Jesus on the Jordan

JORDAN RIVER CROSSING - In an event that underscored the potential for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, about 150 Christians, Jews and Muslims gathered on the border between Israel and Jordan to pray at the eastern gateway to the Promised Land—a site packed with biblical and prophetic significance. 

“This is the eastern gateway opened up—this is no small matter,” said Karen Dunham who runs a ministry in Palestinian-ruled Jericho. 

The restricted area is opened only three times a year by the Israeli army for certain groups, including one led by Dunham, who comes every year. This year the army even suggested that she bring a bus load of new Muslim converts from her church to join the prayer meeting. The site is also opened once a year to both Catholics and Orthodox Christians to perform baptisms in the Jordan. 

An offering collected to help the Israeli army maintain the site was in turn given by the army to help Palestinians in Jericho. An Israel soldier guarding the border said that unlike the usual tension between Palestinians and Israelis, the atmosphere there and with Jericho residents is friendly. 

Dunham listed Biblical events that occurred at or near this location: Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River across from Jericho; Joshua brought the Israelites across the Jordan; Elijah went up in the chariot of fire; and David reconciled with Judah at Gilgal on the eastern edge of Jericho. 

Christians, Messianic Jews and Muslims joined in prayer and several were baptized in the Jordan. 

One soldier, asked whether there could be peace between Israel and the Palestinians, said, “At this place right now, anything is possible.” 

Some Palestinians from Jericho also joined in the worship. The women, although converts, still wore the Islamic headdress while some of the men are still Moslem. 

“I’m Muslim but what does it matter?” said Shadi Mahmoud Fuda. “I go to hear Karen everyday. She teaches the Bible and about God.” 

Iyad Abu Rashed said the atmosphere in Jericho has changed for the better in the three years that Dunham has been in Jericho. “Freedom has come not from Bush, Abu Mazen [i.e., Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas] and Arafat,” he said, “but it comes from Jesus.”

Night Watchmen

Giving up social lives and sunlight to pray through the night in Jerusalem
 
 
It is midnight and the busy city is finally winding down, traffic has dwindled and most residents have retired for the evening. But some are just beginning their day.
 
It’s the graveyard shift at Succat Hallel (Tabernacle of Praise), a 24/7 prayer ministry, and the diligent “night watchers” are taking over at the prayer room. They put in a six-hour shift of worship and intercession until one of the “day watchers” files in at 6 a.m.
 
While most people in Israel are sleeping, these Christian volunteers are keeping the nation covered in prayer. At least two houses of prayer in Jerusalem operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: Succat Hallel directly across from Mount Zion in West Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem House of Prayer for All Nations on the Mount of Olives, on the eastern side of the city.
 
But why pray through the night in addition to the other 18 hours of prayer?
 
“The devil is working 24 hours a day, so we cannot sleep,” said Sam Dewald, administrator of the Jerusalem House of Prayer.
 
It’s a challenge and a reward. “You work all day and are tired, then cover a night watch,” Dewald, who is from India, told Israel Today. “The thing that keeps us going is the calling of God.”
 
Lindy Heidler, head of the Succat Hallel night watch, sees their mission as “shaking the wicked” out of the night based on Job 38:12-13—stewarding the time when evil and occult practitioners operate more intensely. Heidler, from Denton, Texas, and her team, ranging in age from 22 to 34 years old, have completely revamped their lives to a night schedule. Giving up the social scene and sunlight, they head to bed and usually sleep until around 3 p.m., when the sun is already low in the winter sky.
 
Steve Hansen, who began night watches at Succat Hallel with his wife Tonya three years ago, provided biblical backing for praying through the night: The Lord called Samuel and appeared to Solomon, both times at night. He said God releases strategy and revelation in the night season, without the distractions of the day. Plus, Hansen said, they are preempting the Moslem call to prayer, which occurs before 5 a.m.
 
The Bible speaks of four night watches, each divided into three hours beginning at sundown or approximately 6 p.m. and ending at around 6 a.m.
 
Both Succat Hallel and the Jerusalem House of Prayer operate 24 hours a day. The JHOP is divided into two-hour watches covered by two intercessors per shift while Succat Hallel’s night watch is an intense, six-hour shift staffed by a team of about four to six.
 
“The night watch lifestyle is a complete sacrifice—it’s a fast,” Hansen said.
 
The watches ebb and flow, sometimes exhaustion takes over, but many times they are propelled by worship or a prayer focus. The Succat Hallel team takes a “devotional” break at around 2 or 3 a.m. where they pray individually and eat what is, for them, lunch.
 
The team has experienced various seasons. Before Ramadan one year, they went on a silent fast, not speaking to each other or praying out loud for an entire week. Each morning after four hours of individual prayer, the team headed out to the Western Wall at 4 a.m. where they prayed silently and then marched around the Old City, encircling the Temple Mount.
 
Dewald said the hours from 2 to 4 a.m. are the most powerful times of prayer: “Darkness is where evil spirits prevail, so we pray against it. The power of God flows more, especially during the night watches.”
 
And the night watch bears fruit. Many times they read the results of their prayers in the newspapers the next day. And for one, there have been no terrorist attacks since 2004 in Jerusalem, the most spiritually contested city in the world.
 
“This is the city where God will set up His throne and this is where He wants to be worshipped,” Hansen said. “It’s an eternal thing, but we’re to replicate in the natural what God is doing in eternity.”
 
“The Bible says that the Word of the Lord will go out from Zion [Jerusalem],” Heidler said. “There’s an anointing and authority here.”

Once Lost, Now They are Found

Indians believed to be a lost tribe return to Israel


CARMIEL – Just a few months ago, rockets were battering this well-manicured town in the North and residents were living in bomb shelters. But that didn’t stop a group of Indian Jews from moving here, motivated by their simple yet profound faith in one thing: Israel is the Promised Land.

“Our dream is to be in Israel. Hashem [the Lord, literally ‘the Name’] promised His people to be in one Land,” Dagan Zohmingtea Zolat said. “Our dream has been fulfilled.”

Many other immigrants gave a similar answer: They made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) because Israel, not India, is the Promised Land for the Jewish people. So now, 87 of the 218 who arrived in Israel this fall will live at an absorption center in Carmiel for one year while the rest are at two centers in Upper Nazareth.

The arrival of these Jews, known as the Bnei Menashe (sons of Manasseh), unlocks one of the age-old mysteries of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

“This Aliyah of the Bnei Menashe is nothing less than a miracle of biblical proportions,” said Michael Freund, the head of the Shavei Israel organization, which was instrumental in bringing the Indian Jews here. “Exactly as the prophets foretold, God is gathering his people from the four corners of the earth and we are witnessing the prophetic fulfillment right before our eyes.”

A New Life
 
After fanfare at the airport hailing their arrival, the welcome to Israel for the Bnei Menashe was a dingy government building—the absorption center where they would spend their first year. The rooms are like dorms and kids play in the hallway when organized activities are not taking place.

Their day begins with prayers at 6 a.m., breakfast, and Hebrew classes until early afternoon for the adults. Children are already attending Israeli schools. Volunteers at the center help the new immigrants open bank accounts, apply for health insurance and tackle other bureaucratic necessities. 

Yitzhak Kolni, who immigrated to Israel six years ago from India, is helping the new immigrants to settle in just like he did. “The ones here now are very Zionistic and religious,” said Kolni, who lives with the immigrants in the absorption center. 


Rivka Pachuau who arrived with her husband and three children, said the family’s preparation to make aliyah took several years and a lot of prayer. Now they are glad to be in Israel where they can observe Shabbat (the Sabbath) and keep kosher much more easily than in India.

Some of the immigrants joined relatives already here, but most left family behind. Zolat’s family was worried that he was leaving with his wife and three young children to live on the frontline.

“But we came here based on the promises of God,” he said. “Whether in India or here in Israel, Hashem protects us.”

Zolat also hopes to be an example to secular Israelis, encouraging them to return to a pure biblical faith like the Bnei Menashe.

The Long Road Home

As the mass wave of Russian aliyah was beginning to fade in the mid-1990s, the Bnei Menashe came to Freund’s attention.

“When I first heard about the Bnei Menashe 10 years ago, I didn’t buy into the whole lost tribe idea,” Freund said. “But knowing the struggle to retain their Jewish identity over the centuries, I believe they are members of the lost tribe.”

At the time, the government allowed 100 Jewish Indians to enter Israel as tourists each year and then undergo the official conversion process to Judaism. This influx of 218 marks the first time the Bnei Menashe have arrived in Israel already converted under Halacha (Jewish Law), which makes them eligible to receive new immigrant incentives including major tax breaks.

The Ministry of Interior froze Indian aliyah in 2003 until Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar sent a delegation of religious judges to meet the people of the remote northeastern Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur and learn of their customs. Based on their long-held traditions, Amar ruled that the 8,000 Indians were indeed descendants of Israel. 

The ruling was expected to clear the way for the resumption of aliyah, but there were complications. First, the Interior Ministry refused to register the expected newcomers as Israeli citizens. Then, the Absorption Ministry decided to withhold benefits from them. After a three year hiatus, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert personally intervened in June 2006, and aliyah finally resumed. 

But as the Bnei Menashe were set to embark upon their journey this summer, the war in the North broke out further delaying their return. They waited it out and then proceeded with their move to Israel.

“The Bnei Menashe are a blessing for Israel,’ Freund told Israel Today. “They were lost to us for centuries, but they never forgot who they were and where they came from.”

History of the Tribe

Long before the modern day opposition, the return to Israel had been a long, hard road for the lost tribe. Exiled by the Assyrians in 721 BC, the 10 tribes of Israel were scattered eastward. 

Today, the Bnei Menashe live in Manipur and Mizoram but look more like their Asian neighbors in Myanmar and Tibet than like Indians. About 90 years ago, British missionaries visited the region and discovered a people already living a biblical life. 

“They were convinced they stumbled upon one of the lost tribes,” Freund said. 

The Indians there practiced a biblical form of Judaism, were monotheistic, called God by His Hebrew name Yah, celebrated Passover and the other Feasts, observed the Sabbath, practiced circumcision and kept kosher.

Most of the community converted to Christianity after the missionaries’ visit, with the notable exception of the 7,000 Jews slated to make aliyah, following the 1,000 who already have. Nevertheless, all of the 750,000 residents of Mizoram—Jews and Christians alike—believe they are Bnei Menashe. 

“Not everyone in Mizoram is Jewish, but all are Bnei Menashe,” said Zolat, who believes that the Christian descendants of Manasseh will return to the roots of their faith. “They will know the name of God and the Messiah and that the Jewish people were always protected by God. They will be here in Israel. Some are already awakening.” 

The state of Mizoram is 90 percent Christian and so Zionistic that officials considered renaming it “the second State of Israel” and its main road “Zion Street.” 

Freund is focusing on bringing the professed and practicing Jews to Israel. And what about the Christians? “If those people are Bnei Menashe and are fated to be here,” he said, “God and the Messiah will do so.”