CMJ & Israel
Brief History
The Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People was founded in London by Joseph Levi Frey, a Jewish follower of Jesus, in 1809. In 1815, Lewis Way began expanding the work of CMJ into other capitals of Europe. “It was obvious that [CMJ] would eventually get around to establishing a station in Jerusalem itself – the one place in the world that was most important to the Jewish people.”
Joseph Wolff, a Hebrew Christian discipled by Charles Simeon in Cambridge, set out for Jerusalem in 1822 to engage with the Jewish community. In 1824, CMJ established a medical ministry in the holy city. By 1833, John Nicolayson had settled in as the first permanent Protestant Christian worker in Jerusalem.
In 1841, Michael Solomon Alexander, another Jewish follower of Jesus, was consecrated as the first Protestant bishop of Jerusalem. He arrived in Jerusalem in January 1842. He began the work of establishing Christ Church Jerusalem, the first Protestant church in all the Middle East. He would not live to see the consecration of the church building in 1849.
CMJ Israel
CMJ Israel today operates two churches and guest houses (in Jerusalem and Jaffa), Shoresh Study Tours, the Anglican International School Jerusalem, and the Mercy Fund.
CMJ USA fulfills its mission to “encourage and support the Body of Messiah in Israel” by providing administrative and financial support to CMJ Israel and its ministries, especially
We also advocate for the CMJ Israel volunteer program, which invites people 18 years and older to serve in our guest houses and churches for six months up to two years.
CMJ's position on the Israel-Palestine Conflict
CMJ has been serving the Jewish people in the biblical land of Israel for more than 200 years. CMJ began its work in Eretz Israel before the foundation of the modern State of Israel (1948), having first encountered rule of the Ottoman Empire then the British Mandate period (1917-1948). Our workers have seen and been touched by many wars, riots and battles – from an Egypt-Ottoman conflict in 1840 over control of the Levant, the Great War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, to the riots of the 1920s and 30s, World War II and the Holocaust, the War of Independence (1948-49), the Six Day War (1967), the Yom Kippur War (1972), various intifadas, wars with Lebanon, to the October 7 Massacre (2023) and the current Israel-Hamas War.
Through it all, we have served both Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian to demonstrate the love Jesus the Messiah has for all the nations of the earth. We encourage you to read our Statement on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, drafted in 2004.
Derech Avraham (The Way of Abraham)
Just as the early CMJ advocates understood that the Scriptures speak of the Jewish people restored to their ancestral homeland, we at CMJ today see that the Prophets speak of a time of peace of brotherhood between the nations of the Middle East.
Isaiah 19:23-25 speaks of a day when there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria uniting all the Middle East – including Israel – in worship in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We know that Jesus Son of Abraham, Son of David, the Messiah of Israel, is the one who will usher in a regional peace that passes all understanding.
CMJ partners with the LORD in this vision of shalom as a member of the Derech Avraham network.