You can never find a Jew for Jesus when you need one. Or so I was beginning to think when I went out in search of one yesterday.

I wasn't looking for an argument. But in light of the current "Behold Your God" campaign -- even the title grates on me -- targeting Pittsburgh Jews for conversion, I just wanted to confirm for myself that at least some of the group that has alighted here actually did come from Jewish backgrounds and were not posing as such to pad their numbers.

If that seems a bit suspicious and mistrustful, well, what's your point?

First, I looked along Forbes and Murray avenues in Squirrel Hill, where I'd heard some proselytizers had been stationed, but my timing was off. Next, I checked in the vicinity of Grant Street, where my husband had encountered a group on Monday.

"They're out in force," he'd told me on the phone. "I'm afraid one of these lawyers might punch their lights out."

But when I checked yesterday none was there, upright or flattened, so I moved on to Market Square. There I eventually found a pleasant, blond-haired woman wearing a blue T-shirt with Hebrew lettering. She was attempting to pass out leaflets that no one seemed to want. I took one and asked if she was a Jew for Jesus.

"No," she said, looking somewhat apologetic. "I'm actually a Christian."

No kidding, I thought. So why was she trying to convert Jews in particular?

She replied: "Because I love the Jewish people."

She seemed so sincere, I didn't have the heart to tell her how patronizing that was, and that we are not stray puppies one can "love" like a volunteer at the animal shelter.

I asked if there were any actual Jewish Jews for Jesus in the vicinity, and she pointed me to a fellow around the corner. I introduced myself and gave him a little test to see if he was trying to pass, then realized I should've picked a less obvious prayer -- this one he could have learned from that rabbi/priest movie with Ben Stiller and Ed Norton.

In any case, he chanted the prayer quite convincingly.

Then he began to list his credentials -- not in terms of education, congregation or organizational activities, but as a target of anti-Semitic incidents: When he was a kid, other kids played mean tricks on him. At camp, they painted a swastika on his bunk. His grandfather in Russia had to hide from the Cossacks (Whose Russian grandfather didn't, except for the descendants of Cossacks?) and so forth.

He told me that most Jews didn't know very much about Judaism, hadn't read their own Bible, and therefore didn't realize what he and other so-called messianic Jews did, which is that Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to redeem the Jewish people.

I could have argued with him, but doing so with true believers is pointless. No responses to these assertions would've budged him an inch, and vice versa.

Jews for Jesus think they've found eternal salvation, that it would be wrong of them not to help "save" other Jews by showing us the error of our "incomplete" lives, and there is no dissuading them from that conviction.

Many of us other Jews, meanwhile, believe these folks have drunk the Kool-Aid of self-delusion, that they should call themselves what they really are, which is converts to Christianity. Quit trying to have it both ways and leave the rest of us the heck alone.

There aren't that many of us in the world, after all. It's not as if we're going to rise up and force everyone to become brilliant scientists, neurotic comedians or worried cooks who fear that 10 pounds of brisket might not be enough to feed four people.

The fellow on the street said he'd came from an Orthodox Jewish background. I asked what his family thought of all this, and he allowed that his father has spent the last 40 years founding messianic congregations all over the place -- an interesting definition of "Orthodox," but at least they're not fighting over the dinner table.

"So," he asked me, "who do you think Jesus was?"

"I have no idea," I said. "It's not an issue for me."

We looked at each other and realized there was no place else to go. I thanked him for his time and told him and his companion -- another Christian for Jesus who, God help us, loves the Jewish people -- that I hoped folks would be nice to them or at least not punch out their lights, and headed back to the office, mulling over the exchange.

Learned scholars, philosophers and theologians have expounded on the subject of who is a Jew, whether the answer lies in lineage, what one studies and believes, how one worships and lives, or some combination.

Some among us, especially the oldest who have seen the most, tend to have persecution as part of the litmus test, and that certainly seems to have applied to the fellow I met on the street, even though he was much younger.

Personally, I wouldn't even try to encapsulate all of what being Jewish is. But I sure know what it's not, and preaching the Gospel would be right up there on the top of the list.

My interviewee said a man he tried to talk to crumpled up the pamphlet and threw it in his face. He wondered what the guy was afraid of. I would venture that he wasn't afraid at all but rather insulted by the condescension and irritated by the assertion that he needed to be converted for his own good.

Message to the Jews for Jesus and their Christians for Jesus companions: Do us Jews for Judaism a favor. Love us a little less and respect us a little more. That would "save" everyone a whole lot of trouble.