, as I was defiled before them and the only means to save her life was for me to turn back from this heathen belief. I wrote her as follows:

My Dear Mother:

I have received your letter and thank you very much for it. I do really love you, but my love for you now is much different than before. I love you because the Lord Jesus loved you and died for you. Yet if my accepting Jesus will not and cannot save you from dying, then my rejecting Him will not save you either, and I cannot forsake the Lord Jesus.

About two months later I received a cable message saying that the last words of my mother were, “My only son is the cause of my death.” After that period they made a burial service, took all my little belongings, put them in a casket and buried it, and put a stone on the grave, signifying that I died on October 29, 1908. After this they mourned for me for eight days. Now though I am supposed to be dead to my family and to my nation, yet I am glad that I am alive for Christ and still preaching the unsearchable riches of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to my own people as well as to the other nations. The Lord has enabled me to preach free of charge to any and everyone and to give unto them freely even as I have freely received. This scripture has been very real to me since that time: “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”* (Romans 8:28)

In 1912 my father died, leaving me of his large estate five dollars to buy a rope and soap to hang myself if I did not come back to Judaism.

The foregoing account of my conversion has been written after nearly seven years of experience and preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ to my own people as well as to Gentile people in this country, in the Islands of the Azores, in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and Austria.

The most bitter people against the gospel I have found are my own people. The gospel has been misrepresented to them, and they have not been made to realize the heart experience. There are over 12,000,000 Jewish people in this world, yet there are very few faithful and tried missionaries amongst them to explain to them the way of salvation. However, the comparatively little work that has been done amongst them has met with large results despite the bitter persecution. I am deeply encouraged and comforted to see how open and receptive they are, although they bitterly persecute the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Saul of Tarsus was a great persecutor of Christianity, but finally yielded and became a true follower of Jesus Christ.

May God help us as Christians to see our great privilege in giving the Jews the gospel and praying for them that their blindness may depart and that they may see that the Lord Jesus is the only way, the truth, and the light.