Bob Mendelsohn served as the director of Jews for Jesus in Australia and New Zealand for 25 years. He now spends half the year in Nashville and half in Sydney. He grew up as an Orthodox Jew in Kansas City, became a university drop out, and looked for the meaning of life in the counterculture of the 1960s. He found meaning and relevance in Jesus, which caused him much trouble in his local community, but he says, “It was worth the cost.” Bob pastored a church he planted, then taught high school mathematics before he began working with Jews for Jesus in 1979.

In his Jews for Jesus career (45 years) he has served as the leader of our ministry work in Washington, DC and New York City before moving to found our work in Sydney in 1998. Bob and his wife, Patty, both graduated from the University of Kansas and Fuller Seminary. They have three adult children and seven grandchildren.
Read Bob’s story here.

Rebekah Bronn grew up in a Messianic Jewish home in New Zealand. Her Father is Jewish and came to faith in Jesus when he was eighteen, along with his parents and brother. Rebekah is grateful to have grown up in a family where being Jewish and believing in Jesus was seen as normal and she placed her faith in Jesus at a young age. Some of her favorite childhood memories are celebrating Shabbat and Passover with her family.

In recent years, Rebekah has spent time traveling and living and working in London, which is where her Father is originally from. She has also spent time in Israel and volunteered with a Messianic Jewish organization in New Zealand that reaches out to Israeli travelers. It was while she was working with this organization, that she began to feel called into Jewish ministry. In July 2019 she began a one year internship with Jews for Jesus in Sydney and upon completion, joined staff.

Rebekah loves working among the Jewish community in Sydney and is excited to see the new things God is doing in her life and the lives of the Jewish people she meets.