Breaking: Israel suffers massive rocket attack, returns fire

November 16, 2018

Breaking Israel News:

  • Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman resigned Wednesday over the security cabinet's decision to reach a cease-fire with Hamas

  • Many in Israel say the truce with Hamas is tantamount to surrender to terrorists and point out that rockets continue to fly

  • More than 460 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israeli communities within 24 hours starting Sunday night

  • A 19-year-old soldier was in critical condition after an anti-tank rocket struck a military bus
     
  • The army stated that at least 100 rockets had been intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, but others caused severe damage
     
  • In response to the rocket barrage, Israel Air Force jets, helicopters, and tanks struck more than 160 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets across the Gaza Strip, including three attack tunnels

Meanwhile, Trump imposes ‘toughest-ever’ sanctions on Iran

The new sanctions, which will affect the regime’s banking, energy and shipping industries, went into effect last week.  

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “historic day” and something that “will add a very severe blow to Iran’s terrorist regime.” He previously said Israel was already seeing a positive impact from U.S. economic sanctions that began in August.

To minimize the effect on global oil prices of the latest installment of sanctions, the U.S. granted 180-day waivers to eight countries: China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, Taiwan, and Turkey. This is 12 fewer countries than the Obama administration granted when it imposed similar restrictions on Iran. Turkey has said it won’t comply with the sanctions that it deemed “unbalancing the world.”

“We have the toughest sanctions ever imposed, but on oil we want to go a little bit slower because I don’t want to drive (up) the oil prices in the world,” President Trump told reporters on his way to a campaign event. “I could get the Iran oil down to zero immediately, but it would cause a shock to the market. I don’t want to lift oil prices.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters, “The Iranian regime has a choice. It can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlaw course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble.”

Iran Remains Defiant

“We are in (an) economic war situation,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said after the U.S. unveiled the latest sanctions. “We are confronting a bullying enemy. We have to stand to win.”

Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ airspace division, said, “We have managed to make land-to-sea ballistic, not cruise, missiles that can hit any vessel or ship from 700 kilometers.”

That’s 435 miles, up from 180 miles in 2008. This admission supports President Trump’s criticism that the 2015 nuclear deal failed to protect the world from Iran’s ballistic missiles program or its support for terrorist proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran.

Iran has sponsored terrorists and stockpiled weapons inside Gaza, resulting in the Iran-funded Hamas’ barrage of hundreds of rockets into southern Israel on Monday. “Hundreds of Red Alert sirens rang out across Israel, including one as far as the Dead Sea,” reported The Jerusalem Post.

Impact of Sanctions on the World

Reuters reported the day after the latest sanctions that, “Iran said it has so far been able to sell as much oil as it needs and urged European countries opposed to U.S. sanctions to do more to shield Iran.”

Still, Ari Shapiro of NPR reported, “More than a million barrels a day of crude oil have been taken off the global market thanks to the Trump administration's decision to sanction Iranian oil exports.”

“Everyone from China to the U.K. has opposed breaking the nuclear deal to penalize Iran’s regional bad behavior,” wrote Time Magazine's National Security Correspondent W.J. Hennigan on November 8. “And as the 2015 deal showed, getting Iran to back down requires a unified front.”

“The only thing the Iranian leadership deems more dangerous than suffering from sanctions is surrendering to them,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based nonprofit that says it works "to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world.”

“Whether the exemptions, or the willingness of powerhouse Asian countries to help Iran weather the US sanctions, will mean the sanctions are insufficient to change the Islamic Republic’s behavior remains to be seen,” wrote Yonah Jeremy Bob, The Jerusalem Post’s intelligence, terrorism and legal analyst.

Please join us in praying:

  • Thanking God that the Trump Administration has taken serious and appropriate steps to stop Iran’s aggression

  • That other nations will join the U.S. in efforts to protect Israel from Iran-based terrorism

  • For the safety of Israelis targeted by Iran’s proxies
  • For Jewish people in Israel and worldwide to accept Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah.

Your gift to Jewish Voice today supports our ministry partners in Israel who actively work for peace. You will help make our Outreaches possible, which deliver medical help and hope to Jewish people and their neighbors in Israel, Africa and throughout the world.

What is Jesus’ Name in Hebrew?

November 08, 2018

We read “Jesus” in our English Bibles, but what is Jesus’ name in Hebrew?

Jesus’ name in Hebrew is Yehoshua (Yeh-HO-shoo-ah), which, over time, became contracted to the shorter Yeshua (Yeh-SHOO-ah).

What Does Yeshua Mean?

Yehoshua, and therefore Yeshua as well, means “the Lord is salvation.”

In the Greek New Covenant, the word used for Jesus is Iesous (ee-ay-SOOS). Iesous is not a translation of Jesus’ name in Hebrew, but rather it is a transliteration.

A translation takes the meaning of a word in one language and assigns it the equivalent word with the same meaning in a different language. For instance, translated into Spanish, the English word “red” is “roja.”

A transliteration takes the letters of a word from one language and finds like-sounding letters of the second language to create a new word in that language. For example, the English word “baptize” is a transliteration of the Greek word baptizo (bap-TID-zo), meaning to immerse.

In the late 4th century, Jerome translated the Bible into Latin, a manuscript known as the Vulgate. In it, the Greek Iesous became the Latin Iesus. The English Bible eventually changed the Y sound of the Latin I to the letter J, which we now have in Jesus.

So, from Yehoshua/Yeshua – Jesus’ name in Hebrew – we get the Greek transliteration Iesous, which was transliterated into Latin as Iesus and later became the English name, Jesus.

Do we need to use Jesus’ name in Hebrew?

God will hear your prayers whether you use the name Yeshua, Jesus or the Messiah’s equivalent name in another language. We at Jewish Voice prefer to call Him Yeshua for two primary reasons:

Using Jesus’ name in Hebrew highlights the fact that He is Jewish. Much of the Church remains disconnected from the Jewish roots of faith in Yeshua. The Old Covenant promised the Messiah would come from and to the Jewish people. Jesus’ ministry on Earth was directed to the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24 NIV). The apostle Paul declared that the Gospel was for the Jewish people first and also to the Gentiles (Romans 1:16).

The consistent message of the entire Bible is God’s plan of redemption in Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah. God reveals it in miraculous and rich ways throughout both Old and New Covenants. Using Jesus’ name in Hebrew helps in a small way to restore the lost connection that many Believers have with the Jewish roots of their faith.

The term Christ has become offensive to the Jewish people. This Anglicized name of Jesus has been so misused across the centuries as so-called members of the “Church” carried out violent pogroms against Jewish people. Marauding mobs traveled far and wide using the name of Christ while wickedly misrepresenting God’s Messiah as they beat, tortured and murdered Jewish people who would not be baptized or convert to “Christianity.”

For Jewish people, the name Jesus can be associated with the violent persecution and anti-Semitism of the Crusades, expulsions from various countries in Europe and the horrors of the Holocaust during which Jewish people were labeled “Christ Killers.”

Yet, Jewish people need Jesus just as the Gentiles do. The Bible is clear that there is only one way anyone can come to God – through faith in His Sent One, the Messiah (John 14:6). This is another reason why we at Jewish Voice prefer to use Jesus’ name in Hebrew: Yeshua.

 

Learn more:

Who is Yeshua HaMashiach?

10 Biggest Lies about Yeshua, His Jewishness and What Some Call ‘Jewish Christianity’

How did the Jewish Yeshua become the Gentile Jesus?

How to Write Jesus’ name in Hebrew (How would Yeshua have written His name?)

Yeshua HaMashiach – Anointed to Save

 

Get the "A Rabbi Looks at Jesus of Nazareth" Book

With warmth and transparency, Jewish Voice’s own Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Bernis shares a compelling case for Jesus as Messiah and presents overwhelming evidence that can be traced to the Torah itself. 

Unbridled Anti-Semitism

November 06, 2018
banner card

The Nazis called them “demonstrations.” But Kristallnacht, “the night of broken glass,” was far more than simple protests; it was a nationwide spate of violent, unbridled anti-Semitism.

On November 9 and 10 in 1938, across Germany and in other territories controlled by Hitler’s regime, an estimated 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized and looted. Nazi soldiers and Hitler Youth invaded Jewish homes, intimidated and assaulted families, and murdered Jewish men and women who would not cooperate. They raided countless Jewish residences and burned or destroyed 267 synagogues, killing 91 Jewish people in the process. As the pogrom spread, tens of thousands of Jewish men were arrested, and most were transferred to concentration camps.

It’s important to remember that Germany had been discriminating against Jewish people for more than five years before Kristallnacht. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, his anti-Semitism began with calling for boycotts of Jewish businesses, banning property ownership by Jewish people and restricting the types of employment allowed them. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jewish citizens of many rights as the regime advanced its agenda to eventually remove the Jewish people entirely.

What prompted Kristallnacht?

In late October 1938, the Nazis arrested 17,000 Jewish people from Poland who were living in Germany and deported them back to their homeland. However, Poland refused them entry, which created a ghetto of nationless Jewish people near the border. Seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynszpan heard of the treatment his father received among the deportees. Outraged, he shot Ernst vom Rath, third secretary in the German Embassy in Paris. Vom Rath died of his wounds on November 9, sparking the events of Kristallnacht.

Kristallnacht was portrayed as a spontaneous response to the unfortunate murder. However, history indicates the killing actually provided a convenient cover for what was a well-coordinated attack on the Jewish people throughout Germany and beyond.

A survivor’s memories

Marga Randall remembered Kristallnacht as the night when everything changed. She was 8 years old that night, living in Schermbeck, Germany, with her family and grandparents. She had first experienced Hitler’s strengthening stranglehold on the Jewish people four years earlier, when her father took a telephone call from the Gestapo one night. They said they were coming to arrest him. Her father suffered a heart attack and dropped dead right in front of then-4-year-old Marga, the phone still in his hand.

On Kristallnacht, the threats of Nazi ideology came after Marga herself. At 10 p.m., she awoke to sounds on the street below her room. She ran to the window and was so frightened by what she saw that her teeth chattered. A mob of Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Youth held torches in one hand and bricks in the other.

“They were coming toward my house. Our house,” Marga said in her videoed testimony for Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Marga ran downstairs to her family, and they took shelter in a small, inner room with no windows. In the dark, they huddled together, “and we screamed – because we didn’t know if we would survive the night,” Marga said.

The Nazi’s stormed into the house, shouting as they vandalized the rooms. They forced Marga and the others to leave their home. The family walked through the cold, dark woods until they reached a Catholic hospital where nuns took them in. An hour later, the Nazis came to the hospital and made them return home.

“There wasn’t a chair [left] for my grandmother to sit on,” Marga remembered. The Nazis had “hacked the furniture apart,” she said. “My grandfather’s beautiful, yellow canary had been trampled to death.”

Spontaneous demonstrations? “This was so highly organized,” Marga said in her Yad Vashem recording. The Nazis who raided and destroyed her home were not from her own village of Schermbeck, but from a nearby town farther north. The Schermbeck Nazis had gone south to a different village to do the same. “It seems it’s easier to hurt someone you don’t know,” Marga said. The events of Kristallnacht had been carefully planned.

Marga and her immediate family moved to Berlin, where they lived in partial hiding until they immigrated to the United States in 1941. Mere weeks afterward, her remaining family members in Germany were deported to concentration camps, where they perished. According to the Senator John Heinz History Center, Marga returned to visit Schermbeck more than 40 years later, and then spent the rest of her life speaking and sharing her story to increase awareness about the Holocaust.

During those years, Marga lived in Squirrel Hill, Pennsylvania, the pleasant community just outside Pittsburgh recently shattered by the worst act of anti-Semitism in U.S. history (Pittsburgh synagogue shooting). It is believed that she attended the Tree of Life Synagogue – where 11 people were murdered and two injured merely because they were Jewish. The man who walked in and opened fire during a circumcision ceremony that Shabbat morning told police, “All these Jews need to die” (Fox News).

Why remember Kristallnacht?

Anti-Semitism is alive. It seethes in internet chat rooms, on social media and in the conversations of people who stoke a shared hatred.

Anti-Semitism simmered for years in 20th century Europe. Inch by inch, the ideology grew until it erupted into a night of organized terror and assault on Jewish citizens. Kristallnacht proved to be a turning point. Hitler saw that non-Jewish citizens would stand by, observe without objection – and even participate – as mob violence played out against Jewish people.

After Kristallnacht, he brazenly ramped up his plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Six million Jewish people were murdered in the Holocaust. In some countries, 90% of the Jewish population perished.

Anti-Semitism grew unchecked in Nazi Germany. In the wake of the Pennsylvania synagogue shooting, the anniversary of Kristallnacht is a reminder that we must not repeat that passivity. We must confront anti-Semitism to curb its existing momentum and prevent it from gaining more footholds. We must – in love – be voices against anti-Semitism, in whatever form it takes, whenever we encounter it.

 

See also Jewish Voice’s response to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

 

JVMI Ministering in Israel Today

November 05, 2018
JVMI in Israel

Jewish Voice Ministries International (JVMI) is honored to work with more than 60 ministry partners in Israel today. These “partners on the ground” reach deeply into communities throughout Israel offering practical aid, spiritual guidance and the Good News that Yeshua (Jesus) is the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.

“People don’t care what you know until they know that you care,” says JVMI CEO Rabbi Jonathan Bernis. And it’s true. When someone is enduring a difficult, painful time, it’s hard for them to focus on anything but their troubling circumstance.

That’s why Jewish Voice is committed to meeting people at their point of need to see them through some of the most challenging times of their lives. It is after receiving that much-needed care that these secular Jewish people ask, “Why did you care enough to do this?” And that’s what opens the door for us to share the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus with these people who are usually hearing it for the first time and why they’re ready to listen.

Our Israel office works to provide real help and spiritual hope to hurting people in Israel today.

JVMI’s carefully selected Israeli ministry partners go through a rigorous vetting process. We ensure that they are properly licensed to operate in Israel; and that they comply with the governing rules and laws and are fiscally responsible. Jewish Voice also ensures they accomplish the goals of their mission and remain dedicated to Messiah.

Get the Israel Prayer Guide

Do you want to know how to pray for Israel in greater detail and depth? Jewish Voice Ministries has put together this Intercessory Prayer Guide for Israel that provides focused, targeted requests to help you pray for the nation of God’s People. We hope this prayer guide can help both Messianic Jews and Christians pray their support for Israel.

Here are some of the ways JVMI reaches out to people in need in Israel today:

Humanitarian Aid

Through a network of ministry partners, Jewish Voice helps struggling Israelis with basic needs such as food and clothing. JVMI’s outreach to elderly Holocaust survivors provides much-needed dental procedures and eyeglasses that are far out of the reach of their meager, fixed incomes. In this way, we not only share the love of Yeshua but also enable this dwindling generation of survivors to live more safely and comfortably in their final years. Through our Israel office, JVMI also facilitates compassionate care to individuals and communities needing emergency aid in times of crisis.

Addiction Rehabilitation

Though it is the ancient Holy Land, Israel today is a modern nation with contemporary problems. Jewish Voice ministries in Israel come alongside men, women and teens caught in the web of drug addiction, alcoholism and prostitution. Many of those who are struggling also face homelessness. Through counseling, rehabilitation, sharing the Gospel and facilitating discipleship, we’re helping transform the addicted with new life in Messiah and restored lives.

Helping Women at Their Darkest Hours

Jewish Voice’s Israel ministries help women in crises such as domestic violence, those who are incarcerated and pregnant women considering abortion. Jewish Voice helps women in Israel today to turn their lives around through crisis counseling, life-skills training, and discipleship.

Messianic Congregations

Jewish Voice is helping raise up the next generation of Jewish leaders in Israel today. JVMI works with Messianic congregations to mature and equip the body of Messiah, share the Good News of Yeshua, and serve communities with practical programs meeting essential needs. As we grow the Messianic community in Israel, we extend the reach of the Gospel throughout the Land of Israel.

Immigration and Aliyah

God promised to bring His people back to the Land, and He is actively fulfilling this prophecy even now (Ezekiel 11:17, 34:13, 37:21). Throughout the world, Jewish people who have never lived in Israel long to go “home” to the Land of their faith. Several of our Israeli ministries reach out with significant aid to the immigrant community living in Israel today ‒ particularly those who made aliyah (ah-lee-YAH) from Ethiopia and former Soviet countries. Material aid and tutoring along with language and computer classes help new immigrants integrate into Israeli society.

Israeli-Arab Reconciliation

The pursuit of peace between Israelis and Arabs remains a critical, pervasive matter in Israel today. JVMI programs and partners in Israel work to facilitate good Arab-Israeli relationships through reconciliation through Messiah Yeshua, who is Himself our peace (Ephesians 2:14).

Education

Ministry is magnified through education. Training Believers how to share the Gospel with Jewish people and use their gifts to edify the body of Messiah bears exponential fruit. Jewish Voice works with educators in Israel today training up individuals to glorify God with their lives and further His Kingdom.

Your gift to Jewish Voice helps Israelis in these vital ways and more. In all, Jewish Voice ministries in Israel include more than 60 partners. When you give to Jewish Voice, you provide direct help to hurting Israelis. Your gifts support JVMI programs and partners on the ground in Israel today and open the door to sharing the Good News of Yeshua with them.

Get "A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days"

Few topics captivate our minds or fill our hearts with fear like the end times. In this book, Jonathan Bernis comes with the perspective that is both startling and hopeful, unpacking the mysteries of this cryptic time and what it means for you.

Limited Time: Double YOUR GIFT to reach more Jewish people

October 31, 2018

I’m writing with wonderful news about how you can share help, healing and hope with even more Jewish people.

Thanks to a $150,000 matching gift provided by several supporters, whatever you give now will be DOUBLED!

You read that right. Your gift by Friday, November 30, will be matched – dollar for dollar – to reach TWICE as many Jewish people with physical healing AND the opportunity to know the hope of Yeshua (Jesus).

When you give, you’ll not only bring physical healing to Jewish people. You’ll also provide the Good News of Yeshua (Jesus) as our Messiah and Redeemer who wants to save all who turn to Him, especially my Jewish people.

Jewish People

Reach more Jewish people now!


I pray the gift-multiplying potential of these matching funds will inspire you to stand with us generously right now to make a life-transforming – and even life-saving – difference for a Jewish person like Birtukan, who came to visit our Medical Clinic in Enfranz, Ethiopia.

On the first day of the Clinic, about 2,000 people lined up, each hoping for treatment. Because it was a short day, we were able to help only about 500 of them. 

While that’s an amazing effort, to be sure, it’s shocking to see the extent of the need. As the day went on, the lines packed in tighter and tighter in the hope of getting help, showing the genuine desperation.
 

Birtukan’s story


Among those who came was a woman named Birtukan, which means “orange flower.” She told us that, because she’s Jewish, she has suffered terrible persecution. She has not only been rejected by her community but physically beaten.

Her neighbors don’t trust her and accuse her of having “the evil eye” – the ability to cause bad things to happen. It’s a common superstition in the area.

Birtukan came to one of our Clinics because she’d been turned away from the hospital in Ethiopia, an hour away. She was desperate for help.

After an exam and a promise to help, the team invited her to visit our nearby Prayer Tent, where she shared more of her sad story. One of our counselors shared the Good News with her and, praise God, she accepted Jesus as her Messiah!

Thankfully, we were able to perform surgery on Birtukan to fix her failing vision. Her father told us her vision had improved dramatically. They were so thankful and blessed us for what we had done for her.

I want to extend their blessing to you and so many other partners in this work. Thank you – thank you! – for your support. You’re healing bodies and sharing the saving love of Jesus with His people in Ethiopia and so many other desperate lands.

We need to continue praying for and ministering to Birtukan. She’s been told her husband, a non-Believer, will leave her if she doesn’t renounce Yeshua.

But so many more like Birtukan need help. Since they have little money for health care, free treatment and medicine are a dream. Most of us, living comfortably as we do, can’t even relate to this kind of need.
 

Give more help, more healing, more hope


In the coming months, Jewish Voice hopes to invest $3,663,295.70 in Medical Clinics across Africa. Our goal is to provide medical, eye and dental care for 60,000 Jewish people just like Birtukan, who struggle to survive in the face of persecution and the worst living conditions you and I can imagine.

Many have no way to get care. So they just go without, allowing minor health issues, easily treated here in the West, to become serious, and even life-threatening.

By working together, we can prevent this. To not take action would be a terrible injustice to these people. So I’m looking to you and other partners to help with the cost of supplies, equipment, and travel for our team of medical professionals, support staff and volunteers.

 

Don't miss this rare chance to DOUBLE your gift now

It costs just $30 to provide one Jewish person with humanitarian aid AND the opportunity to hear the Good News.

That means – with the matching funds – your gift will be automatically DOUBLED to help TWO people. 

So please give as generously as you can, knowing your gift will reach TWICE as many people.

And when you give, please know that you’ll not only bring physical healing to Jewish people but also the Good News of Yeshua as Messiah and Redeemer.

We’re planning our next Medical Outreaches right now. Won’t you please send your most generous gift possible to provide both physical and spiritual care?

A peek inside our prayer closet ...

October 31, 2018
praying

Several weeks ago our staff here at Jewish Voice Ministries International participated in a ministry-wide week of prayer and fasting. We have done this twice annually for the last couple of years. It has been a powerful experience, both concerning what the Lord does in our own hearts as well as in us as a ministry. This time was no exception.

Although the work of ministry continues during these special weeks, the work of prayer increases as we have worship and prayer times available every hour of the work day all week. There is also one full day when we come together for worship, prayer and hearing from the Lord together.

During this most recent week of prayer and fasting, as always, Jonathan Bernis prayerfully shared his heart for the ministry and us as a team. Staff members gave testimony of ways in which the Lord touched them and answered prayer. We also spent time in prayer for you, our partners, lifting you up with gratitude and thanksgiving.

As we listened to the Lord together, the theme that emerged in our hearts was that God is bringing us into a new season and calling us to partner with Him to see it birthed.

“Here I am, doing a new thing; now it is springing up –

do you not know about it?”

 —Isaiah 43:19a, TLV

Below are some of the prayer items that came from this fall’s set-apart time with God. Please join us in praying forward into all He is calling us to.

Please pray that we will:

  • Respond to the wooing of the Lord to spend time just being with Him, worshiping, abiding, listening, going deep in Him and His word
  • Be diligent to press into the Lord for discernment and understanding, especially regarding what, when, where and with whom He is calling us
  • Not settle for good ideas but press in for “God ideas,” pursuing the Spirit of the Lord to birth ministry that is of the Spirit
  • Keep short accounts and be in a constant state of acknowledging and turning from sin and turning to the Lord, eager to receive His refreshing
  • Not only be reconciled to God and one another as needed but wholeheartedly take on the ministry of reconciliation which has been entrusted to us so that we might be used by God to see lives transformed and all Israel saved
  • Press in with renewed vision and passion, praying to the Lord of the harvest for resources and workers to send many into the field and reap eternal fruit unto salvation

Let’s pray:

Father, as Isaiah 43 beckons, we want to be those who see and discern what You are doing in this new season. We want to dwell in Your Presence, go deep in Your word, hear Your voice clearly, and follow You faithfully. We pray this for ourselves and each of our dear partners as well. In Yeshua’s glorious name, Amen.

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