Category Archives: Kingdom of God

The Shuk in Jerusalem

Once again, it’s time to hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is —

Greetings, brothers and sisters, in Yeshua’s (Jesus’) Name.  May HE be glorified and blessed and made known, and may you be encouraged.

The name “Jerusalem” occurs 815 times in the Bible, 669 times in the Old Testament and 146 times in the New Testament; additional references to the city occur as synonyms.

The number of times will vary of course according to translation.  That used to scare me, [ie: how can TRUTH vary?] but the more I understand Hebrew, and the more I learn how to trust The Lord and His Holy Spirit, the less it scares me that translation differences occur.  His Truth IS and WILL BE and ALWAYS HAS BEEN and His Spirit can interpret it for our hearts.

It  seems that perhaps the fullness of time concerning Jerusalem is here and we must know what He says about this and where we stand concerning the city and His Word.  We must KNOW what God is saying about Jerusalem, for surely, though we may not fully understand why, it has a particular place in God’s heart and plans. 

Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalyim) is here.  It begins Saturday night and marks the 49th birthday of reunited Jerusalem, the beginning of the fiftieth (Jubilee) year.  [Interestingly, the Muslim’s month of celebrating Ramadan begins at the same time this year.]

Early this morning as I walked the two short blocks to work from my bus stop, a cloud of holiness pressed me into worship, a bowing down worship.  Multitudes of singing birds flew over my head and I began to count the flowering trees, bushes and plants along this very short route. Olive trees, pomegranates, passion fruit, grapes, lemons, oranges, shesek, almonds, apricot, the smell of the jasmine, mint, rosemary, hyssop, and nameless (to me) trees with blue flowers, purple flowers, red flowers and oh so much more.  The combination of the colors, the sweet smells and the songs of the birds overwhelmed me and my heart nearly burst.  This is Jerusalem!

“What is Jerusalem, Lord?  How does she appear to You and what do You feel about her? Teach me please…”

I have NEVER loved a city.  I ran from NYC where I was born, as soon as I was old enough, oppressed by the pressure of the too-many-people-and-too-much-noise all crammed together with its demands.  I longed for the wind of the country finding its way over the hills and through the trees whispering its own song.  And when we made aliyah some 22 years ago I didn’t think of coming to Jerusalem. But Derek Prince said it best: “You can not choose to live in Jerusalem, Jerusalem chooses whom she chooses.”

And I am still full of questions: “Who ARE you, Jerusalem?”

The sheer wonder of it all continued all through work today, and I HAVE to share with you.

“Where were you in 1967 at this time?” I asked in Hebrew nearly every patient that walked in to the clinic.  The reaction was UNIVERSAL.  All stopped and their eyes clouded over with wonder.

“b’mil’cha’ma?” (In the war?)  each asked.

Then they would stand still and look at me.

Shlomo Alkali turned a shining face to me before he had to run off. “I was in kita dalet [fourth grade].  We are 8th generation Jerusalemites. We all fought. I remember it as if it were today.”

Another said, “Although I was only two years old I remember it as if it were happening now. There was a wonder so that our skin stood on edge. I heard the sounding of the shofar. The people that had been dying stopped dying and were dancing in the streets instead.”

Dr. Wexler’s story was the one that brought me to tears (although they almost all did) because he is a bit fearsome.  He is now retired but a very famous doctor, artist, writer, highly regarded by one and all.  I haven’t spoken to him much.  But today, asking him this question transformed him.  I wish that my Hebrew were good enough to share with you the entire story, but I must admit that, although I fully understood and entered into the emotion of it, I did not understand all of the details, which this scientist described as nothing less than miraculous and holy.  As a matter of fact, the word “holy” was used by nearly everyone I spoke to today.  When I asked him where he was, he turned his face to me and stared with a profound silence. His face seemed to melt.  “I was a young doctor in the army, stationed in the Sinai,” he said.  “Right on the border with Egypt. There I was when the war started.  It was big.  Very big!  But the Bigger One fought for us and they miraculously surrendered to us the first day although we had nothing to defeat them.  I was rushed up to the Syrian border in a helicopter, where the fighting raged for another day: more miracles! Then I was rushed to Jerusalem, to Latrun first.  Each field hospital was full but we had to be rushed along the front where the fighting raged.  Then I was at the Old City when the line with Jordon came down.  You know, Jordon had all of this. It was a miracle. It is still a miracle.”

He spoke of being flown in helicopters held together with rubber bands and looking at Moti Gur and knowing he was a great man.  “He will be a General someday, I said to myself. ” You could feel the special mantle of authority on him.  This same Moti Gur became the General responsible for planning the famous Operation Entebbe to free the Israeli hostages held in Uganda in 1976.”

The stories went on.

“I was fighting for my home with my family,” one said.

Another said, “We lived near the wall and I followed the soldiers into the Old City!”

Each said that there was an electricity in the air that they never felt before or after. Their skin prickled with the wonder of the fact that they KNEW that they were part of a “holy event.”

I asked Bat El (her name means “daughter of God”) who is only in her 20s, if her mother, Ahovah (Beloved) told her about it.  She was vague. “My Grandmother told us all about it once and I think my Mother spoke of it, but I didn’t pay that much attention.”

I’ve gotten close to her mother who is undergoing cancer treatment and has grown fond of me.  I looked at Bat El and said, “You MUST ask her and ask her again until you feel as if you were there”  I showed the younger ones photocopies that I have of the proclamations signed by the Chief Rabbis and Generals thanking God and promising Him that we would guard Jerusalem and be faithful.  They HEARD and wanted to know more.

Here’s a link to more info on the 1967 Six Day War here.

And a great five minute video history of the war:

May we each be found IN HIM ALONE…With our eyes fixed upon Him…for His glory.

Lovingly,

your sister J

The Shuk in Jerusalem

Once again, it’s time to hear from our sister in Jerusalem about what she is witnessing there as a believer in Yeshua. Put your prayer shawls on and pray for Israel and Sister J. Now here she is —

Greetings, sisters and brothers,

I want to share a very special testimony.

I am deeply thankful that The Lord did not let me think I was okay so that my self-esteem wouldn’t be damaged.  I remember when the book, I’M OK, YOU’RE OK, was published years ago which basically stated that we are who we are and it’s okay.

OF COURSE to an extent, this is true.  He made us all with wonderful variations, just as He made the heavens and the earth His way, so creatively.  But I’ve also read and reread and reread again His Book and met Him who said “You, follow Me.” He has been faithful to tell me that I was NOT okay but that I was riddled with sin and desperately needed A Savior Whose Blood ALONE could atone for all that was NOT okay in me. And that I needed to confess and forsake those sins.  He EVEN is willing to gently lead me along the path that brings me over and over again to His True mirror where I can see myself in His Light and again say, “Oh no!  This stinks.  Help!” He is faithful.

One of the areas that I have stumbled at again and again is unforgiveness. I’m so thankful He hasn’t given up on me and I long to walk in constant forgiveness of others.  I have learned that unforgiveness (for me anyway) often clothes itself in nice “poor-me pity party” terms like rejection, victim, hurt, wounded, wronged, etc.  My flesh loves those terms and poor me becomes the focus instead of Almighty God.

The testimony of the woman below is that of an Israeli…NOT YET A BELIEVER…but I believe, a hero.  When “I’m ok and you’re ok” there ARE no more heroes. We don’t need them. They might make one of us feel badly and not so ok.  I am inspired by heroes to walk before Him Who is Holy.  Perhaps you will be too.  May the testimony of Smadar Haran encourage us all in this very upside down world.

Smadar Haran tells her story, brings journalists to tears.

Survior of the 1979 Nahariya terrorist attack tells her story to foreign war correspondents, who walk away in tears, shock at her lack of hate, and in awe of her refusal for revenge.

When Smadar Haran spoke, not a single pair of eyes around the table at the Rimon Hotel in Tzfat was without tears.

The foreign guests and journalists who sat around her – all of them veteran war correspondents – thought they had already written and seen everything. But this meeting with Haran, who lost who her husband Danny and her daughters Einat and Yael during the terror attack on Nahariya in 1979, somehow managed to shake them up. While with one hand they were writing down every word, with the other, they were wiping away tears.

This was the first time that the Foreign Ministry had ever flown in a delegation of European war correspondents. The purpose of the trip was to expose the journalists to the terror that Israelis have to deal with, and find correlations between the Israeli and European fight against terror.

The delegation was taught about the security arrangements at Ben Gurion International airport, received a tour of the Israeli border with Syria, and visited injured Syrians who were undergoing treatment at Ziv medical center in Tzfat. However, the headline of the trip was with Haran.

Smadar Haran meets with international journalists in Tzfat (Photo: Israeli Foreign Ministry)

“My story isn’t just my own personal story. It’s the story of the Jewish nation and of the State of Israel. It represents the spirit of the state of Israel,” Haran began.

She continued, “This is a national story, and although I’m a terror victim, I decided not to live like a victim and to re-build my life – just as my mother survived the Holocaust and re-built her life in Israel, just like how the Jews creatively re-built themselves any time there are losses or casualties.”

In 1979, terrorist Samir Kuntar infiltrated Israel on a rubber boat from Lebanon along with three other terrorists from the “Palestine Liberation Front.” The four came ashore in Nahariya, shot dead police officer Eliyahu Shahar and broke into the apartment of the Haran family. There, they took Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter Einat hostage while Smadar hid in a crawl space with two-year-old daughter Yael.

The scene of the Nahariya terror attack (Photo: Tzvi Roger)

Smadar accidentally smothered her daughter Yael to death while she was trying to stop the toddler from crying and revealing their hiding place.

Danny and meanwhile Einat were taken to the beach where a firefight ensued between the terrorists and police officers who arrived at the scene. Kuntar shot Danny Haran then smashed Einat’s skull with the butt of his rifle, killing her as well.

“After the attack in Nahariya,” Haran went on, “I thought about my values – what type of person I want to be – and I decided that I want to be a person full of giving, not hate. I didn’t seek revenge, and I decided that wherever my life is stopped or interrupted, I would continue anew.”

“I never left Nahariya, and I live there today – close to where everything happened. A lot of the people who came to mourn my loss were Arabs, and they live together with us. My children knew their children. The lives of the Arabs and the Jews are intertwined like a collage.”

Terrorist Samir Kuntar, who killed Smadar’s family, being warmly greeted by Syrian President Bashar Assad (Photo: AP)

When asked what she thought regarding the fact that Samir Kuntar, the man who killed her family, was freed by Israeli authorities, Haran said, “When others asked what I thought about Kuntar’s release, I wrote a letter to the prime minister saying that Kuntar isn’t my personal prisoner, and I’m not his personal jailer. I said the decision needs to be made for the greater good and be done with the best interests of the State of Israel in mind. I knew he would return to terror, it wasn’t something that surprised me.”

When she was asked what her feelings were when Kuntar was assassinated, she said, “To my surprise, I didn’t feel anything, but I was happy to know that he wouldn’t be carrying out any more terror attacks in the future.”

The foreign journalists left the meeting with the emotion showing on their faces.

“Smadar is a model to be emulated, a true hero. The thing that really amazed us was her lack of hate and need for revenge after everything she had been through.”

Sincerely,

Your sister J