Speaking Up for Persecuted Middle East Christians - CBN News Chris Mitchell

Speaking Up for Persecuted Middle East Christians

07-08-2016

CBN News Chris Mitchel

JERUSALEM, Israel – After more than two years, the U.S. State Department finally admitted what already seemed clear to most of the world: ISIS is on a genocidal rampage against Middle East Christians.

With that diplomatic declaration, religious leaders are wondering when the Church in the West will step up and speak out about this historic persecution.

From world leaders to authors on the front lines to Christian humanitarians, the alarm is going out over the plight of Christians in countries besieged by ISIS.

"Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims," Secretary of State John Kerry said.  

Tom Doyle, author of "Killing Christians," said "We're hearing of more and more crucifixions. We're hearing (about) young boys being killed."

"We're witnessing a once in a 2,000-year crisis and it's not an exaggeration to say that we can see the elimination of Christianity in the place of its birth," Christian humanitarian Johnnie Moore said.

Even though the Church in the Middle East is suffering genocide, some say the Church in the West could do more to stand with their fellow believers.

Moore has been working with big names such as Mark Burnett and Roma Downey to bring attention to this tragedy.

"We're blind again just like we were blind at the Holocaust, just like we were blind at the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, the Armenian genocide, we're not learning," Moore told CBN News. "But what's even more shameful and despicable about this is we are the strongest community in the world as Christians and the Church isn't even speaking up as it could."

Some believe the lack of action in the American Church lies in the pulpit, not in the pews.

"The pulpits in America have largely been silent on this issue of their fellow brethren around the world," historian David Barton told CBN News.

Barton collaborated with pollster George Barna on a nationwide survey of Christian conservatives.

They asked pastors and parishioners about 22 specific issues. Results showed parishioners put religious persecution as their number two area of special interest, with 86 percent wanting more information on the issue.

The same subject, however, didn't even register with their pastors as a topic to address with their congregations.

"So you have 86 percent of American Christians saying we need to hear about this.  We gotta be informed on it and pastors saying, 'ummm don't think I want to talk about that,'" Barton said.

"So there's this real dichotomy right now on persecution in American churches at least addressing the subject and certainly when you start addressing the subject then you're more likely you'll do something about it and that's really what Christians in the Middle East need. They need outside help. They can't save themselves. It's going to take outside help."

One Christian woman spoke with CBN News about the need for that help. As ISIS plowed across Iraq, she and her family fled their Christian village of Quraqhosh.

"Until now we can't even imagine this happening to us. It's like a dream. Everything was so normal. Our life was so comfortable and suddenly everything changed," she said.

Changed by terrorists with a deadly goal.

"They don't want any Christians to live in Iraq," she explained. "They want to kill them all or have them leave or become a Muslim."

Doyle, who has worked with the persecuted Church for years, says Christians need
to open their hearts and eyes.

"We need the pastors to speak up. This is your family," he said. "And I know what it's like to be a pastor because I did that for 20 years and so many times you're so consumed within your four walls, but we're connected around the world. We are completely connected. This is family. They may worship a little different from us.  They may look different. They may speak a different language, but they love Jesus with their whole heart."

Ironically, the Jewish community is filling the void.

"It's sort of nonsensical, but history repeats itself. One of the great allies for the displaced and persecuted Christians of the Middle East presently is the Jewish community," Moore said.

"The Jewish community sees a repetition of history, and it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the center that specializes in the study of genocide, that first said it was genocide against Christians in the Middle East."

Barton said rabbis recognize that Christians need to wake up.

"I'm hearing this from Jewish rabbis who are saying we appreciate the support. We appreciate you siding with Israel, guys, you got to save Christians, you got to stop this genocide," he said.

"So it's amazing that Jews who have been through this and get reminded of it – things like Yad Vashem and it's all around the country. They're saying Americans, Christians, wake up! You've got to save the Christians that are having the same Holocaust that we went through. And I find that powerful when it's being delivered by Jews who have been through it themselves. And they're now saying, Christians, wake up! It's your turn." 

"We're got to help these people, the way we hope someone would help us," Moore said. "We have to pray for them the way we hope someone would pray for us. We have to give to them the way we hope someone would give to us. And we have to speak up for them the way we hope someone would speak up for us."

1700-Year-Old Gravestones of Unknown Rabbis Uncovered in Northern Israel - by Michael Bachner BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

(Photo: Courtesy/TPS)

1700-Year-Old Gravestones of Unknown Rabbis Uncovered in Northern Israel

By Michael Bachner January 28, 2016  BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast the understanding.” (Job 38:4)

Three ancient gravestone epitaphs written in Aramaic and in Greek were recently uncovered in the Galilee region in northern Israel. The people commemorated in two of the inscriptions are described as rabbis, but their exact names and identities have yet to be identified by further research.

The two epitaphs end with the Hebrew greeting word “shalom” (meaning ‘hello’ or ‘peace’). The Greek inscription mentions the name “Jose”, which at the time had been a very common name among Jews in Israel and in the diaspora.

The gravestones were buried in the western part of the cemetery of the Jewish community of Zippori in the Lower Galilee region, which was a major Jewish city in ancient times. The information that ultimately led to the discovery originally came from residents of the community.

The excavation was conducted by researchers from the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archaeology in Kinneret College, and from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

“One of the surprises in the newly uncovered inscriptions is that one of the people buried is nicknamed as ‘The Tiberian’,” said Dr. Motti Aviam from the Kinneret College. “This is the second case of a person from Tiberias buried in the Zippori cemetery. Perhaps Jews from all around the Galilee chose to be buried in Zippori due to Judah the Prince’s important activities in the city.”

Judah the Prince, nicknamed simply ‘Rabbi’, was the chief redactor of the Jewish Mishnah (the first major work of Rabbinic literature) and he lived in Zippori during the Roman occupation. Zippori was the first capital of the Galilee region in Hasmonean times, until Tiberias was founded in the first century CE.

The city was a bustling Jewish center as indicated by the many artifacts discovered in the city, including Jewish ritual baths (mikveh) and 17 epitaphs, mostly in Aramaic which had been the spoken language among Jews at the time. Some of them also spoke and wrote in Greek.

“The significance of the gravestones lies in the fact they reflect the daily life of Jews in Zippori and their culture 1,700 years ago,” said Dr. Aviam.

Gravestone with Inscription in Aramaic Commemorating Rabbis, Uncovered in Zippori 27.1.16
Process of cleaning the inscription. (Photo: Miki Peleg, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)

“One of the inscriptions features the Hebrew word ‘leolam’ (meaning ‘forever’), for the first time in Zippori,” he added. “The word is known from epitaphs in other locations, and means in this context that their burial place shall remain his forever, without anyone robbing it from them.”

The inscriptions will be researched further, and the researchers believe that more research will likely produce new discoveries. The IAA and the Kinneret College also stated that the gravestones will be on display for the general public.

Evangelical Support for Israel is Under Threat - What You Can Do By Lea Speyer - BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

(Photo: Wagdi Ashtiyeh /Flash90)

Evangelical Support for Israel is Under Threat - What You Can Do

By Lea Speyer December 29, 2015    BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

Evangelical support for Israel is under threat as a growing trend of Christians consciously turning their backs on Israel continues to increase.

To address this major concern among the Christian Zionist and Jewish community, The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is hosting a groundbreaking conference, entitled “Get the Facts about the Assault on Christian Support for Israel,” exploring the troubling campaigns to undermine the historical and theological support for Israel among Christians.

“It is important to address threats against Evangelical support for Israel because this part of Christendom has historically been the largest and most consistent in their support of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State and defend itself against those who intend to annihilate it,” explained Tricia Miller, Christian Media Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, to Breaking Israel News.

“The existential dangers facing Israel are more intense than ever. Therefore, it is more important now than it has ever been for Christians to stand with Israel.”

While major Christian Zionist organizations, such as Pastor John Hagee’s 2 million strong Christians United for Israel (CUFI) or the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), the largest Evangelical Christian group supporting Israel financially, which is led by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, remain committed to their support of Israel, “recent trends in the Evangelical world point to a conscious turning away from Israel by some key members of this important part of Christendom,” explained Miller.

One of the major influences turning Christian Zionists into anti-Israel advocates is the “fallacious narrative promoted by Palestinian Christian leaders that is both anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.” With the emergence of a stronger and more organized politicized voice among the Palestinian Christian community, Miller stated, many American Evangelical leaders are responsible for “enabling and assisting the spread of a deceptive political agenda based on erroneous theology and have rewritten history.”

Theologically, Palestinian Christians are now claiming loudly and proudly that the Palestinians, not the Jews, are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. “Not only does this assertion deny the prophetic significance of the regathering of the Jewish people to their Biblical homeland that is supposed to be important to Christians, but the logical conclusion of this assertion is the belief that Jesus and the first disciples were Palestinians,” Miller told Breaking Israel News.

“As a result, Biblical history – that Evangelicals have believed in traditionally – is rewritten and the Christian faith is delegitimized.”

Significant examples of this growing trend and shift in theology is the popup of organizations such as Christ at the Checkpoint and the Bethlehem Bible College. The annual conferences run by these two organizations alone are, as Miller explained, the “primary promoters of virulent anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda.”

(Photo: Christ at the Checkpoint Facebook Page)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the Christ at the Checkpoint logo says it all. The logo depicts a church standing behind the security barrier built by Israel as a means to keep Palestinian terrorists out of Israel.

“Through their imagery and content, these conferences present a one-sided narrative that perpetuates the two millennia-old Christian doctrine that Jews are an obstacle to God’s purposes,” Miller told Breaking Israel News. “As a result, Jews are demonized, the Jewish state is delegitimized, and Christians are encouraged to accept the message in the name of peace and justice.”

The upcoming one-day CAMERA conference, which will take place in Los Angeles, CA, on January 18, has what can only be described as an all-star lineup of world renowned scholars and religious leaders committed to countering the false religious narratives and anti-Israel agenda turning away support for Israel among the Evangelical community.

Among the speakers taking part in the conference are Laurie Cardoza-Moore ThD, founder and president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, who will discuss the rising threat of replacement theology and the faulty theological foundation of the Palestinian Christian narrative; Rev. Gerald McDermott PhD, who will explore the historical and theological case for Christian support for Israel; Dr. Brad Young of Oral Roberts University, who will explain the Biblical reasons Christians are connected to the Jewish people and honoring Jews as the elder brother in faith; and highly esteemed Orthodox rabbi, Yitzchok Adlerstein, Director of Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

If you would like to learn more about the upcoming conference, click here.

LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE FEATURED BOOK

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STANDING FOR TRUTH IN A WORLD OF DECEPTION - Now Think On This – Book 4 Here are more encouraging messages written by Steve Martin for the Love For His People and Now Think On This blogs. 

They cover a variety of topics to encourage you, believers in Jesus, to stand strong in your daily walk, firmly committed for His plans and purposes in our nations. As the Lord would give Steve a word or two in his spirit, he would begin to write. 

With a prophetic and inspirational edge, these messages will be an encouragement to you to stand clear in your faith, fulfill the call on your life, and be a light to the nations, beginning within your own family and to those around you. 

These simple words are meant to be an addition to your daily Bible reading and prayer time. While the days growing darker, each of us must be built up in the faith of our forefathers and the Jewish writers of the Written Word, as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit. We must stand strong for truth in this world of deception which increasingly surrounds us.

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Under Threat: Belgian Jews Living Amidst Terrorists by Dale Hurd - CBN News

Under Threat: Belgian Jews Living Amidst Terrorists

By Dale Hurd

CBN News Sr. Reporter

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

BRUSSELS -- Jews have lived in Belgium for almost 2,000 years and the city of Antwerp has been called the "Jerusalem of the North."

Belgium used to be a safe place for Jews. Not anymore.

When Muslim terrorism explodes in Europe, Jews are often the target. Many have already left for Israel or the United States. Many of the killers in the recent Paris attack were Belgian Muslim radicals, the kind who are violently anti-Semitic.

Idyllic Years Over

In a series of interviews conducted before the attack in Paris, Belgian Jews told CBN News that life in Belgium was still good, but the possibility of danger was ever present.

"The idyllic years are over. The tranquil years are definitely over," Jewish leader and linguist Julien Klener said. "You can go to a grocery [store] and all of a sudden someone can shoot you down. You can go to a museum and the same can happen."

Klener was a "hidden child" during the Holocaust while half of Belgium's Jews were sent to Nazi death camps. Now, he must face it all again.

"How come the Shoah was not able to quiet down people about Jews?" he asked. "Why didn't it disappear into the oblivion of history like so many ludicrous approaches? Why is it still there? What have I done to deserve that?"

At the heavily guarded Jewish Tachkemoni School in Antwerp, Director Jan Maes explained the school's history to CBN News, including how in World War II it was liberated by Allied troops.

Maes shared how during part of the Nazi occupation, the principal was an SS officer.

"I know from one of the former students that he got his Star of David here in school," Maes said.

Today, the school's students are threatened again by forces that want to kill them.

"If we think it's not secure enough to let them go outside during the day, we keep all the students here during the day," Michael Greenberg, the head of Jewish Studies at Tachkemoni said.

"Most of them get over the fact that yes, for most of the activities you need protection, you need security. So the school is very safe," Maes said.

At Beth Chabad Synagogue in Brussels, Rabbi Shimon Lasker said he personally thinks reports of anti-Semitism have been overblown. And they removed the sign for the synagogue because it kept getting vandalized.

"They came in the middle of the prayers, the Jewish security, to announce when you go home, please be careful, don't walk too many people together, don't try to show that Jews are walking on the street. Can you imagine?" Lasker said of the reaction after a Jew was knifed in Belgium. "That's what we have to think about, how to walk on the street?"

Surrounded by Anti-Semitism

"Today you have anti-Semitism from the Left and the extreme Left; anti-Semitism that is going into a form that is called anti-Zionism and you have anti-Semitism from the Arab and Muslim communities," Vivian Teitelbaum, a member of the Brussels Region Parliament, said.

Teitelbaum said the government isn't doing enough to stop anti-Semitism.

"It's a problem in the schools, it's a problem on the street with graffiti on the wall, it's a problem of security, it's a problem in many different aspects of our daily lives," she said.

In the Flemish town of Mechelin, the Kazerne Dossin Holocaust Museum was built next door to a former German army barracks where Jews were deported to concentration camps.

Claude Marinouwer, vice chairman of the museum and vice mayor of Antwerp, said Jews today should not have to risk being attacked in the street for looking Jewish.

"There is no reason that a Jew, religious or not, should walk down a street in a city, whether it's with wearing a kipa or wearing a Star of David, with the fear of being attacked," he said.

Serge Rozen, president of the Jewish Congress in Belgium, is worried about the rise of anti-Semitism but cautions that what is happening today is not like the pre-Nazi period.

"When people start to compare the situation of the Jews now with before the war, I don't think that's relevant as a comparison," he said. "We're well integrated into the societies, the mainstream societies accept us, respect us, (and) the political authorities support us."

But it's a fair question to ask if some Jews are in denial over the danger they face. The same was asked of Jews in Europe during the pre-Nazi period of the 1930s when it said that "the pessimists left for New York. The optimists went to Auschwitz."

Even when the trains came for them, some Belgian Jews believed they were being taken to a better life, and not to certain death.

Today, many Jews choose to hope the situation will improve because they don't want to leave.

But with the Muslim migrant surge from the Middle East, even more anti-Semitism is being imported into Europe.

Baron Jacque Brotchi, a neurosurgeon and Belgian senator, said some immigrants "import the conflict from the Middle East."

"And due to that, the message is not a message of living together. It's not a message of love. It's a message of sometimes killing Jews," Brotchi said.

Children's Future

For most Jews everywhere, whether to stay or go comes down to the welfare of their children.

"The Jewish community of Belgium, I'm talking about people who were born in Belgium, are starting to ask themselves, is Belgium the place for the future of their children or the future of them to continue living," Rabbi Lasker said.

And for increasing numbers, the answer to that question is no.

"Security? Look…send your kids to a Jewish school here in Brussels or even in Antwerp. What do you see? Paratroopers? Is that a normal life?" Klener said.

After the recent Paris attacks, Zaka, the Israeli emergency response team, held drills with Belgian Jews on how to deal with terror attacks and so-called "mass casualty events," a clear sign that some fear the worst.

"Belgium has to start fighting so that its Jewish community can stay here," Teitelbaum warned. "Because a democracy that cannot defend its minorities is not a democracy anymore."

Dale Hurd also reported from Antwerp, Belgium.

Watch here: Jews in Belgium

Time to Accept Messianic Jews?

Israelis Ask: Time to Accept Messianic Jews?

Friday, November 22, 2013 |  Israel Today Staff  

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Messianic Jews

At least two Israeli news agencies on Thursday ran the same story wondering whether it was time for the mainstream Jewish community to finally accept Messianic Jews as a legitimate and vital part of the tribe.

The article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) highlighted former US President George W. Bush's recent keynote address at the annual conference of the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute in Dallas.

Mainstream American Jewish groups were incredulous that Bush would provide such legitimacy to a movement they view as a deceitful ploy to convert Jews away from Judaism.

But Messianic Jewish leaders told the JTA that while the "gatekeepers" of mainstream Judaism are often "overzealous" in their approach to Jewish believers in Yeshua (Jesus), most average Jews are welcoming.

Indeed, Israel Today has noticed much the same in our reporting from the Jewish state over the past decade. As mainstream Orthodox Jewish leaders become more vocal in their opposition to the Messianic community, mainstream Israeli society has actually become far more accepting.

Two years ago, Israel's government-controlled Channel One News broadcast a special segment that harshly criticized anti-missionary Orthodox groups for harassing Messianic Jews.

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