Daniel Landsman

Landsman's parents, Jacob and Rona, had 18 babies, only two of whom survived infancy.  Daniel was the only surviving son, and the 15th baby.  At his Bar Mitzva his parents announced who his wife would be, and shortly after he moved to his fiancee's home where he lived for the next six years.  He began studying the Talmud fulltime.

When Daniel was 19 years old, both his parents died suddenly.  He himself suffered from a life-threatening illness.  He vowed that if God would heal him, he would travel to Palestine.  He did recover, and to keep his vow embarked on a voyage.  No one expected him to survive and indeed, he came close to death while still in Europe. When it came time to get on a ship, the captain refused to take him, saying he was too sick to travel. Daniel paid a local Jewish man to ship him in a wooden crate, and in this manner he arrived at Constantinople 28 hours later.  He arrived in Israel in September 1858 and eventually regained his strength.  When he was able, he brought to Israel his wife and only sister.

It was at about this time that he found a page of the Sermon on the Mount on the street, in Hebrew. 

Paul Stern visited him in the tailor shop.  But when he tried to talk to Daniel about Jesus, Daniel struck him in anger.  But Paul Stern was not swayed, and returned to the shop.  He began studying the New Testament with Daniel.  Daniel said many years later,

When I began searching the Bible in Jerusalem, the Rabbis strictly forbade me and named me an apostate, and when I ignored their threats they took everything I had from me: my wife and children. They even wrote forged checks in order to force me to stop reading the Bible.

In those days, the London Society had a home for enquirers where people like him could seek help and shelter.  He stayed there for three weeks, but during that time there was a diphtheria epidemic and three of his children died.  His grieving wife divorced him, unable to receive the consolation of the Gospel.

Daniel confessed to faith in Messiah in 1863 and was baptised.  Here began a time of severe persecution. He was beaten, one group of attackers pierced his hands with spikes, another tried to bury him alive.  He fled to Cairo, but was driven away from there also. 

Daniel became a missionary to the Jewish people in Constantinople.  He was used of God to bring the Gospel to many Jewish people, and many were saved.  He led Bible Studies and started a congregation for Jewish believers.  He also remarried, to a Dutch deaconness, and a son was born to him in 1880.  In 1881 he was called to serve in the USA, and he accepted. He moved to New York, where many came to faith through his ministry.

He died May 13, 1896, and was succeeded by a former rabbi, Nathaniel Friedman, who had been sent from Russia by the Jewish community to stop Daniel Landsman - and was brought by him to faith! Friedman served until 1941.

Sources

Bernstein, A. Jewish Witnesses for Christ (1909). Keren Ahvah Meschichit, new edition, 1999
Report on the First Lutheran Conference on Mission Among Israel, Chicago, May 1901


 

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