"Do you know that there is a Mahzir B'tshuva on the loose?" says the director.

She says that downtown, on our turf apparently, there is someone who is assisting  homeless youth, of and encouraging them to engage in religious activities. 

She seems to take it as a given that we won't like that. And maybe, once upon a time, I would have also seen it as a cause for alarm.

"Actually," I tell her, "some people find that religion is the very thing that offers them a sense of support, enabling them to pick up their lives again. In America, for example, many people in jail and on drugs, point to Jesus' love as the critical ingredient that helped them pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get on their feet."

Not that I am such an enthusiast for Christianity either; but I hope the reference to America, the gold standard, will  get the point accross. 

Only partial success. "Well, SURE, but it all depends on how you relate to it... it all depends on whether you look to god as

It's pretty clear to me she isn't talking to me, or even about our clients- she's talking out of her space within the Israeli secular religious dichotomy. K'lomar, talking out of her ass.

And at least some of our clientele, as street-living as they are, and as little as they observe, are religious. I think of  Sarit carrying around her tehillim. Or Yoni joining a minyan. For all I know this Jewish missionary is offering these youth something they crave- and we in are non-sectarian non-judgementalness can not offer. If he is straightforward and honest, supportive, and non-coercive (admittedly big ifs) he has my vote of support.

I really can't imagine such an attitude in America in which homeless outreach etc is almost synonymous with religion. In Israel it seems it is almost synonymous with secular.