Emmanuel was born in Tehran, Iran, and he likes to tell people he is a descendant of Queen Esther … but he can’t back that up. What he can back up is that he is a 5th-generation Jewish believer in Jesus. Emmanuel’s family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child to escape the Islamic revolution.

While Emmanuel grew up in a family that followed Jesus, at the age of 17, he began to seek to know God for himself. His two-year search affirmed his faith in Jesus and the Bible, and it became clear to him how important it is to share God’s love and good news about the Messiah Jesus with his Jewish people. Read more about Emmanuel’s life story.

Emmanuel studied fine art/animation/film and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, and their three kids. He leads our Online Evangelism Team. Innovating online evangelism techniques on jewsforjesus.org since 2007, he says, “Our goal is to harness the anonymous nature of the web to allow Jewish people online to explore the depth of Jesus’ love and get personally connected directly with a missionary!” Read about how to take part in this flourishing online ministry.

Rob Wertheim is a senior missionary serving with the Online Evangelism Team of Jews for Jesus. He was raised in a Conservative Jewish home in New York, the son of Holocaust survivors from Germany. While visiting his brother, Steve, in Los Angeles, he found out that Steve had come to faith in Jesus. During this time, Jews for Jesus was having a Messianic Passover Seder, which Rob attended with his brother. It was here that he heard messianic prophecies for the first time. Months later, Rob committed his life to the Lord. Rob is married to a Jewish believer, Sandy, and they have three adult children: Saul, Rose, and Josh.

He has been on staff since 1988 and meets with Jewish people seeking to know about Jesus or wanting to learn and grow in their faith. Rob participates on our website LiveChat platform, where he meets Jewish seekers as well as believers. In addition, he attends local Jewish classes, where he meets Jewish people hoping to bring a messianic testimony as opportunities arise.

Jennifer Razzouk was raised in a Jewish-Gentile home, and everyone in her family was a believer in Yeshua. Her mother took her to church when she was young, and that’s when Jennifer heard the gospel and became a believer in Jesus. She learned about her Jewish identity as a child similar to the way her mother and uncle learned about it: “We are Jewish, but we don’t talk about it.” Later in life, when she had married and had children, she sent her daughters to attend Jews for Jesus’ Camp Gilgal. Jennifer and her little “tribe” greatly benefited from this ministry and from the community of Jewish believers in Jesus. She says, “For us, we had found our people; a place we all knew we fit.”

Jennifer serves with Jews for Jesus as a missionary trainee on our Online Evangelism Team. She lives in Northern California. She is a master’s student in Christian apologetics at Talbot Seminary, but her studies are currently on pause while she completes her missionary training.

In her position, she enjoys starting relationships online with Jewish people who come to the Jews for Jesus chatroom with questions and out of curiosity. Often these conversations can move into meeting with these visitors via Zoom, Facetime, text, email, or if they live close by, meeting in person to study the Scriptures together.