Controversial Street Preacher Ruben Israel Dead at 62
Controversial Street Preacher Ruben Israel Dead at 62
Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gas, Day, French Quarter
Ruben Israel, the controversial Las Angeles street preacher known for his confrontational style, impossible-to-miss signs, and inflammatory rhetoric, has passed away, according to a Facebook message from his family. He was 62 and his cause of death has not been released.
Ruben founded the organization Bible Believers in the 1980’s, ran the website Official Street Preachers, and was involved in Street & Open Air Preachers of America.
Training and developing dozens of chapters of like-minded street preachers, in many ways, he pioneered confrontational evangelism, which frequently sought to be offensive for the sake of offense.
From carrying a real pig’s head at the Dearborn Arab festival in 2012, screaming into a crowd of Muslims, “Muhammed is a child molester who raped little girls!” and asking women if they were suicide bombers, to creating graphic signs against homosexuality that involved copious references to ‘butt sex,’ AIDS, and rectums, his efforts to call people to repent and trust in the Lord frequently involved astonishing provocations, crass and racist insults, and tactics designed to enrage rather than engage.
In his wake, he created a generation of street preachers frequently unable to differentiate between being persecuted for the Lord’s sake and persecuted because they are being jerks.