Richard & Carolyn Hyde - Heart of G-D Ministries update

Heart of G-d Ministries August, 2013

Dear Friends and Prayer Partners,

Please pray for our three beautiful daughters, all of whom are experiencing a softening of heart like never before. We know that many of you have prayed for them by name over the years and oh, how we thank you! We are in awe right now.

We were driving here in upstate New York when I first opened the email. I asked Richard to pull the car over because I was so overcome with emotion. Through tears we read our son Ariel's letter about the openness of heart of our precious daughters and how G-d is drawing them to himself.

The first place where Richard could pull over just "happened" to be the congregation where we ministered this past Sunday: Crossroads Christian Church. Richard and I looked at each other and looked up to G-d with gratitude and realized that each of our daughters is at the crossroads so we prayed this word over them: Jeremiah 6:16 - Thus says the L-rd: "Stand by the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls."

May all our prodigals and yours find rest for their souls; a rest that can only be found in Yeshua.

IN NYC TO HAND OUT ALIYAH BROCHURES THIS WEEKEND THEN COMING HOME!

Testimonies from this Summer's Journey

"Oh, I wish I could have a vision of Yeshua like you did. Tell me more about Him", the wife of the Rabbi's son asked.

"You're an absolute disgrace to the family," declared one of my (Carolyn's) relatives. After she calmed down, she let me explain for the first time why I follow Yeshua. It so touched her heart that when it was time to leave, she wouldn't stop hugging me and through tears told me she loved me.

"You know I believe in Yeshua now!" declared one of my cousins. "I had a miracle and He healed me".

Richard had a divine appointment with an Egyptian Muslim and shared Yeshua with him. He proclaimed that we, Israelis and Egyptians, are now friends.

We got lost looking for a restaurant and just "happened" to end up at a middle eastern store. As we were leaving the he owner asked us where we were from. Finding out, he, said "Ma Nishma" - "What's New". As we continued to speak to him in Hebrew he began to cry because he wants to return to Israel so badly!

During the past two summers at two large Messianic congregations we've held Aliyah seminars. We've met with many Jewish believers who expressed an interest in Aliyah. This year we were told that there would be no need for meetings because several of the families have already made Aliyah and others have sold their homes and are about to come Home to Israel!

At one meeting the mother of a Jewish family said, "For the first time ever, the L-rd has put an urgency in my heart to make Aliyah." Two families at the same meeting said the same thing - "There's an urgency to come Home!"

Worship event in the Valley of Ben Hinnom

If you'll be in Jerusalem from September 17-23, please join us and many local believers as we wait upon the L-rd like Jehoshaphat did in II Chronicles20:12. "Our G-d, will You not judge our enemies? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You."

On this past Shavuot at 9 in the morning we began to hear thunder in the Galilee. But it was not sporadic thunder; it was continuous, nonstop thunder for one whole hour! As we ventured outside to prayer walk in this thunder, we ran into one of our neighbors who came to Israel from Yemen as a child in 1948. When we asked her if she had ever heard anything like this before, she replied, "No, and this is scaring me - it makes me want to fall on my face!" After one hour the rumblings of thunder ceased and a strong wind came up suddenly. Then the rains came and drenched the earth. This was the malkosh - the latter rain! The times are at hand.

G-d tells us in Hosea11:10 that one day the Jewish people will come "Trembling from the West".... There are over 6 million Jews still in America. Will the stance that the occupant of the Oval Office has taken with regard to the releasing of violent prisoners, dividing Jerusalem and giving away the Jewish Homeland of Judeah and Samaria lead to an disaster here in America that will cause the Jews to come to Israel, "Trembling from the West"?

The new "Supernatural or Just Remarkable" booklets show how G-d has been faithful to keep His promises to the Jewish people, so you can be certain that He will fulfill His promises to you. G-d is still sovereign over history, and is still actively fulfilling His Word and performing wonders in our time!

The Bible isn't just some collection of interesting tales, but is divinely inspired and has authority over our lives. We'd like to thank all of you who have committed to support this project on a monthly basis. There's a lot more than just printing involved in this project - there's researching, writing, editing and designing new booklets, there's outreach to the lost, and training and equipping Israeli believers to effectively share the love of Messiah. Please click here to order booklets and/or partner with us. Thank you so much!



 

Thank you for partnering with us as we reach out with the love of Messiah to our people Israel and wherever the L-rd sends us! We appreciate your help with the Psalm 91 bandanas, the booklets and CD outreaches as we share Messiah's love and light.




Blessings in Yeshua's love,
Richard and Carolyn Hyde
Heart of G-d Ministries http://www.heartofg-d.org
Israel: PO Box 112, Poriya Kfar Avoda 15220
USA: PO Box 461546, San Antonio, Texas 78246
Canada: FIRST CENTURY FOUNDATIONS / Canadian charitable tax # 10780-1771-RR0001
Box 234 * Milton, ON * L9T 4N9 * Canada 1-877-628-2800 * www.firstcenturyfoundations.com


Click on the CD covers for song samples and enjoy!


We write G-d and L-rd like this according to an ancient Orthodox Jewish custom that Carolyn grew up with and loves to continue. This is done only out of reverence and respect for the name of the Holy One of Israel. Thank you for understanding.

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Heart of G-d Ministries | PO Box 461546 | San Antonio | TX | 78246

Editor's Note: We support the Hydes monthly through our Love For His People, Inc. work. I hope you will too!  

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Natan is an artist. He is a Holocaust survivor.

Rachel Boskey

Aug. 23, 2013

Shabbat Shalom dear Facebook friends!

I want to introduce you a dear couple whom Avner Boskey and I have come to love in the last years -- Natan Friedman and his wife Shoshana. Natan and Shoshana live in our town. 

Natan is an artist. He is a Holocaust survivor who escaped death by assuming the identity of a Polish child and living in a monastery. After World War Two, Natan sailed with thousands of others, mostly young people, on the famous “Exodus” ship and he stood on Israel’s shores briefly in August 1947. But all of the Jewish people on the “Exodus” were refused entry to their homeland and were sent back to Europe.

 Natan finally arrived in Israel on May 15, 1948. In Israel, Natan became an accomplished scientist. His wife Shoshana was a schoolteacher with a master’s degree in English literature. They have two children and seven grandchildren. 

Natan has created many amazing works of art over the years, both paintings and sculptures. Some of them reflect the traumas and horrors he experienced as a Jewish child in Poland and many others reflect his life of many years in Israel. Next week Natan and his art will be featured on an Israeli TV program. 

Today I was privileged to photograph some of Natan’s works which will be shown on the TV program. To know Natan and Shoshana is to love them! — with Avner Boskey and ‎נתן פרידמן‎. (16 photos)

Ahava Love Letter - "Oskars Needed Again?"

 

“Oskars Needed Again?” “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 NAS

Dear family of friends,

In an earlier Ahava Love Letter I wrote about Little Orphan Chuckie, the abandoned baby squirrel I found laying on the church park ground. At first glance he seemed lifeless. But when I stooped down to look further, I could tell he was breathing, and so I picked him up. A day later I was able to locate assistance for him for needed care. You can read the full story in the letter entitled, “Little Oprhan Chuckie – All Creatures Great and Small – The Lord Loves Them All.” It was a touching story I must admit.

In many situations I try to seek the Lord, to hear what He is saying. He is speaking quite often, and it is my desire to better listen. I want to know His voice clearer, and so I asked Him, “What more do you want to tell me about the baby squirrel situation?”

Following is that which I think He wanted to convey. It begins with a man named Oskar.

In 1993 a movie named Schindler’s List came out on the big screen in simple black and white. That in itself was telling as to how the movie would be played out. Directed by Steven Spielberg, it was a compelling story about Oskar Schindler, the man credited for saving over 1200 Jews from the gas ovens during the Holocaust in World War II. As do most historical films about the Jewish people, and Israel, it helped deepen my convictions in regards to support of the Jews, and others like them who have been extremely mistreated. Another stone had been placed in the strong foundation being built in my life, for His purposes He has planned ahead.

As I watched the film in the Ft. Lauderdale, FL with my good wife Laurie, I was gripped by the compassion Oskar had, as acted out by Liam Nesson. Because of his convictions, he worked to save many of the Jews his private industrial company had employed, from the murdering Nazi death trains and camps. What a testimony of what one man can do if he hears the call and obeys. (I never knew Schindler was a Catholic until very recently, which impressed me when I read more of his biography. Being raised a Catholic myself, it was good to read that. I have included part of his life’s bio below.)

I believe the day is coming when many Oskars will be needed again; those who will be called upon by the Lord to step out in courage and faith, to stand up and be counted in His camp of faith, mercy and love. The night is getting darker, and we will be needed to protect and help defend those among us whom the deceived will seek to steal, kill and destroy.

There is coming a powerful move of the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) upon the true Church and modern day Righteous Ones, as the Jewish memorial museum Yad Vashem calls them. I believe I will be one, and so said to the Lord many years ago, “Here I am. Use me.”

I am preparing myself for that end. I hope you do too.

Ahava (love in Hebrew) to my family of friends,

Steve Martin

Founder/President

Love For His People, Inc. is a charitable, not-for-profit USA organization. Fed. ID#27-1633858.

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Tax deductible contributions receive a receipt for each donation.

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Todah rabah! (Hebrew - Thank you very much.)

Oskar Schindler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist, German spy, and member of the Nazi party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark, and the subsequent 1993 film Schindler's List, which reflected his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, and dedication in order to save the lives of his Jewish employees.

Schindler grew up in Zwittau, Moravia, and worked in several trades until he joined the Abwehr, the intelligence service of Nazi Germany, in 1936. He joined the Nazi Party in 1939. Prior to the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he collected information on railways and troop movements for the German government. He was arrested for espionage by the Czech government but was released under the terms of the Munich Agreement in 1938. Schindler continued to collect information for the Nazis, working in Poland in 1939 prior to the invasion of that country at the start of World War II.

In 1939 Schindler obtained an enamelware factory in Kraków, Poland, which employed around 1,750 workers, of whom a thousand were Jews at the factory's peak in 1944. His Abwehr connections helped Schindler protect his Jewish workers from deportation and death in the Nazi concentration camps. Initially Schindler was interested in the money-making potential of the business. Later he began shielding his workers without regard for the cost. As time went on, Schindler had to give Nazi officials ever larger bribes and gifts of luxury items obtainable only on the black market to keep his workers safe.

As Germany began to lose the war in July 1944, the Schutzstaffel (SS) began closing down the easternmost concentration camps and evacuating the remaining prisoners westward. Many were killed in Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Schindler convinced SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth, commandant of the nearby Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, to allow him to move his factory to Brünnlitz in the Sudetenland, thus sparing his workers from certain death in the gas chambers. Using names provided by Jewish Ghetto Police officer Marcel Goldberg, Göth's secretary Mietek Pemper compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jews who travelled to Brünnlitz in October 1944. Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent the slaughter of his workers until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, by which time he had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers.

Schindler moved to Germany after the war, where he was supported by assistance payments from Jewish relief organizations. After receiving a partial reimbursement for his wartime expenses, he moved with his wife to Argentina, where they took up farming. When he went bankrupt in 1958, Schindler left his wife and returned to Germany, where he failed at several business ventures and relied for financial support on his Schindlerjuden ("Schindler Jews") – the people whose lives he had saved during the war. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1963 and died on 9 October 1974.

Legacy

Films and book

Steven Spielberg (1999)

In 1951, Poldek Pfefferberg approached director Fritz Lang and asked him to consider making a film about Schindler. Also on Pfefferberg's initiative, in 1964 Schindler received a $20,000 advance from MGM for a proposed film treatment titled To the Last Hour. Neither film was ever made, and Schindler quickly spent the money he received from MGM. He was also approached in the 1960s by MCA of Germany and Walt Disney Productions in Vienna, but again nothing came of these projects.

In 1980, Australian author Thomas Keneally by chance visited Pfefferberg's luggage store in Beverly Hills while en route home from a film festival in Europe. Pfefferberg took the opportunity to tell Keneally the story of Oskar Schindler. He gave him copies of some materials he had on file, and Keneally soon decided to make a fictionalized treatment of the story. After extensive research and interviews with surviving Schindlerjuden, his 1982 historical novel Schindler's Ark (published in the United States as Schindler's List) was the result.

The novel was adapted into the 1993 movie Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg. After acquiring the rights in 1983, Spielberg felt he was not ready emotionally or professionally to tackle the project, and he offered the rights to several other directors. After he read a script for the project prepared by Steven Zaillian for Martin Scorsese, he decided to trade him Cape Fear for the opportunity to do the Schindler biography. In the film, the character of Itzhak Stern (played by Ben Kingsley) is a composite of Stern, Bankier, and Pemper. Liam Neeson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Schindler in the film, which won seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

Other film treatments include a 1983 British television documentary produced by Jon Blair for Thames Television entitled Schindler: His Story as Told by the Actual People He Saved (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story),and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.

Schindler's suitcase

In 1997 a suitcase belonging to Schindler containing historic photographs and documents was discovered in the attic of the apartment of Ami and Heinrich Staehr in Hildesheim. Schindler had stayed with the couple for a few days shortly before his death. Staehr's son Chris took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where the documents were examined in detail in 1999 by Dr. Wolfgang Borgmann, science editor of the Stuttgarter Zeitung. Borgmann wrote a series of seven articles, which appeared in the paper from 16 to 26 October 1999 and were eventually published in book form as Schindlers Koffer: Berichte aus dem Leben eines Lebensretters ; eine Dokumentation der Stuttgarter Zeitung (Schindler's Suitcase: Report on the Life of a Rescuer). The documents and suitcase were sent to the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem in Israel for safekeeping in December 1999.

Copies of the list

Schindler's desk at Emalia sits near a tinware sarcophagus with a copy of his famous list inside.

In early April 2009, a carbon copy of one version of the list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by author Thomas Keneally. The 13-page document, yellow and fragile, was filed among research notes and original newspaper clippings. The document was given to Keneally in 1980 by Pfefferberg when he was persuading him to write Schindler's story. This version of the list contains 801 names and is dated 18 April 1945; Pfefferberg is listed as worker number 173. Several authentic versions of the list exist, as the names were re-typed several times as conditions changed in the hectic days at the end of the war.

One of four existing copies of the list was offered at a ten-day auction starting on 19 July 2013 on EBay at a reserve price of $3 million. It received no bids.

Other memorabilia

In August 2013, a one-page letter signed by Schindler on 22 August 1944 sold in an online auction for $59,135. The letter noted Schindler's permission for a factory supervisor to move machinery to Czechoslovakia. The same unknown auction buyer had previously purchased 1943 construction documents for Schindler's Krakow factory for $63,426.

 Please share this Ahava Love Letter with your friends.

E-mail: loveforhispeople@gmail.com  martinlighthouse@gmail.com

Facebook pages: Steve Martin  and  Love For His People   

Twitter: martinlighthous, LovingHisPeople and ahavaloveletter 

Blog: http://loveforhispeople.blogspot.com   

Full website: www.loveforhispeople.org

YouTube: Steve Martin (loveforhispeopleinc)

Ahava Love Letter #71   “Oskars Needed Again?”  ©2013 Steve Martin 

Date: In the year of our Lord 2013 (08/23/13 Friday at 7:45 am in Charlotte, NC)

All previous editions of Ahava Love Letter can be found on this Blog:

 http://loveforhispeople.blogspot.com   

Here are the last few:

Little Orphan Chuckie (#70)

Demons & Fire Trucks (#69)

I Like Mike (#68)

Disappointed with Small Beginnings? (#67)

Rise Again (#66)

The Cities (#65)

How can You Mend A Broken Heart (#64)

Anxious (#63)

Hidden (#62)

Get Back in the Boat (#61)

Need Money? (#60)

Israel Blamed for Collapse on Temple Mount - CBNNews.com

Israel Blamed for Collapse on Temple Mount

CBNNews.com

Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013

JERUSALEM, Israel --The Muslim al-Aksa Foundation and Cultural Heritage Organization blamed Israel for the collapse of an area near the Bab as Silsila on the western side of the al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

The organization accused Israel of "paving the way for demolishing the al-Aksa Mosque by building new settlements and digging dozens of tunnels," Turkey's Anadolu news agencyreported.

"The collapse has caused a deep hole there," eyewitness Cum'a Usayle told the agency. "It is dangerous for the al-Aksa Mosque. It poses danger especially for children and women."

Usayle said it is the second collapse in the area within the past five years.

According to the report, Israel had taken no security precautions around the area and has yet to issue a statement about the incident.

Israel is responsible for security arrangements on the Temple Mount, while the Wakf, the Islamic trust, is in charge of day-to-day administrative duties.

Though the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples, Muslims are the only ones permitted to pray at the Temple Mount. Many attend Friday prayers at the shrine known as the Dome of the Rock.

Israeli archaeologists have long complained of the Wakf authorizing the destruction of First and Second Temple-era artifacts there as a way to erase evidence of the Jewish connection to the area.

At the entrance to the Temple Mount, a Wakf posted a sign that reads, "The Al-Aksa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property."

HIGHWAY TO ZION ASSEMBLY - Shmuel Suran from Israel Friday, Aug. 23, 2013

Shalom, Shalom, Friends of the God of Israel!

This is your official invitation to attend the upcoming

 Highway to Zion Assembly.

I N V I T A T I O N!

HIGHWAY TO ZION ASSEMBLY

Worship, Dance, Shabbat Candle-lighting

~ I N T R O D U C I N G ~

Shmuel Suran

Director and Founder

CHAZON YERUSHALAYIM MINISTRIES
Jerusalem, Israel
www.jerusalemvision.com
www.jerusalempropheticart.com

Shmuel and Pamela Suran are the Founders and Directors of Chazon Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Vision) and serve the Lord in Jerusalem. Their unique calling is "to bear witness to Yeshua, our Lord and King" in the Land of Israel. 

They are also Directors of the Jerusalem Prophetic Art and the Jerusalem Healing Rooms. Pamela is an internationally recognized Israeli Artist and licensed Israeli Tour Guide. 

They minister together in Jerusalem, U.S. and Europe representing Messianic Congregations, speaking about Israel, Jerusalem, Messianic Jews, prayer and intercession, the end times, and reconciliation between Messianic Jews and Christian Arabs.

On a Personal Note from Cathy -

Cathy Hargett - Founder/Director Highway To Zion

It has been a very great blessing for us at Highway to Zion Ministries to know the Surans - we truly consider them mishpocha (family) and praise the Lord for knitting us together with them as one new man. 

When we visit Israel, Pamela guides our tours and we always visit with Pam and Shmu at Chazon. Our relationship with them deepens each year and their insights and perspectives as those who have been on the forefront of the Messianic movement in the Land of Israel are so encouraging and exhilarating as we all walk out the endtime Word of the Lord.

We anticipate that this Assembly will be a time of gaining great insight from Shmu about the progression of growth, both spiritually and physically, in the Messianic community in the Land and also of hearing from Shmu about his testimony - a very compelling story!

Ahava Love Band!

 (Messianic Worship) 

Leaders - Steve & Laurie Martin of Love for His People 

with Patty Paquette,  Ron Bowen, Wane Daroux and our newest member Tom Fahey

  Pictured: (L-R) Laurie Martin, Ron Bowen, 

Steve Martin, Wane Daroux, Patty Paquette. 
Not pictured: Tom Fahey)

Worship Dance!

Congregational worship dance with Highway to Zion Messianic Worship Dancers and representatives from Beit Yeshua’s Machol Dancers and anyone and everyone – whosoever will! -  who wants to come forward and dance together as the sons and daughters of the God of Israel, in the joy, praise, and worship of Yeshua ha Mashiach!

Location:

Raintree Country Club

8600 Raintree Lane

Charlotte, NC  28277

RSVP
if you're coming! 
Highwaytozion@aol.com

Why All the Hype? Duck Dynasty a Cable Ratings Hit

By Jennifer Wishon

CBN News White House Correspondent

WEST MONROE, La. -- Across America people are getting ready Wednesday to tune into one of the most popular shows on TV, "Duck Dynasty."

Last week's season premiere on the Arts and Entertainment Network made cable ratings history.

CBN News recently traveled to Duck Commander Headquarters in West Monroe, La., to find out what all the hype is about.

Unlikely Stars

Some days people wait hours just to take a picture in front of the Duck Commander sign.

It's an unlikely recipe for TV: the long haired, bearded Robertson men, who are sometimes mistaken as homeless despite their fame.

Their beautiful wives, combined with hunting and faith in God, is a concoction many Americans can't get enough of.

"They promote family," one woman said. "They promote Christian beliefs and it's funny. It's entertaining. It's just an all-around family-oriented show."

Another fan agreed, saying, "It's extremely funny. I mean I watched it the other night and I'm like crying I'm laughing so hard."

Three generations of one family made Duck Commander a stop on their vacation.

"It's just a good family show with good family qualities so it's just fun to watch and it makes you feel good," one family member said.

When the show started gaining traction, the Robertsons say folks would show up at Duck Commander and just hang out. So over the past year, the family has worked hard to make their fans feel more at home.

Now, along with duck calls, the Robertsons stock merchandise about them that their fans gobble up.

"It's so awesome," another Duck Dynasty fan said. "I mean you see all this on TV and then you're here and it's just surreal."

Viewers say the show is so appealing because it's wholesome, a refreshing escape from a world that often forgets what's really important.

"I think they're good role models for the family," one fan said. "And things are so fast paced it seems like when you watch that show it kind of just puts things back into perspective and just puts a smile on your face."

Watch the CBN News video: Duck Dynasty A Hit

German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first German leader to visit the Dachau.

“Even unto them will I give in My house and within My walls a monument and a memorial better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting memorial, that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah 56:5)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Dachau concentration camp, marking the first time a sitting leader has visited a camp located inside the country. (Photo: Planet Soil News)

On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first German leader to visit the Dachau concentration camp during her tenure.  She delivered a short speech, laid a wreath, and toured the camp.  She also met with survivors, including Max Mannheimer, the 93-year-old president of the Dachau camp committee and a former inmate.  He was imprisoned there in 1944.

Although previous German leaders have visited Nazi death camps outside of Germany, this marks the first time a sitting leader has visited Dachau, located inside the country.  According to Dieter Graumann, the head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, the visit recognizes that Nazi atrocities were not something that happened only outside of Germany, but also “among us.”

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, the region where Dachau is located, called the visit “a strong and important symbol.”

“There are several concentration camps, like Auschwitz, abroad, and for decades chancellors and German presidents have been travelling to these places of horrible German crimes and taking historical responsibility,” she said.

“But the fact that she’s visiting a location within Germany where these unimaginable crimes took place, that doesn’t happen so often … it shows her determination and will to learn the right lessons from history.”

Dachau opened in 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler came to power, the first in Germany.  It was a prison camp for political prisoners initially, and served as a model for the camps to come.  Ultimately, over 200,000 Jews, gays, Roma, political opponents, the disabled and prisoners of war were imprisoned in Dachau during World War II, and 41,000 lost their lives.

The plan to visit the camp came up after Merkel was invited to speak at Bavarian conservative rally in the city from which the camp takes its name.  Mannheimer had long been pressing Merkel to visit the concentration camp, and she agreed to take the opportunity to make the visit prior to the rally.

At the rally, she told her audience, “At the time when the camp was operating near here, those who wanted to could have seen and could have heard what was going on. It is today so important that it never happens again that we allow ourselves to decide not to see and not to hear.”  Similarly, in a recent podcast she warned, “We must never allow such ideas [Holocaust denial and right-wing extremism] to have a place in our democratic Europe.”

But not everyone was impressed with the timing of Merkel’s visit.  Merkel is campaigning for re-election in September, and some of her critics saw the move as “tasteless” electioneering.  ”If you’re serious about commemoration at such a place of horrors, then you don’t pay such a visit during an election campaign,” Renate Kuenast, leader of the opposition Green Party, told the Leipziger Volkszeitung daily paper.  The Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper called Merkel’s timing “unwise…on the sidelines of a campaign appearance in a beer tent at the Dachau funfair.”  German historian and Holocaust expert Wofgang Benz particularly criticized the casual atmosphere she created “by laying a wreath and expressing condolences just before going off to a beer tent.

Still, Jewish community leaders hailed what Merkel herself called, “a very special moment.”

Check the site out further: Breaking Israel News website