The Universal House of Justice has received your email message dated 29 June
1995 and we have been asked to respond.
You have asked how the policy of not teaching Israelis applies in the
situation in which you have contact with an Israeli via an "interactive relay
chat" (IRC) connection. The House of Justice has not asked the friends to avoid
contact with Israelis. When you discover that a person you are in contact with
via IRC is an Israeli, you should feel free to maintain friendly contact, but
you should not teach the Faith to him. If he has already developed a personal
interest in the Faith and seeks more information, you should refer him to the
Offices of the Bahá'í World Centre in Haifa.
For your information, the people in Israel have access to factual
information about the Faith, its history and general principles. Books
concerning the Faith are available in libraries throughout Israel, and Israelis
are welcome to visit the Shrines and the surrounding gardens. However, in
keeping with a policy that has been strictly followed since the days of
Bahá'u'lláh, Bahá'ís do not teach the Faith in Israel. Likewise, the Faith is
not taught to Israelis abroad if they intend to return to Israel. When Israelis
ask about the Faith, their questions are answered, but this is done in a manner
which provides factual information without stimulating further interest.
With loving Bahá'í greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
A 2010 document from the U.S. Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report: Israel and the Occupied Territories, includes the following:
Proselytizing is legal in the country and missionaries of all religious groups are allowed to proselytize all citizens; however, a 1977 law prohibits any person from offering material benefits as an inducement to conversion. It was also illegal to convert persons under 18 years of age unless one parent were an adherent of the religious group seeking to convert the minor. Despite the legality of proselytism, the government has taken a number of steps that encouraged the perception that proselytizing is against government policy. For example, the MOI has detained individuals suspected of being “missionaries,” and required of such persons bail and a pledge to abstain from missionary activity, in addition to refusing them entry into the country. It maintained denunciations of such activity from antimissionary groups like Yad L'Achim in its border control databases. The MOI has also cited proselytism as a reason to deny student, work, and religious visa extensions, as well as to deny permanent residency petitions. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) promised the Knesset in 1986 to refrain from all proselytism voluntarily in conjunction with receiving a building permit for its Jerusalem Center following protests from the Orthodox community.
See more at state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/2010/148825.htm.
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