Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky

The Anti-Defamation League “expressed disappointment” that former president George W. Bush plans to go ahead with a planned address to a Texas evangelical group at a fundraising event.

Bush is scheduled to speak on November 14 at a fundraiser for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute.

“President Bush is a friend who has an abiding love and respect for Israel and the Jewish people,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a statement. “I know that he does not represent or embrace the purpose or the mission of this group, and therefore I wish he would not speak there.”

The group is devoted to “bring[ing] Jewish people into a personal relationship of faith with Yeshua the Messiah,” the Institute’s website says; in other words, to convert Jews to Christianity. The MJBI’s website uses copious Hebrew terms and quotes from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

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