Despite a high-profile, heavily-financed media campaign promoting the movie on social media, as well as local television commercials and billboards, there was so little interest in the Messianic film that after just a couple of weeks it was pulled from theaters.

Jacob Damkani, a well-known Messianic Jewish evangelist produced the multi-million dollar film titled “A New Spirit.” The drama tells the story of Damkani, who grew up in a poor, traditional Jewish family, but ended up the leader of a violent gang of thieves and bank robbers. After being exposed to Christianity, he devoted his life to spreading the Gospel in Israel, but met with strong opposition from the Orthodox Jewish community, which treats Damkani as a radical missionary and accuses him of stealing Jewish souls.

By all accounts, the groundbreaking attempt at a faith-based movie in Israel should have been a hit. Directed by the well-known, award-winning Israeli director Doron Eran, a movie about a Jew who believes in Jesus initially created a...

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