I was shocked and amazed by In Jerusalem's article entitled "Virtual Christianity." My belief is that the "witch-hunt" mentality expressed in this article is based on ignorance, hatred and bigotry. I should know. I used to be a Christian hater myself.

I made my "aliyah" in 1968 for two reasons: First, Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion wrote me two letters in 1964 convincing me that the Jews had no future in the Diaspora. But the second reason for my leaving the US was that it had been inculcated in me in my synagogue back in the States that all Christians hated us - so we should hate them, too.

It wasn't until 1986 that I saw an advertisement in the Jerusalem Post that was to play a pivotal role in my life. Ray and Sharon Sanders of Christian Friends of Israel placed ads looking for Israeli English speakers to correspond with "American Zionist Christians." I was by that time 37 years old and couldn't believe that Christians could be Zionists. It seemed to me an oxymoron.

My resulting pen-pal relationship with Nancy in Texas took me to her church in 1990. It was the first time in my 41 years of life that I attended a Christian church. I saw Christians, whites, blacks, Hispanics and native Americans crying tears of love and repentance for Israel. Since then, I have visited and spoken in over 300 churches and groups of all denominations. I have hugged and kissed tens of thousands of Christians who sincerely love us. Do they want us to become Christians? Yes, because they do love us, and it is part of their Christian faith. They would be delinquent if they did not "witness" to or proselytize us.

Does this make the Christians our enemy? As a Torah loyalist and mitzvah observant Jew, I think not. Judaism was a missionary religion until 135 AD, because in the book of Isaiah, God instructed us to be "witnesses" to the nations. We were to be a light unto the nations. The Christians are merely loyal to their faith, the faith in the same God of the Jews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They believe in the same Bible.

As opposed to this, there is a religion called Islam. The Koran teaches in Sura 5:51: "Believers, take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends." If it is wrong to take a Jew or Christian as a friend, then please allow me to suggest that Allah is not the God of the Jew or Christian.

As the Islamic agenda grows stronger in every country of the world, including Israel, I think it would behoove Jews to take a new look at our strategic and tactical situation. The Moslems have the money, the power, and the numbers. I believe that the nations of the world - including the US - will increasingly turn against the Jews and Israel in favor of the Islamic agenda that seeks our destruction.

The Christians so vilified in Gail Lichtman's article are not our best friends. They are our only friends.