NEWS FROM ISRAEL

May 26, 2002

An electronic periodical on the Jewish Christian scene in Israel, written from a Reformed point of view. News about events in Israel and the ministry in which the Maoz family is involved.

Theological Training

In this past year we had sent two of our younger church members for a one-year training course at the European Missionary Fellowship School of Evangelism in the UK. Following their return, we have much reason to give God thanks. The strenuous program was a tremendous spiritual help to the trainees both in terms of their comprehension of the Christian faith and their application of it. Grace and Truth has therefore decided to set up a Scholarship Fund, which will serve to assist others of our young adults to be trained at the EMF school of Evangelism or other such institutions.

GRACE AND TRUTH NEWS

Building Project

It was to be expected, but is a disappointment nevertheless; the Orthodox, who oppose our building project, have decided to appeal the case, further depleting our already reduced financial resources by some U.S. $40,000.- . Needless to say, we cannot consider the option of not arguing the case before the court. A meeting of Pastors and Elders in Israel will soon be called for consultation. Your prayers are earnestly sought.

Financial Responsibility

We are delighted to find that, despite the difficult economic situation in Israel, giving in Grace and Truth has exceeded our projected income by some 30%. We are glad to see that church members are expressing their commitment and sense of personal responsibility in this way.

A Sad Goodbye

We have suffered the loss of several members, who came to us from a Pentecostal background and fellowshipped with us for the last five or six years. They have come to the conclusion that the Pentecostal experience is too dear to them, and have opted to leave the church in order to exercise their Pentecostal gift. Our numbers have therefore been somewhat decreased to just under 400. However, spirits are high and people often come to the services with a good level of expectancy.

Pentecost Conference

As every year, Grace and Truth held its annual retreat during the Pentecost holiday in mid-May. Our guest speaker was Pastor Jim Adams of Mesa, Arizona, who taught several sessions on worship in the church, as a family and in private. On the second day of the conference, during the four-hour break between lunch and the evening sessions, several of our young people - including some of the deaf members - set out for the centre of town with a supply of tracts and booklets. One elderly deaf lady handed out tracts at traffic lights. Her handicap did not hinder her from urging drivers to take either a Hebrew or a Russian tract, nimbly avoiding traffic as she moved quickly from car to car, anxious to make sure as many people as possible had a chance to receive news of the Gospel. Our church evangelist and others engaged people in conversation in the streets. Though some made it clear that they really had 'no time' for such talk, and went on their way, we pray that the Lord will cause the seeds planted in their hearts to grow and to bring forth spiritual fruit.

We were joined during the conference by a Christian Arab congregation from a nearby village. Last year, a fanatical Muslim man from that same village blew him-self up in the Nahariya train station, killing and injuring several people. What a delight it is to see how the Lord makes a difference in the lives of his people: there was a blessed sense of unity and love, with no tense overtones. In the worship service on our final evening of the conference, we celebrated our unity in Christ with songs of praise in Arabic, Russian and Hebrew and sign language. We are now considering dates when we, as a congregation will visit our Arab brethren.

Politics and Religion

The MAC (Messianic Action Committee) has recently sent a brief update on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee on Constitution, Law and Justice (CL&J) to remove the religious censorship bill from further consideration by the Knesset.

The recommendation, which was on the Knesset's agenda last week, got bumped as a result of the policy debate led by the Prime Minister in the Knesset. The debate was not a scheduled part of the agenda at the beginning of last week. This forced much Knesset business to roll over to this week, including the censorship bill. We praise the Lord for this because it allowed more time for MAC materials to get into the hands of sympathetic and undecided Knesset members in advance of the vote.

According to this week's agenda, the Knesset should discuss the proposed law, though the revised budget debates beginning today may again affect scheduled business. Please keep praying that Knesset members, who have received our faxes and information packets, will peruse them and be prepared to vote the bill out of existence. For your information, a broad range of information in English and Hebrew concerning the Knesset, its business and personnel, is available from the Knesset website: http://www.knesset.gov.il/.

Terrorism and our Daily Lives

The Passover vacation is a traditional time for hikes and trips around the country. Nature is in full bloom, the weather is more comfortable than it has been or will be for the next four to six months, and school is out for three weeks. We tried to think where our church youth group should tour this year.

Jerusalem? Too dangerous. Galilee? There was an attack there
yesterday. Perhaps the Tel Aviv museum - yes, but the group could be caught in a traffic jam on the way, and become sitting ducks for an armed terrorist. Perhaps it is safest just to invite the children over and have a bar-b-que in our back yard. Well, a large gathering could spark the interest of evil men....

On the other hand, we can't allow terrorism to control our lives. We need to maintain normalcy to the utmost extent.

This evening one of our young boys has been invited to a friends' twelfth birthday party. The age of twelve is considered in Jewish tradition to be the most important birthday for young ladies. But celebrations have become the focal point of terrorist attacks. So the boy's father will accompany him to the party, and stand guard outside until it is time to bring him home. He will have his gun with him.

Please pray for us, and for the Palestinians. We all need divine help in this time of extreme need.

Was It Worth It? - an article from HaAretz Newspaper

The Russian immigrant community has been proportionately more victimised by terror than any other group. There are those who say they are buying their place in Israeli society with their blood. What could be more Israeli than that?

"I wonder if it was worth it (to immigrate) when nationalism is on the rise, and there are moments when I fear that fascism will take over here," says Vera, who arrived in the 1990s from St. Petersburg. She is an odd bird in the immigrant community, a committed 'leftist' involved in Ta'ayush, an Israeli-Palestinian joint Action Committee that visits Palestinians, bringing food and clothes to families in distress. "I'm asked a lot why I don't leave," she says, "and I don't have an unequivocal answer to the question. " It's not the security situation that makes her wonder whether she should stay, but what she calls the 'moral' issue. She doesn't think it's right to live in a country where "Death to the Arabs' is spray-painted on the walls.

Rider, who is not Jewish, says that in Russia she went to demonstrations against anti-Semitism, and Russians would tell her she just 'doesn't understand the Jewish mentality'. Here, they tell her she doesn't understand the Arabs. Before her son was drafted into the army, she suggested he stay in Paris and go to the Sorbonne. "Why come back to Israel and go to the army when they don't even consider you a Jew?", she asked him while on a visit to Paris. Her son replied that, while he has the same political views as she does, he wanted to go back to Israel to serve. "I'm a citizen of the State and I want to serve it," he told her.

That astonished her. "It was something totally new to me", she said. "In Russia, nobody thought of them-selves as a responsible citizen; if there is enough democracy here to give my son the feeling of civic participation, then maybe there really is something beautiful here."

The same sensibility motivates most of the Russians who are asked if it was worth immigrating to Israel. Practically nobody answers that security is an issue. It's almost always the economy and society; issues of making a living, the character of Israeli society, the difficulties posed by the Orthodox monopoly, the attitude towards immigrants and the humiliations many experience here.

"Was it worth it?" Edward R. ponders. "At the time, it was very much worth it. Now I simply don't have an answer. The conflict bothering him then was not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the one between veteran Israelis and immigrants. It wasn't only the shouts of 'stinking Russian, go home' in the schoolyard, but a knife wound he suffered in a brawl. During the past ten years, he finished high school and served in
the air force as a helicopter mechanic, Now he's finishing his
matriculation exams, so he can study computer science. Meanwhile, he works as a guard.

Every night at work, whenever he turns the radio to a Russian station, a veteran Israeli co-worker comes by and changes the station. "This is Israel; speak Hebrew', he commands. The 'State' may have welcomed him happily, but did not treat him well. Angrily, he pulls his identity card out of his pocket and points to the nation-ality article. "Armenian", it says. He grew up as a Jew - until he immigrated to Israel and a clerk at the Interior Ministry discovered Edward had an Armenian grandmother. He is both angry and amazed at the situation.

21-year-old Ina arrived from Ukraine 18 months ago, just as the Intifada broke out. Her mother is an engineer who cleans floors; her father, an electrical engineer, works as an electrician. But, compared to the Ukraine, life here is an improvement. It isn't terror that deters her, it's the attitude. "There are a lot of people here who don't like immigrants," she says. When asked if she would still have come, she answers, "I don't know."

MaozNews A periodic report from Israel. Tel. +972 8 869 2542, Fax. +972 8 869 2532

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