Christians Demonstrate Against BDS - Israel Today

Christians Demonstrate Against BDS

Wednesday, March 13, 2019 |  Israel Today Staff

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Around 150 Christian friends of Israel in the Netherlands joined with Jewish leaders to protest a motion made by the GreenLeft party in support of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“How would you react if I would say, ‘I embrace the Nazism of Hitler-Germany?’” These were the words spoken by Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, the chief rabbi of the Netherlands during the demonstration on the doorstep of the national GreenLeft offices in Utrecht.

“A serious mistake, that encourages anti-Semitism,” the rabbi said. “But just like the German ‘Autobahn’ is only a small part of the murderous Nazi-time, the boycott of products from Israel is only a small part of the goal of BDS. BDS stands for the destruction of Israel, not only the boycott of a few products from the so-called occupied territories,” he explained.

Roger van Oordt, director of Christian for Israel, said that the GreenLeft calls BDS a “legitimate means in a justified battle,” that is the first step toward the destruction of the State of Israel.

Christians for Israel also sent a statement to GreenLeft describing the dangers of BDS, and asked the party to distance itself from the poisonous movement.

“We hope that GreenLeft will think about it and stay far away from anti-Semitism,” van Oordt said.

The Dutch GreenLeft party was formed by a merger of four left-wing parties: the Communist Party of the Netherlands, the Pacifist Socialist Party, the Political Party of Radicals and the Evangelical People's Party.

How Evangelicals can cooperate with communists and radicals is a puzzle. In recent years, the malformed party has grown in popularity and has been trying to impose anti-Israel policies on the government of the Netherlands. Why the Dutch think they have something to say about Israel is bizarre, but whatever the reason, the green party want Holland to boycott Israel.

PHOTO: Israelis look at BDS propaganda in downtown Amsterdam. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

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Who’s the Fairest of Them All? - David Lazarus Israel Today

Who’s the Fairest of Them All?

Thursday, February 14, 2019 |  David Lazarus    Israel Today

For the Prophet Ezekiel, Israel is “the most beautiful of all lands” (Chap. 20:6). Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but Israel’s love of her ancient homeland is not without reason.

For those of us lucky enough to be in Israel during the peak wildflower season of mid-February to late March, right now is the time to take a walk anywhere in the Land and enjoy Israel’s brilliant scenery. For the rest of us, we hope a few pictures might just whet your appetite to come over and see for yourselves!

Israel is home to hundreds of species of wildflowers and the plant life are now awakening as spring approaches. Almond trees are the first to bloom each year, coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shvat — the New Year for Trees — which fell already on January 21st this year.

Jesus himself took time to appreciate the unique beauty of the Promised Land and commanded his disciples to do the same.

“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. (Luke 12:27).

Zachi Evenor / Wiki Commons

Anat Hermony / Flash90

Anat Hermony / Flash90

Nati Shohat / Flash90

Yossi Zamir / Flash90

Nati Shohat / Flash90

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Israelis Respond to Christian Warning that Saudis Might Destroy Mount Sinai - Israel Today

Israelis Respond to Christian Warning that Saudis Might Destroy Mount Sinai

Tuesday, February 12, 2019 |  Israel Today Staff

Israeli media on Tuesday picked up on the recent claim by Christian researchers that the real Mount Sinai is in Saudi Arabia, and that the Saudi authorities might soon bulldoze the holy mountain to prevent what they call "idolatrous" attention.

The Doubting Thomas Research Foundation has for years been trying to prove that the biblical Red Sea crossing took place between the Sinai Peninsula and what is now Saudi Arabia, and that the real Mount Sinai is located in the oil-rich kingdom at a site known as Jabal al-Lawz.

In a recently-published video clip (see below), the group's director, Ryan Mauro, is seen secretly visiting Jabal al-Lawz before being chased away by locals.

Mauro claims that the Saudi regime knows that the mountain in question is the biblical Mount Sinai, and is doing all it can to keep that fact from going public. A local jihadi who he interviewed in the video seemed to agree.

"When I was in the jihad world we all knew that the Mount Sinai was in Saudi Arabia," the jihadi says while speaking through a voice changer with his face hidden. "The people on the outside had no idea that it was there," he added. "We fighters didn’t want anyone to know about it, and we knew the Saudi government hid it and protected it with security and we all agreed with it."

Should those efforts to keep the location of what he insists is the real Mount Sinai fail, Mauro worries that Saudi Arabia could demolish one of the Bible's most well-known holy sites.

Reactions to the story on the Israeli news portal Walla! ranged from outrage that these Christians thought they knew better than Jewish sources, to disdain for all who think the Exodus as recording in the Bible is even real.

A poll posted at the end of the Walla! article found that 83 percent of respondents believe the Exodus from Egypt really happened, though some aren't sure it happened how it's recorded in the Bible. Eleven percent of respondents to the poll said the Exodus is a fairytale, which was the position taken by what appeared to be a majority of those who bothered to leave a comment.

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When Jews Were Christians - David Lazarus Israel Today

When Jews Were Christians

Monday, February 11, 2019 |  David Lazarus  Israel Today

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How did what clearly started out as a part of Judaism become what we know today as Christianity? When did Christianity as we now know it begin?

A leading scholar on Christianity in its earliest form, Paula Fredriksen, has written much about the Jewish context of Jesus’ original disciples and about early Christian attitudes toward the Jews. In her recent book, When Jews Were Christians (Yale Univ. Press, Oct. 2018), she presents a history and analysis of Christianity when it was still a part of Judaism.

Fredriksen emphasizes the Jewishness of that first generation of Jesus-followers. She reminds readers that Jerusalem was at the heart of their Messianic faith. The disciples of Jesus left Galilee to live in Jerusalem and wait for the risen Jesus to return. Fredriksen argues that the early Jewish believers expected, as the Hebrew scriptures teach, that salvation for the world would go forth from Jerusalem and out of Zion, God’s “holy mountain.”

She contends that the disciples had a positive attitude toward the Temple in Jerusalem and challenges the idea that it was Jesus’ disturbances in the Temple that led to his arrest. “Jesus did not so much condemn the Temple as he did prophecy a new one,” Fredriksen writes.

The disciples’ faith and hopes in Jesus as the promised Messiah were rooted in their unwavering commitment to the Jewish faith. Initially, what we now consider Christianity was really just a form of Judaism, and was not Gentile-inclusive until later.

Even Paul’s avid refusal to require circumcision of Gentiles under pressure from the Jerusalem-based Judaizers was based on Old Testament prophecies that in the last days the Gentile nations would come to the God of Israel (e.g., Zechariah 8:20-23).

How did a group Jewish disciples end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the Gentile Church? The gathering of Gentiles into the early ecclesia was “unintended”, Fredriksen suggests. It simply came about as Paul and others spread the message to the Jewish people throughout the diaspora. In synagogues throughout Asia Minor at the time, there were Gentiles know as “God-fearers” who were attracted to the God of Israel and Jewish culture, such as Sabbath observance. The early Jesus-followers required these Gentiles to cease from worshipping their ancestral deities. So the Gentiles who accepted Jesus could no longer be considered pagan Gentiles, nor were they any longer God-fearers, nor proselytes to Judaism. Instead, they were understood to be the fulfillment of scripture and the “Coming up of all nations to the Mountain of the Lord.”

The central understanding of what became the Gentile “Christian” identity was the belief that the end of the age and the Kingdom of God were at hand. Here we have a theological position that embraces both the unity and distinctiveness of Jew and Gentile. “In their own eyes, the early disciples were history’s last generation," notes Fredriksen. "It is only in history’s eyes that they would become the first generation of the church.”

Prof. Paula Fredriksen is currently serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

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Israeli Artists Bring Streets of Jerusalem to Life - Israel Today

Israeli Artists Bring Streets of Jerusalem to Life

Thursday, February 07, 2019 |  Israel Today Staff

Popular Israeli artists brought the streets of Jerusalem to life this week as part of the annual art festival known as Sha'on Horef (Winter Clock).

Photos by Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90

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New Palestinian 'Christian' President is a Fan of Israel - Israel Today

New Palestinian 'Christian' President is a Fan of Israel

Wednesday, February 06, 2019 |  Israel Today Staff

El Salvador's new president is an Arab of "Palestinian" descent. He's also a fan of the Jewish state.

The small Central American nation is home to a community of 100,000 Palestinian migrants. While it is unclear how most of them view the Israel-Palestinian conflict, what we do know is that President-elect Nayib Bukele has no problem building relations with the Jewish state.

A year ago, in February 2018, at a time when many of his political contemporaries were cozying up to Venezuela and Cuba to spite US President Donald Trump, Bukele chose to visit Jerusalem.

While here, the then-mayor of El Salvador's capital, San Salvador, met with his counterpart, then-Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. He also laid a memorial wreath at Yad Vashem and prayed at the Western Wall.

Arab media reported that Bukele faced harsh criticism from Palestinians in El Salvador over his "normalization" with Israel. It also seems that he was vilified, possibly by conservative Catholic elements, for visiting a mosque.

In a Facebook post addressing what he called these "dirty" campaign tactics, Bukele insisted that he was simply not "religious," and therefore had no problem visiting the Dome of the Rock, the Vatican and the Western Wall.

However, while he has problems with organized religion, Bukele stressed that he does believe in Jesus and relies upon the Word of God to guide his life.

"I respect all religions, and those who wish to believe in them, but I believe that the relationship with God is personal, I believe that no one is saved in groups, but that salvation is obtained individually," wrote El Salvador's new leader. "That's why I've accepted Jesus Christ, that's why I read the Word of God written in the Bible when I feel confused or need guidance, that's why I ask Yahweh for the wisdom he gave to Solomon, though I know I'll never be so wise. That's why I believe deeply in God and in his kingdom, but I don't consider myself religious."

H/T Elder of Ziyon

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