Caught amid the infighting between Hamas and Fatah and Israel’s retaliation for rockets launched at its southern towns is an easily overlooked segment of the population: Christians number only 2,000 among 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip—less than 1 percent of the population.
Evangelical Christians are even fewer.
“We are a minority of minorities,” Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, said. “It is really difficult. The Christian community here is 2,000 including Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Evangelical Christians.”
Gaza Baptist Church, the only Evangelical church in the Strip, ministers to 150 to 200 people.
In recent fighting an Israeli missile landed on a Hamas office, shattering all the windows in Massad’s house just 300 feet (100 meters) away. No one was injured, but the consequences of a war they are not involved in are continually getting closer to home.
Frequently one faction or the other commandeers the church’s buildings to use as a lookout point. Once a library worker was caught in the crossfire and shot in the back. He has since recovered.
The church driver wasn’t as fortunate. The 22-year-old newlywed was shot and killed in a Hamas-Fatah shootout, an innocent bystander.
Massad said living in Gaza is like being in a big prison. Many people have died because they haven’t been able get over the border in time for proper medical treatment in Israel or Egypt.
“The people are under siege from the sky, land and sea,” he said, adding that medical supplies and food are often delayed getting to the Strip. “Unemployment is 72 percent. Militant Moslems are against us and some Christians are not with us because we are Evangelical.”
Not long ago militants carried through on a threat to bomb the Gaza Bible Society where Massad’s wife is a director. Now the church itself has been threatened.
“There is a small militant group that hates everything western and Christian and in their minds, they are trying to clean up the city,” Massad said. “They are a narrow-minded group and the government is unable to control it.”
But the Gaza church isn’t playing victim to the circumstances. Instead the Christians are running clinics, libraries, bringing humanitarian aid to the needy and carrying on meeting. They meet openly at the church.
“One thing that strikes me is that you don’t hear negative language from them,” Labib Madanat, director of the Bible Society in Israel and Palestinian territories, told us. “Their language is positive, a language of mission: ‘What is my role as a believer; what can I do in this situation?’”
“I’m not saying it is not hard, that they don’t have fears,” he said. “There are troubles, threats, danger and sometimes they are down. But the overall sum is they are a group of people who are resilient, totally dependent on the Lord and positively thinking of what God wants them to be in the Gaza Strip.”
Madanat said the church worldwide needs to encourage believers in Gaza. Compared to believers in the West Bank, the believers in Gaza are more “focused on what God wants them to do in this situation. Gaza is much more difficult. The sense of need of total dependency on the Lord is much stronger.”
The American Consulate has been warning all Americans to get out of Gaza because of the constant dangers. Massad, who also holds American citizenship, was asked by the consulate if they want to leave.
“Without any hesitation I said no,” he explained. “This is where we feel God wants us to be at this time and it is a privilege to be in the midst of God’s will.”
Jul 13, 2007
Jul 12, 2007
Jerusalem: Destination for Worship
The One Thing Jerusalem conference put Israel’s capital city on the map as a destination for worshipers and worship leaders across the nation and around the world.
The first-of-its-kind conference in Israel highlighted a growing trend among Messianic Jews and Christians to make worship pilgrimages to the Holy City.
The three-day event was broadcast live by God TV, which boasts an audience of 1 billion. Several renowned Christian artists and speakers from Europe and America made their first trip to Israel for the conference, showing that for many, Israel is taking on a greater role in their journey of prayer and praise.
“Where Israel had been cut off in many ways or was left behind in the move that God was doing in the earth, now it’s not just catching up, but it’s going to run ahead,” said Emily Schiavi, a worship leader at Succat Hallel, which organized the conference. “When people catch the vision of God’s heart for Israel, nothing is going to stop what will go out from here.”
Despite the civil war in Gaza and rumors of war in the North, One Thing Jerusalem drew more than 1,500 people, including an estimated 600 Jewish and Arab youth from the believing community in Israel and young people from 20 nations.
“The conference was way beyond anything we imagined,” Rick Ridings, founder of Succat Hallel house of prayer on Mount Zion, said. “A group came from Australia that was doing a 40-day fast for youth revival in Israel. A Chinese group came. This is not just something we’re doing. There are people in the nations praying to make Jerusalem a ‘praise in the earth.’”
One Thing Jerusalem featured young Israeli worship bands as well. A decade ago, that might have been impossible.
“When I first moved here [eight years ago] I felt like it was a valley of dry bones,” said Anna Boyd, who works with Israeli youth and made her own album in Israel. Boyd, 25, who lived in the US and Belgium before moving to Israel, said the worship music scene has gradually awakened since she’s been in the country.
“Right now I feel like all the [believing] youth are incredibly hungry for God,” she said. “They are starting to cry out for their friends’ salvation. There’s a sense of being so excited that, ‘God saved us so we want to worship him.’”
The awakening among Israeli youth has paralleled a rise in the number of Christians from overseas who have come to Israel to take part in worship watches or make a recording of their own.
Kish Johnson, 32, originally from Slough, England, arrived in Israel three years ago and finished his first album here. While living in Jerusalem, he started writing worship songs.
“When you understand the importance of Israel, you can’t help but understand the call of the nations,” he said. “We are pioneering to a certain degree.”
Another pioneer from abroad is Jess Cantelon, from Canada. Cantelon made his first recording here in English and is now writing songs in Hebrew.
“Israel is a blank slate in a way,” he said. “If we went to Kansas City or England, these things have been done. Here there’s lots of potential because it’s a new country and we’re talking about the second generation of believers. We’ve not been too affected by the West. Israel is its own culture, its own generation, its own expression.”
Schiavi, 30, said she has seen major changes in worship in Israel since she came from the US four years ago. After the One Thing conference, which was meant to galvanize a generation of Israelis and Arabs in their own Land, she expects an even greater change.
“Local things have connected internationally. The nations come to Jerusalem, they gather here and the word will go forth from Zion,” Schiavi said. “It’s not going to be from people coming here. Now the people who live here are going to take this for themselves and run with it.”
The first-of-its-kind conference in Israel highlighted a growing trend among Messianic Jews and Christians to make worship pilgrimages to the Holy City.
The three-day event was broadcast live by God TV, which boasts an audience of 1 billion. Several renowned Christian artists and speakers from Europe and America made their first trip to Israel for the conference, showing that for many, Israel is taking on a greater role in their journey of prayer and praise.
“Where Israel had been cut off in many ways or was left behind in the move that God was doing in the earth, now it’s not just catching up, but it’s going to run ahead,” said Emily Schiavi, a worship leader at Succat Hallel, which organized the conference. “When people catch the vision of God’s heart for Israel, nothing is going to stop what will go out from here.”
Despite the civil war in Gaza and rumors of war in the North, One Thing Jerusalem drew more than 1,500 people, including an estimated 600 Jewish and Arab youth from the believing community in Israel and young people from 20 nations.
“The conference was way beyond anything we imagined,” Rick Ridings, founder of Succat Hallel house of prayer on Mount Zion, said. “A group came from Australia that was doing a 40-day fast for youth revival in Israel. A Chinese group came. This is not just something we’re doing. There are people in the nations praying to make Jerusalem a ‘praise in the earth.’”
One Thing Jerusalem featured young Israeli worship bands as well. A decade ago, that might have been impossible.
“When I first moved here [eight years ago] I felt like it was a valley of dry bones,” said Anna Boyd, who works with Israeli youth and made her own album in Israel. Boyd, 25, who lived in the US and Belgium before moving to Israel, said the worship music scene has gradually awakened since she’s been in the country.
“Right now I feel like all the [believing] youth are incredibly hungry for God,” she said. “They are starting to cry out for their friends’ salvation. There’s a sense of being so excited that, ‘God saved us so we want to worship him.’”
The awakening among Israeli youth has paralleled a rise in the number of Christians from overseas who have come to Israel to take part in worship watches or make a recording of their own.
Kish Johnson, 32, originally from Slough, England, arrived in Israel three years ago and finished his first album here. While living in Jerusalem, he started writing worship songs.
“When you understand the importance of Israel, you can’t help but understand the call of the nations,” he said. “We are pioneering to a certain degree.”
Another pioneer from abroad is Jess Cantelon, from Canada. Cantelon made his first recording here in English and is now writing songs in Hebrew.
“Israel is a blank slate in a way,” he said. “If we went to Kansas City or England, these things have been done. Here there’s lots of potential because it’s a new country and we’re talking about the second generation of believers. We’ve not been too affected by the West. Israel is its own culture, its own generation, its own expression.”
Schiavi, 30, said she has seen major changes in worship in Israel since she came from the US four years ago. After the One Thing conference, which was meant to galvanize a generation of Israelis and Arabs in their own Land, she expects an even greater change.
“Local things have connected internationally. The nations come to Jerusalem, they gather here and the word will go forth from Zion,” Schiavi said. “It’s not going to be from people coming here. Now the people who live here are going to take this for themselves and run with it.”
Jun 1, 2007
Buying His Way into Politics
Arcadi Gaydamak has stacked up a resume of noteworthy social, economic and philanthropic activities in Israel.
The Russian-born billionaire has pushed himself into the social scene, throwing lavish parties for the Israeli elite. He has earned a reputation for extravagant generosity, filling in where the government fell short during last summer’s Lebanon War to set up housing and shelters in southern Israel and sponsoring trips for children to get them away from incoming rockets in southern Israel. He has also endeared himself to sports fans, bankrolling a Jerusalem basketball team and buying a Jerusalem soccer club.
Now Gaydamak, who doesn’t speak Hebrew in public and has no political experience, wants to be mayor of the city considered the capital of the Jewish people. With the announcement that he’s running for Jerusalem mayor, Israelis are questioning whether he was buying his way into their favor all along or whether his concern for the city is genuine.
Two months earlier, Gaydamak announced the formation of a new movement called Social Justice, which he said could turn into a political party at any time and would apparently align itself with the Likud led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said at the time that he did not want to run for a Knesset seat himself.
Shady Business Past
Gaydamak was born in Ukraine in 1952, grew up in Russia and immigrated to Israel when he was 20. He served briefly in the Israeli army, worked on a kibbutz and then left for France, where he lived and made his fortune. In December 2000 he returned to Israel after being accused of illegal arms trading with Angola, tax evasion and money laundering. Gaydamak is now wanted in France, but Israel has refused to extradite him.
In Israel he has also been investigated for money laundering but has denied any wrongdoing. Gaydamak’s philanthropic activity in Israel, low key until then, became high profile after these accusations surfaced. During the Second Lebanon War, he constructed a tent village on a Nitzanim beach in southern Israel hosting thousands of families who fled the North. In November 2006, he funded a week-long vacation in Eilat for hundreds of residents from the southern town of Sderot who were enduring rocket attacks from Gaza.
Gaydamak decided to make a bid to oust current Mayor Uri Lupoliansky after City Hall banned a march by World War II veterans, which the billionaire has financed for the past three years. He said Lupoliansky’s “spirit was wrong” for the city.
Good Chance of Winning
With the potential support base of Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans, the ultra-Orthodox community whom he has tried to woo, and a reputation for funding out of his own pockets what should be government initiatives (à la the erstwhile American presidential candidate Ross Perot], Gaydamak stands a good chance at the polls.
“I have no doubt that the entire city will vote for me,” he confidently announced. “There’s not one person who is not familiar today with Gaydamak and his ability.” He added that he wants to turn Jerusalem into “a symbol of peace and Judaism.”
“The city will be much better, and not only from the economic point of view,” he said. “It will also become a symbol of the Jewish spirit. It’s my duty to defend the Jewish tradition.”
To Run or Not to Run
But Israeli politics is fickle. The elections are not for a year, plus sources close to Gaydamak say the tycoon may not run for mayor after all. He may choose instead to back another candidate who will do his bidding in office or try to win a majority of city council seats. Some analysts say that Gaydamak’s announcement to run for mayor was simply a slap at Lupoliansky for cancelling one of his pet projects.
Another name that has been thrown into the ring as a potential mayoral candidate is former police chief Mickey Levy. Gaydamak could potentially back Levy, which might be useful as he is still under investigation for money laundering.
The Russian-born billionaire has pushed himself into the social scene, throwing lavish parties for the Israeli elite. He has earned a reputation for extravagant generosity, filling in where the government fell short during last summer’s Lebanon War to set up housing and shelters in southern Israel and sponsoring trips for children to get them away from incoming rockets in southern Israel. He has also endeared himself to sports fans, bankrolling a Jerusalem basketball team and buying a Jerusalem soccer club.
Now Gaydamak, who doesn’t speak Hebrew in public and has no political experience, wants to be mayor of the city considered the capital of the Jewish people. With the announcement that he’s running for Jerusalem mayor, Israelis are questioning whether he was buying his way into their favor all along or whether his concern for the city is genuine.
Two months earlier, Gaydamak announced the formation of a new movement called Social Justice, which he said could turn into a political party at any time and would apparently align itself with the Likud led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said at the time that he did not want to run for a Knesset seat himself.
Shady Business Past
Gaydamak was born in Ukraine in 1952, grew up in Russia and immigrated to Israel when he was 20. He served briefly in the Israeli army, worked on a kibbutz and then left for France, where he lived and made his fortune. In December 2000 he returned to Israel after being accused of illegal arms trading with Angola, tax evasion and money laundering. Gaydamak is now wanted in France, but Israel has refused to extradite him.
In Israel he has also been investigated for money laundering but has denied any wrongdoing. Gaydamak’s philanthropic activity in Israel, low key until then, became high profile after these accusations surfaced. During the Second Lebanon War, he constructed a tent village on a Nitzanim beach in southern Israel hosting thousands of families who fled the North. In November 2006, he funded a week-long vacation in Eilat for hundreds of residents from the southern town of Sderot who were enduring rocket attacks from Gaza.
Gaydamak decided to make a bid to oust current Mayor Uri Lupoliansky after City Hall banned a march by World War II veterans, which the billionaire has financed for the past three years. He said Lupoliansky’s “spirit was wrong” for the city.
Good Chance of Winning
With the potential support base of Beitar Jerusalem soccer fans, the ultra-Orthodox community whom he has tried to woo, and a reputation for funding out of his own pockets what should be government initiatives (à la the erstwhile American presidential candidate Ross Perot], Gaydamak stands a good chance at the polls.
“I have no doubt that the entire city will vote for me,” he confidently announced. “There’s not one person who is not familiar today with Gaydamak and his ability.” He added that he wants to turn Jerusalem into “a symbol of peace and Judaism.”
“The city will be much better, and not only from the economic point of view,” he said. “It will also become a symbol of the Jewish spirit. It’s my duty to defend the Jewish tradition.”
To Run or Not to Run
But Israeli politics is fickle. The elections are not for a year, plus sources close to Gaydamak say the tycoon may not run for mayor after all. He may choose instead to back another candidate who will do his bidding in office or try to win a majority of city council seats. Some analysts say that Gaydamak’s announcement to run for mayor was simply a slap at Lupoliansky for cancelling one of his pet projects.
Another name that has been thrown into the ring as a potential mayoral candidate is former police chief Mickey Levy. Gaydamak could potentially back Levy, which might be useful as he is still under investigation for money laundering.
Mar 1, 2007
Heart to Heart
Faced with the choice of saving his daughter’s life while potentially jeopardizing his family in northern Iraq, Abu Sakar chose life. It wasn’t a hard decision for the father of three, but it was one laden with great risk as he left his home town in northern Iraq to head to Israel.
“Yes, there was a danger in coming here, but they gave me a dream,” Abu Sakar said as he watched his now healthy 10-year-old daughter, Sakar, bound through the Old City in Jerusalem and shyly smile for the camera.
Sakar was diagnosed with a fatal hole in her heart and would have died without a highly-specialized surgery that she could not get in Iraq. In a most unlikely scenario, a Christian organization brought this Iraqi family to Israeli doctors for a new chance at life—a complicated procedure considering the two nations do not have diplomatic relations and where, in Iraq, the mere mention of Israel can arouse sometimes lethal suspicion.
But nationality and religion knew no borders on the operating table, where Sakar, a Kurdish Iraqi from a Moslem family, received life-saving treatment at the hands of a Jewish Israeli doctor. “The doctors here were like friends,” Abu Sakar told Israel Today, two weeks after his daughter’s surgery. “I didn’t feel any rejection or anything for being Iraqi.”
Abu Sakar could make a good ambassador for Israel if he would speak about it. However, out of the perpetual fear that plagues Iraq these days, he wouldn’t give his last name, he asked that his photo not be taken, he told friends and relatives that he was bringing his daughter to Italy and he spoke softly about his experiences, worried that word would reach his hometown and extremists would accuse the family of spying for the “Zionist enemy.”
But he proudly let his daughter Sakar enjoy her new-found energy and endurance as she toured the Old City. Sakar, who shyly averted her big brown eyes and zestful smile, was given the go-ahead to play like a regular child her age. She was already doing things she couldn’t before, such as climbing stairs and playing, without tiring.
“Thank God she’s fine,” her father said. “She can do anything she wants to do now.”
In Iraq, Sakar’s parents were given dismal chances for their daughter’s survival. They sold a house to pay for treatments, but were told doctors there could not save her. When they heard of Shevet Achim, a Christian organization that brings Iraqis and other Arabs to Israel for heart surgery, they applied for help.
Shevet Achim, which means brothers dwelling (together), intervenes on behalf of Arab families who have children with life-threatening heart diseases, helping them attain visas and transporting them to Israel and back home. In Israel, the families are housed by Save A Child’s Heart, the organization that provides the Israeli surgeons who perform the operations. Only one parent or guardian is allowed a visa to accompany their child.
The approval process can take months if it is on a “fast track,” said Donna Petrel of Shevet Achim, who escorts the families through border control and to their destination. The Israeli Embassy in Amman performs a background check on the patient and parent which sometimes takes longer than a child has to live.
Petrel said that a doctor wanted one child sent to Israel for surgery on the same day he examined him in Jordan. A visa was issued the same day for the child, but he had to be hospitalized in Amman as his father’s visa took another two weeks for approval.
Shevet Achim has brought 518 Arab children to Israel since 2003, including at least a dozen from Iraq, with dozens more seeking visa approval and funding. The organization, founded by Jonathan Miles, began by bringing Palestinian children with heart problems to Israeli hospitals. “We see it as our mission to be a vehicle of reconciliation between Israel and its neighbors,” said Alex Pettett of Shevet Achim.
Save a Child’s Heart has examined more than 4,000 children between 1996 and 2005 from third world countries including Nigeria, Tanzania, Congo, Ghana, Moldova, Russia, Vietnam and Ecuador.
While Abu Sakar was in Israel with his daughter, his son was injured in a terrorist attack in their village. Sakar was given the doctor’s approval to rush home with her father ahead of schedule to reunite with their family.
But he dreams of coming back. By the end of the trip Abu Sakar, whose grandmother on his father’s side is Jewish, said his perspective on Israel had completely reversed and that he wanted to live here. “I always thought that Israel was one way,” he said. “I didn’t expect this. The people are wonderful and kind.”
Jan 11, 2007
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.”
“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.”
Jan 4, 2007
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.”
Jan 1, 2007
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.”
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