The Apple of God’s eye

Observing the miracles of life in the modern Jewish state

On our many visits to Israel, we are always amazed by how safe we feel when we travel and visit the cities, villages and individual Jewish communities. Israel is surrounded by enemies on every side. However, they seem to go on with life, maintaining a sense of balance and direction.

Earl Cox, Israel’s goodwill ambassador to Christian and Jewish communities around the world, says, “Israelis continually confront crisis after crisis, yet somehow their spirits remain high and their collective moral compass stays true to their love of freedom and democracy and their faith in God.” (more…)

Yad HaShmonah-a memory of eight

A home of a Messianic community

Nestled in the Judean hills about 10 miles west of Jerusalem, Yad HaShmonah is a moshav (communal settlement) that is composed of Israeli and Finnish believers in Jesus (Yeshua) the Messiah.

In the early 1970s, a group of Christians from Finland asked the Israeli government for a plot of land on which to build a community. When the response arrived, they picked a hill right above Neveh Ilan, where they had often gone to pray. These believers had one goal in mind: to show solidarity with Israel. They wanted to build a memory for eight Jewish refugees whom the Finnish government had turned over to the Germans in 1942. Only one of them survived and later moved to Israel. (more…)

“For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, Priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, meaning king of peace, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually” (Hebrews 7:1−3). (more…)

The people of Israel have come home!

Netanyahu speaks at the UN General Assembly

It is yet to be seen whether or not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, at the UN General Assembly on October 1, gained any diplomatic or political ground for Israel. The message, however, was certainly ground-breaking. On the floor of the UN, in front of the nations of the world, Netanyahu quoted from the Bible no fewer than five times. Surely it was more than any other speech given in the UN history. (more…)

Jewish Philanthropy in the Holy Land

Sir Moses Montefiore and the Jewish homeland

My people will abide in peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places” (Isaiah 32:18). This Old Testament verse was in Moses Montefiore’s mind when he set out in the 1860s to build the first Jewish neighborhood, Yemin Moshe, outside the Old City walls of Jerusalem. Following a devastating cholera outbreak in Jerusalem in 1861, due to overcrowding, it was obvious to Montefiore that additional living quarters were needed. (more…)

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Prayers and curses

The origins of anti-Semitism in the early Church

The following article is adopted from Rev. Antony Rozinni’s teaching (Part 1). Rev. Rozinni pastors a group of Assemblies of God churches and teaches in Bible schools in Italy. While taking a course in church history for his master’s degree, he started reading about the Church fathers and how their theology has influenced the Church for centuries, birthing a vicious anti-Semitism that lingers to this day.

“You will become an object of horror to every kingdom on earth… Adonai will send your enemy against you; and you will serve him when you are hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed and lacking everything; he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He destroys you” (Deuteronomy 28:25, 48). (more…)

A lasting impact on the heart

Israeli doctors save lives of the youngest patients of the Middle-East

Four-year old Imad owes his life to an Israeli heart surgeon. And even though Imad’s father is a Palestinian Arab, living in Nablus, he is eternally grateful to the doctors who saved his son’s life.

“I don’t have anything against the Jewish nation,” he said. “Israel can have enemies, but when it comes to this kind of thing [heart care], Israel doesn’t see identity. They don’t look at the ID card.” Imad was operated on when he was just one month old, in 2008. “Everything was very good. They took great care of us. Nothing could have been better,” said his father. (more…)

The modern-day Exodus

Jews arriving from the land of the north and from all lands of exile

For the past 2,000 years, Israel was scattered among nations that oppressed and abused them. Yet we live in a “time of favor” when God is restoring Israel back to her land, and we can now expect Him to judge the nations for their cruelty and excesses toward the Jewish people. This is even more pertinent in that the nations are trying to force the Jews out of the very heartland of their ancient kingdom, in order to make room for a Palestinian state. In this regard, Joel 3:1−3 warns of the severe judgment that will one day come upon the nations for seeking to divide the land. (more…)