Avi Snyder

Avi Snyder grew up in a traditional Jewish home in New York and New Jersey. In his early twenties, he defined himself as a Jewish atheist. But in 1975, a tract from Jews for Jesus challenged him to consider Yeshua’s messianic claims. Thanks to that tract and the faithful witness of Christian friends, Avi gave his heart to the Lord in March 1977. He graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Missions with a master’s degree in missiology. Avi married Ruth in late 1977, and in 1978, they joined the staff of Jews for Jesus. Throughout the 1980s, Avi led the work in Los Angeles. During that time, he won a landmark case in the United States Supreme Court against Los Angeles International Airport. The airport had sought to prohibit his right to distribute free religious literature on the terminal’s grounds, which was designated as public property. In the late 1980s, Ruth and Avi caught a vision for reaching the Jewish people in the unravelling USSR. A probe team excursion in 1990 led to them moving to Odessa, Ukraine, a year later. Today, indigenous Jews for Jesus teams share the good news in cities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.  Avi and Ruth came out of Russia in 1998 in order to oversee leadership transitions, first in New York and then in London. But all the while, Avi’s sights were fixed on Germany because of the growing influx of Jewish people who were emigrating from the collapsed USSR. Today, a team of Jews for Jesus now brings the gospel to the Jewish population of Berlin. In addition to German-born Jews and Jewish people from the former USSR, some 20,000 Israeli expatriates who now call Berlin their home.  Outside of the former USSR, the largest indigenous Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe resides in Hungary—nearly 100,000 people, most of them living in Budapest. In 2011, Avi and Ruth moved to Budapest to establish another Jews for Jesus outreach. Ten years later, Hungarian-born Jews for Jesus conduct a thriving ministry, especially among Jewish intellectuals and Holocaust survivors.  Avi is the author of a number of articles and tracts, as well as the book, Jews Don’t Need Jesus—and Other Misconceptions. He and Ruth currently live in the States, where Avi serves as the Jews for Jesus European ambassador. They have three grown children: Leah, Joel, and Elizabeth.