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The Holy Calendar

By Shelley Neese

During the Hebrew people’s sojourn in Egypt, God transformed a gaggle of former slaves into a kingdom of priests. He evolved a confused post-traumatic community into a cohesive light to all the nations.

Before the Hebrews even entered the promised land, two major things were put in place to aid each successive generation in achieving their faith destiny: the Torah and the holy calendar. In the 31st chapter of Deuteronomy, we learn that before Moses died, he finished writing down the words of the covenant. He commanded the Levites to place it at the side of the Ark of the Covenant so that it could be “an eternal witness.” If the Israelites ever lost sight of their identity, they had the Holy Book to remind them of their unique history and their divine laws which set them apart. As Elizabeth Elliott once said, “the Word of God is a straight edge, which shows up our own crookedness.” The Hebrews were the only ancient people with God’s straight edge.

God also instituted the holy calendar as a way of safeguarding national moments for the Israelites to regularly remember and reenact their story, and also as a method to atone for their sins, both by repentance and ritual sacrifice.

As we are now officially entering in to the high Hebrew holidays, Deuteronomy 31 is fresh in my mind. In a few days, on September 29th, Jews will celbrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashana marks the anniversary of the creation of the world. The prayers and readings on Rosh Hashana reflect a desire to cast off old burdensome sins and start fresh. The ram’s horn, or shofar, is blown one hundred times as a way of awakening hardened hearts and motivating unrepentant spirits. Around that theme of newness and sweetness, Jews dip apples in honey. Also, instead of the traditional oblong challah bread, they eat round challah as a symbol of eternity and the everchanging seasons.

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, begins October 8. Leviticus 16 and 23 and Numbers 29 all mandate that the tenth day of the seventh month be set aside as a day of fasting, repentance, study, and prayer. It is the only required day of fasting in the whole of the Bible. Work of any kind is strictly prohibited. Yom Kippur is often referred to as the Sabbath of the Sabbaths. It is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. In Temple times, Yom Kippur was the only day in which the High Priest was permitted entry into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the sacrificial blood on the Ark of the Covenant’s mercy seat. In the Temple’s absence, Jews are supposed to attend synagogue services for most of the day. During the afternoon portion of the service, the book of Jonah is read for its theme of repentance and forgiveness. According to the Jewish sages, if God could forgive the people of Nineveh, how much more so could he forgive the sons of Jacob.

The last of the high holidays is Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles. It is a week-long holiday starting on October 13. Sukkot is a sacred assembly built around the idea that we annually go through the process of stripping ourselves of material comforts so we may rely only on God. We all understand the danger of creature comforts dulling our thirst and hunger for our creator and our savior. Living in relative abundance of food, work, and shelter puts all of us under threat of forgetting God. On Sukkot, the people are commanded in every generation to take seven days and dwell in sukkot, the same booth like structures the Israelites called home in their forty years of wandering.

May this High Holiday season help all of us to follow the call God has put on our lives. On Yom Kippur, we repent. With Rosh Hashanah, we begin anew. And Sukkot is a physical reminder that we must dwell in the spirit of the Lord. Abide in him and be reliant only on him. Christian or Jew, this is a faith practice that can strengthen us all.

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Israel’s Elections in a Nutshell

By Shelley Neese—-

If you have been trying to keep up with Israel’s election results for the last few days, you are probably wondering when in the world we will know for certain the identity of Israel’s next Prime Minister. Though the elections happened on the 17th, we are still likely days away from knowing the official winner of the premiership.

For Americans used to fixed term elections and two major political parties, Israel’s parliamentary system is bewildering. It is hard enough to understand Israel’s election cycle, but it is almost impossible to keep track of the proliferation of small parties and the rearranging of partnerships, coalitions, and now mini-coalitions.

If you are a pro-Israel Christian, attentive to news coming out of Israel but still having a hard time wrapping your heads around this Groundhog Day election, let me assure you, there is no shame in the head scratching. It means you are paying close attention. I will try and give the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of how Israel got to the point that she has had two elections in five months with what seems like the same results each time.

The first 2019 election occurred in April. When the votes came in, the two leading political parties tied. Likud, the long-established right-wing party led by the incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu, won 35 seats in Israel’s Knesset. The Blue and White party also got 35 seats. Blue and White is actually an alliance of three left-wing parties who merged under the leadership of retired IDF general Benny Gantz with the hope of bringing down Netanyahu’s long reign.

Thirteen other parties made the threshold to have lawmakers in Knesset. At that point, President Reuven Rivlin called together the 120 new leaders and asked for their recommendation on which of the largest party heads, Gantz or Netanyahu, should be given the chance to form a governing coalition. Netanyahu got 65 recommendations while Gantz had only 45 (10 Arab leaders abstained). Still, Netanyahu had a mere 42 days to put together a majority coalition of small right-wing parties and religious parties.

The standoff that prevented a full fourth term for Netanyahu came down to a conflict between Knesset Member Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party and the ultra-Orthodox parties that Netanyahu needed to form a majority. Yisrael Beytenu is right-wing and nationalist but basically secular; its original base was made of new Russian immigrants. Lieberman wanted to see the government pass a draft law requiring military conscription for ultra-orthodox men. The orthodox parties were willing to pass a version of the draft law but they requested compromises. Lieberman, in an act of real political theater, refused to pass anything other than the original draft. What seemed like a small tangential issue was the very thing that dissolved the Knesset.

In fact, the only big legislation that passed in the Knesset since April was to dissolve itself. With no coalition and new elections looming, there were almost no committee meetings or votes for over three months. No budget was passed. Israeli voters rightly claimed that between staging a new election and funding the salaries of non-functioning Knesset members, the whole debacle cost tax payers hundreds of millions of shekels.

Here we are. Three days after a new Israel election and the results remain unclear. Blue and White and Likud are basically in a deadlock. Right now, 98% of the votes are counted and there is a difference of a half percentage point between the two major parties. The right-wing parties make up 55 of the seats and the center-left bloc has 57 seats. The third largest party in the Knesset is the Joint List of Arab parties with 13 seats, giving them more leverage than they have known in any previous government. Avigdor Lieberman’s party has 8 seats, once again leaving him in the position of Kingmaker. Lieberman has drawn so many lines in the sand that there are few parties left for him to share the sandbox with.

Both Gantz and Netanyahu are calling for unity governments but what they mean by unity government, and under whose leadership, is still very much to be determined. This Sunday the newly elected Members of Knesset will once again meet at the home of President Rivlin for consultations. Over the course of two days, negotiations will take place to determine which of the party leaders can build a Knesset majority able to govern. Only then will we know if Gantz or Netanyahu has the mandate. Both are claiming that they have the public’s interest at heart and they will do what it takes to avoid another election but the threat of another election looms large.

In the interim, we look to the Bible. The book of Daniel says, “The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.” Compared to the political turmoil of Daniel’s time, a year of election chaos in Israel’s Knesset is nothing. God is in control and of that we can all be thankful!

Shelley Neese is the President of The Jerusalem Connection and author of The Copper Scroll Project

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The Christians of Israel

By Shelley Neese

Visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and you are bound to notice a short ladder resting on a second story window ledge. You can also see it in century old photographs and art in the exact same position it is today. On the surface the ladder bears testimony to the disunity of Israel’s Christian community, but scratch the surface and the ladder becomes a symbol of something altogether different—a story of endurance.

There are many legends concerning the origins of this immovable ladder but the general agreement is that the ladder was placed there by the Armenians in the early 19th century. In 1852 the Ottoman Sultan enforced the Status Quo, a rigid division of rights and property between the Church’s six competing denominations. With the Status Quo—which is still enforced today—every stair, icon, and corner and every menial chore has a designated custodian that possessively guards their turf and privileges. Under the Status Quo no part of the designated “common ground” can be changed even slightly without the consent of all the denominations. Windows and ledges fell under “common ground,” leaving the ladder untouched until the religious orders agree—for the sake of the Church façade—on moving the eyesore.

Another example of denominational rivalry at this Holy Shrine is the 12-inch iron key that controls the Church’s single entrance. For the past 816 years the owners of this key have been two neighboring Muslim families. These families meet at an exact time twice a day with the key in hand to lock and unlock the massive wooden doors. The Church can only be locked from the outside. This arrangement was originally assigned by Saladin in 1192. By allowing a neutral party to assume control of the key, the Sultan hoped to bring peace between the jealous factions whose disputes commonly turned violent.

As the Church of the Holy Sepulchre vividly demonstrates, talking about the “Indigenous Christians of Israel” is hardly referring to a monolithic group. They neither speak with one voice nor act as one movement. Israel’s Christians maintain a strong degree of heterogeneity along ethnic, cultural, and denominational lines. The Christians of Israel—consisting of at least 20 ancient churches and 30 Protestant denominational groups—are a microcosm of Christianity at large.

Survey of Christians in Israel

Christians constitute 2.1 percent of Israel’s total population, putting their numbers around 148,000. This statistic does not include Christians under the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria. The great majority (around 80 percent) of Israel’s Christians are Arabic-speaking and indigenous to the region. They are Christian Arabs who after Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 stayed inside Israel’s new borders and became citizens of the new Jewish state.

Many of these indigenous Christians have lineages that go back to the early periods of Christianity. The Greek Orthodox have historical roots in the region from the days of the Byzantines. The Armenians have had a heavy presence in Jerusalem since the 5th century. The Syrian Orthodox claim an unbroken presence in Jerusalem since the 6th century. The Egyptian Copts built churches near the Holy Places in the ninth century. Roman Catholics came over with the Crusaders in 1099. The Protestant churches did not come to Israel until the 19th century when the Western powers revived their interest in the Holy Land.

Most Christian Arabs in Israel are affiliated with one of the traditional Christian confessions. 42 percent are Greek Catholic; 32 percent are Greek Orthodox; and 16 percent are Roman Catholic. Other confessions in Israel include the Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Armenian Catholic, Syrian Catholic, Maronites, Melkites, and Egyptian Copts. Of Israel’s 7,000 resident Protestants, the largest group by far is the Anglicans (4500). There are a host of other Protestant denominational groups including Lutherans (700), Baptist (900), and Evangelicals (400).

State of Affairs

In 1949 there were 34,000 Christian Arabs living inside Israel. Over the last 60 years the population has more than tripled. This stands in stark contrast to the Christian communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza where Christians have been emigrating at alarming rates, particularly after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. There Christians have dropped from 15 percent of the population to just 1.3 percent today. Bethlehem, the place of Christ’s birth, has gone from 80% Christian to 80% Muslim. From 1997 to 2002, the Christian population in the West Bank declined 29 percent and in the Gaza Strip it went down 20 percent. In roughly the same period from 19952003, the Christian Arab population in Israel grew 14.1 percent (CAMERA, Dec. 24, 2004).

Almost everywhere else in the Middle East the Christian community is in decline. In the Middle East as a whole 2 million Christians have fled in the last 20 years. Given current trends, many Church leaders are concerned that in a matter of decades Christians in the Middle East will be on the verge of extinction. Israel—the only place in the region where the Christian community has grown in the last half century—is the exception.

Rights and Freedoms

Christians in Israel enjoy the inherent advantages of living in a democratic pluralistic society where they are guaranteed many rights and freedoms. The different religious communities are free to observe their own holy days and days of rest. They have freedom of worship and access to the Christian Holy Places.

Christians in Israel vote and are active in the political arena. They receive compulsory education and attend Israel’s public universities. Israel’s Christians are characterized by low levels of unemployment (even lower than the Jewish population) and high levels of education. They are generally middle class and live in urban areas. 70% of Israel’s Christian Arabs are concentrated in the Galilee, chiefly Nazareth where they make up over a quarter of the population.

On statistical analysis, the Christian Arabs of Israel more closely resemble the Jewish population than the Muslim population. This is true economically and educationally and it is also the case in their birth rates and housing patterns. According to Daphne Tsimhoni, an expert on Christians in Israel:

“The average number of births for a Christian woman is 2.6, a little lower than that of a Jewish woman (2.7) and far lower than that of a Muslim Arab (4.8 per woman). In 1998 the average Christian household had 3.6 members per unit, a little higher than the Jewish 3.2 and by far lower than the Muslim household (5.4 per family). The average Christian finished twelve years of schooling, compared with the average Muslim who finished nine.”(1)

Concerns and Dilemmas

After acknowledging the ways Christians are flourishing in Israel, it would be amiss to overlook their unique dilemmas as well. For the Christian Arabs in Israel, they are a minority within a minority in a majority Jewish state. Many Christians in Israel say their community struggles to maintain their identity. Being Christian, they will always be viewed suspiciously by Muslim Arabs as potential collaborators with Israel. Being Arab, they will never fully integrate into the Jewish state. Being Christian Arab, they often feel rejected by the wider, particularly Western, Christian world.

Christian Arabs generally find common ground with their Muslim counterparts in their support for Palestinian nationalism and resentment of Israel’s identification as a Jewish state. The most critical Christian spokespeople are the Arab church notables, like Rev. Naim Ateek and the Latin Patriarch Michael Sabbah. The public utterances of these church leaders and their persistent condemnations of the “occupation” are intended to embarrass the Israeli government. Israel has on more than one occasion asked the Vatican to restrain Sabbah’s rhetoric but to no avail. The lay Christian Arabs choose to express their discontent through political and legislative channels. From 1950 until the mid 1970s, Christians accounted for about 50 percent of the Arab members of Knesset, far exceeding their proportion in the population (2).

As for Christian Arabs relations with their co-citizens in Israel, tensions between Christians and Muslim have mounted since the 1980s but particularly over the last eight years. The second intifada and its emphasis on violent resistance alienated Christians operationally. Though many Christian Arabs speak critically of Israel they do not engage in political violence. There has never been a Christian suicide bomber in Israel (3) nor are there any Christians in Israeli jails suspected of terrorism (4). With the electoral victory of Hamas and its takeover of Gaza, Christians are also put on the defensive ideologically. The Palestinian national movement has become an Islamic movement where at best Christians are merely tolerated and at worst they suffer the same fate of Rami Khader Ayyad, owner of Gaza’s only Christian bookstore who was murdered in October. The intentions of the Islamic movement are uncomfortably clarified in the common Palestinian grafitti: “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”

In regards to Christian-Jewish relations, despite Christian Arabs’ often pro-Palestinian stance, they tend to have a low level of social conflict with Jews. They coexist well in mixed Jewish-Arab towns like Haifa where Christians often prefer to live because of the stronger Western influence. While there is no formal segregation, there are obvious patterns of self-segregation. Christian Arabs speak Hebrew as a second language and have adapted to Israeli culture.

Most importantly, Christians may sympathize with Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority but they believe their own future is tied to Israel. This was best demonstrated in 2004 when the Sharon government was flirting with the idea of ceding the Galilee Triangle, which is mostly Arab, to the Palestinian Authority; 90% of the Arab residents (Christian and Muslim) said they wanted to stay in Israel.

Future



Christians have been a permanent fixture of the religious landscape in the region for 2,000 years. From the preaching of Peter at Pentecost through the successive foreign occupations to present day in the Jewish state, Christians have shown enormous staying power in the Holy Land. Though the outlook for Christians in the rest of the Middle East seems bleak, Christians in Israel are slowly growing and thriving. Christians in Israel who do not admit as much and publicly criticize the state at least acknowledge that they are only able to do so because they enjoy so many rights. One can only hope that one day Christian Arabs overcome the pressure exerted on them by their Muslim counterparts and come to appreciate their status as the Middle East’s freest Christians.

When tour guides bring Christians to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, they inevitably point out the ladder on the second story window and the one-way lock on the Church doors. As they speak of these legends, the Christian groups blush from embarrassment at such petty examples of denominational dissension. But what they often do not appreciate is that the ladder and key have had such permanence because Christians are still there, still fighting, and creating workarounds. When that wooden ladder rots it is actually replaced with a new one. Once a year, the largest denominations at the Church submit an official request to win back the iron key. The ladder and key are actually symbols of stability that characterize the unbroken tradition of Christians living in the Holy Land.

Shelley Neese is the author of The Copper Scroll Project and President of The Jerusalem Connection.

(1) “Israel and the Territories Disappearance Disappearing Christians of the Middle East” by Daphne Tsimhoni. Middle East Quarterly (Winter 2001).

(2) Ibid.

(3) There were three Lebanese Christian Suicide Bombers during Lebanon’s Civil War in the 1980s. George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is often cited as an example of a Christian terrorist but Habash was more Communist than Christian.

(4) Archbishop Hilarion Capucci of the Greek Catholic church is the exception. He was caught smuggling arms for terrorists into Israel from Lebanon in the early 1970s and was imprisoned in Israel for three years.

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The Hebron Massacre, 90 Years Later

By Shelley Neese-

Last Wednesday, Israel held a day-long state ceremony at the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron. They gathered to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Hebron massacre—an act of terrorism in 1929 that left 67 Jews dead and dozens more seriously wounded. Hebron’s Jewish library, hospital, synagogue, and long-standing yeshiva were all either burned or trampled.

Prior to the attack, Hebron had been a decent example of Muslims and Jews living together peacefully. Certainly, the small Jewish population suffered periodic discrimination by the Muslim majority but for the most part, they lived together as neighbors for centuries. After the Balfour Declaration in 1917, tension between the two communities flared over the rise in Jewish immigration and talk of a Jewish homeland. Still, the British authorities and Jewish residents did not foresee the degree of the coming violence.

The grievance behind the attack was based on rumors that Jews wanted to take over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The rumors started after a group of Jews had marched to the Western Wall with protest signs that read The Wall is Ours, but at the time Muslims were not concerned about the Western Wall. The massacres were launched on the false rally call that Jewish groups were trying to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and reclaim the entire Temple Mount. That rumor was a fabrication of the Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who needed to bait the Muslim community into sustaining the riots—a tactic that has been regularly resurrected at the convenience of every Palestinian leader. Arafat exploited the Temple Mount well and it is now part of President Abbas’s arsenal as well.

The riots first started in Jerusalem with crowds of angry Muslims carrying weapons onto the Temple Mount. The Mufti threatened the local religious leaders in Hebron with fines if they did not also take action. By the next day, Arab rioters took to the streets of Hebron. As Jews rested and worshiped on their Sabbath day, terrorists broke into their homes one by one with axes and knives. According to the testimonies of the survivors, toddlers were mutilated in front of weeping parents and women were raped before they were brutally murdered. A local Jewish baker who had served Muslim and Jewish patrons for many years was killed in his own oven. As one survivor testified, the screams of the victims “pierced the heart of the heavens.” The last living survivor recounted to Jerusalem Post how he and his uncle hid in a chicken coop only to find his grandfather lying in a pool of blood while his grandmother tried to stop the bleeding with coffee grinds. Jews who survived were in some cases rescued by British police or hidden by Arab neighbors. In most instances though, they were families who held their attackers off long enough or found places to hide. The entire rampage lasted three hours.

With the land under the British administration at the time, British authorities expelled Hebron’s 700 Jews in an attempt to quell the spreading riots. It wasn’t until the military victories of 1967 that a Jewish presence could be restored in the holy city.

With this terrible event imprinted on the hearts and minds of Israelis of today, the Hebron ceremony last week was intended to boost and encourage the small Jewish community who has made Hebron their home despite all odds. According to the Jewish community leadership in Hebron, the ceremony was the first time in Israel’s history that the prime minister, president and speaker of the Knesset were in the ancient city on the same day. Netanyahu said, “We have not come here to dispossess anyone, but no one will dispossess us either.” Avoiding any pre-election declarations of Israeli sovereignty over the Muslim-majority city, he did make an assurance: “Hebron will never be cleansed of Jews… We are not strangers in Hebron. We will remain here forever.”

For Bible readers, Hebron’s importance in Jewish history is obvious. This is the once Hittite city where according to Genesis 23 Abraham buried his wife Sara. Abraham was an alien in a foreign land and therefore he had no family cemetery plot and no right to purchase land. The details of the biblical account make it seem like the Hittites are overly accommodating. They at first insist that Abraham have a field with a cave for burial. Abraham was uncomfortable with the idea of “borrowing a piece of property for burial.” He wanted to rightfully own it. Finally, when the Hittites agreed to let him purchase the land, they quoted him a very inflated price. Abraham still made the purchase.

The transactional details in the text come off as intentional. In fact, each time one of the matriarchs or patriarchs dies in subsequent chapters of Genesis and is buried, the author reinforces the fact that the cave that is “in the field of Ephron the Hittite” was purchased by Abraham. The plot eventually held the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah.

It is as if the Bible is weighing in on the side of Israel when she is once again fighting for the land promised to her thousands of years later. God provided this historical encounter to show that the promised land is also a legally purchased land.

Though this is a week late, I want to send my regards to the Jewish community leaders of Hebron. I recognize the long journey of tragedy and trial that has led to a still tenuous and difficult existence for you. I pray for your continued safety and protection and admire your fidelity to the land of Abraham. May your community grow and prosper in peace and security. The mothers and fathers of monotheism have paved the way for both your faith and my own. May their memory and example continue to be a blessing and light to the nations.

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A Time for War and a Time for Peace

By Shelley Neese

The modern state of Israel was born out of a war, expanded through war, and established its capital in Jerusalem via war. These combat victories prevented her annihilation time and again. Yet, some Christians argue, if God is a God of peace, then all violence is un-Godly. Ergo, if war is wrong, Israel is wrong.

Christian Zionists know that for Israel war has been a means of survival, moral by way of necessity. Christian Zionists generally see Israel’s use of war as necessary in order to secure a state for the peace and protection of the Jewish people in their covenanted land. Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 was as justified (and miraculous) as God’s sending of the plagues on Egypt to bring the Hebrews out of slavery.

Anti-Zionist Christians counter that Israel’s violent conflict with the Palestinians proves the Jewish state is operating outside of God’s will. These Christians highlight New Testament passages seen as opposing violence of all forms and promoting peace. An often emphasized verse from Matthew quotes Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say…if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” [Matt. 5: 38-39]. The cornerstone of the anti-war Christian movement appears in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God” [Matt. 5: 9]. They also carefully select Old Testament prophecies. A favorite verse comes out of Isaiah: “and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war” [Isa. 2: 4].

The problem with using Scripture to boost the anti-war argument is that each verse is taken out of context. When Jesus encourages believers to turn the other cheek and be peacemakers, He is talking about the ethics of loving your neighbor as yourself, instructing believers in how to love God and humanity. One should not infer that Jesus is denouncing war between nations as immoral or unjustified. In the Isaiah passage, the prophet is offering a vision of the millennial kingdom when all nations come together in peace. This vision is not meant to reflect the pre-millennial state of world order. In fact, Isaiah speaks at length about the judgment that awaits unrighteous nations who persecute God’s chosen people of Judah. The prophet warns of all the war and calamity that must befall the earth before restoration is achieved.

From antiquity to the present, war has been a regrettable necessity in Israel’s growth and protection. The Bible has the most to say about war—its justification and consequences—in the context of ancient Israel’s battles. It starts with the story of Exodus when God’s judgment of Pharaoh ended with the obliteration of the Egyptian army. In Deuteronomy 20, God sent the Israelites into war with the Amorites saying, “For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory” [Deut. 20:4]. Subsequent wars included Joshua’s conquest of the land of Israel and David’s war to expand the borders of Israel. Christian Zionists also argue that Israel’s military wins in 1948 and 1967 against those who sought their destruction were signs of God’s continued fidelity to the Jewish people.

God has often chosen to deal with nations in terms of their wickedness, using war as an instrument of divine correction. That being the case, the Hebrew people were not immune to military defeat. When the nation of Judah rebelled against God, prophets like Jeremiah warned them to repent or lose everything. Still, the Israelites ignored the prophecies and continued in disobedience. As a result, God allowed the Babylonians to destroy the temple, raze Jerusalem, and take the Jews into captivity.

Some Christians have a difficult time rectifying the God of the Old Testament and the words of Jesus. They believe a loving God would not condone war and therefore they reject the God of War in the Old Testament in favor of the Prince of Peace in the New Testament. Selective interpretation of God’s character is a dangerous game. A believer cannot throw out aspects of God because they are difficult to understand. The part of God that renders judgment and applies punishment does not tarnish God’s character or make Him any less loving.

To be sure, war is lamentable. The way of peace should always be sought by believers. God commands us in His word: “so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men” [Rom. 12:18]. But as long as we live in a profaned world and peace does not always depend on us, war will be a part of our existence. In some cases, peace can only be achieved through conflict. As Solomon said: There is “a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace” [Eccles. 3:8].

In the second century, the heretic Marcion tried to purge Christianity of a belief in the Hebrew God. Marcion believed that the wrathful and jealous God of the Old Testament embodied evil. He taught that the Hebrew God had nothing to do with Jesus because Jesus was sent to Earth by a different and more benevolent God. Marcion rejected the Old Testament completely and canonized only those parts of the New Testament that taught peace and love.

No one is suggesting that all anti-Zionist Christians share the heretical views of Marcion. Nevertheless, many Christians today misunderstand the aforementioned Scriptures concerning a biblical view of peace and war. Some go so far as to conveniently overlook or even manipulate these Scriptures in order to promote a different image of God that suits their worldview. While Christians against Israel create a new theology of peace to promote their anti-war and pro-Palestinian positions, they strip down God’s character. In their teaching, God becomes a deity that stands for love and compassion, but nothing more.

As we see from the Scripture, it is not a contradiction to say that God loves peace but battles unrighteousness. God is a God of peace. But we must also not forget the Scripture that reads, “The Lord is a warrior” [Exod. 15:3]. Until the lion lies down with the lamb, Israel does not have the luxury of hammering its swords into plowshares.

Shelley Neese is the author of The Copper Scroll Project and President of The Jerusalem Connection.

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The Messiah and Shavuot

By Shelley Neese

The holiday of Shavuot is upon us. It begins Saturday evening on June 8th and ends the evening of June 10th.  If you haven’t heard of the Biblical holiday of Shavuot, that’s probably because you are more familiar with its Greek name: Pentecost.

On Shavuot, Jews celebrate the events that took place on Mount Sinai.  The Bible recounts that fifty days after the Hebrews were miraculously rescued from slavery in Egypt—a miracle marked on Passover—Moses returned to the same humble spot where God first spoke to his servant through the burning bush.

In Exodus 19, it says that when God descended on the mountain, thunder ripped through the sky and the ground shook.  A shofar blew a long blast. A dense cloud of smoke and fire surrounded the summit.  God instructed Moses that no one, not even the animals, were to touch the mountain. Disobedience equaled certain death.

Moses spent forty days on the mountain where he was given the Ten Commandments and the Torah.  God’s promise to the Israelites was that from that day forward if they obeyed Him fully and kept His covenant, they would be a “nation of priests.”

God’s promise was quickly put to the test.  When Moses came down from the mountain and saw that they had already resumed idol worship in his absence, he allowed the Levites to take up their swords.  3,000 were killed that day.

Fast forward 1300 years, give or take, and we come to the day of Pentecost.  Fifty days after Christ’s resurrection and just ten days after his ascension, the disciples journey to Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot.  Shavuot was one of three times a year that the Hebrew people were required to worship in Jerusalem and make sacrifices at the Temple.

For these important feasts, Jerusalem would be filled to the max with worshippers from all over the world.  The Temple priests led the masses of people in song and prayer as they celebrated the giving of the Torah and marked the anniversary of their becoming a covenanted people.

But on that day, as God so mysteriously designed it, another covenant was born—not one that would supersede or replace the first covenant but expand it.  Acts 2 tells us that suddenly “a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

You know the rest of the story.  Witnesses assumed the disciples were drunk.  Peter corrected them in one of the more humorous lines in the Bible saying “these people are not drunk…it’s only nine in the morning!” From there Peter gives the sermon of his life, commissioning the crowds to repent and be baptized so they too would receive the Holy Spirit.  3,000 were added to their number that day.

The feasts and festivals of the Bible are replete with types and symbols that all perfectly point to the Messiah.  The divine connections between Shavuot and Pentecost are so especially obvious that it’s thrilling.

On Shavuot, Moses acted as the intercessor between God and his covenanted people.  Jesus had already intervened on behalf of the world.

At Sinai the fire descended only on the summit of the mountain. At Pentecost the fire came “to rest on each of them” individually.

On the first Shavuot, God established his covenant with the Hebrew people.  On Pentecost, a new covenant was made available to all who believed.

On Shavuot, the Holy Law was inscribed on stone by the finger of God.  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit wrote the Law on their hearts.

At Mount Sinai, 3,000 were killed due to their disobedience.  In Jerusalem, 3,000 were granted eternal salvation in response to their faith.

On Shavuot, God declared the Israelis a “nation of priests.”  On Pentecost, believers became priests to all nations.

There you have it.  Distinction and then inclusion.  One covenant grafted into the first.  Death and now life.  Law and Spirit.

The Talmud describes Shavuot as the “wedding day” between God and the Jewish people.  Now, the Bride of Christ waits anxiously for the day when we will be united with our Bridegroom.

Mark your calendars for this special holiday of Shavuot. We are celebrating God’s revelation and the anniversaries of receiving that revelation at both Mount Sinai and in Jerusalem.  Let us use this feast to make a public commitment, just as the people of Israel did, that “we will do and we will listen.”

Shelley Neese is the author of The Copper Scroll Project and President of The Jerusalem Connection.

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The Dead Sea Scrolls Monument

By Shelley Neese—

In 1946 or 1947 — no one knows for certain — a Bedouin goatherd nicknamed Muhammad the Wolf led his flock around the cliffs lining the northwest edge of the Dead Sea. As the livestock grazed on sparse vegetation, Muhammad wandered around the boulders. According to one of several variants of the account, he hurled a stone into a cave to startle a stray goat and heard pottery shatter. Too frightened to lower himself into the cave alone, he returned several days later with at least two relatives from his Ta’amireh tribe. Though they fantasized about finding gold and silver, instead they stumbled upon a cache of odd clay vessels with bowl-shaped lids. Inside one jar, they discovered three ancient leather scrolls, intact and wrapped in linen.

The Bedouin carted their scrolls back to their camp. The tribesmen stored the bundle in a goat skin bag and hung it from a tent pole. Unfamiliar with the aged script, they debated whether they should re-purpose the old strips of leather. Fortuitously, Muhammad’s uncle thought to take the scrolls to Bethlehem on market day. Their first foray into the black-market antiquities trade aroused more suspicion than success. One trader sent them on to the next. In the end, they arranged for a Syrian Orthodox merchant, Khalil Eskander Shahin, known as Kando, to sell the scrolls for a commission. Kando owned a general store and cobbler shop near the Church of the Nativity. Archbishop Mar Samuel, head of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark, made the purchase soon after he saw the scrolls in Kando’s possession. As the former librarian at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mt. Sinai, the Archbishop had experience with ancient scripts. Once Kando took out his commission, the Bedouin returned to the desert the equivalent of $60 richer.

Hoping for an even greater return on his investment, Muhammad the Wolf’s relative returned to the cave and retrieved four additional scrolls. Again, one of them found its way to Kando. The other three scrolls were sold to an antiquities dealer in Bethlehem, Faidi Salahi. Salahi intended to present the scrolls to a Hebrew scholar capable of realizing their full worth.

Exactly 71 years ago, on November 24, 1947, with the British Mandate approaching expiration, the nascent Jewish nation was caught up in a bloody civil war with Palestinian nationalists. Jerusalem was divided by barbed wire, booby traps, and makeshift walls as British troops strained to quell the violence. Professor Eleazar Lipa Sukenik from Hebrew University received a call from an Armenian friend acting as a middle man for Salahi. He promised to reveal an antiquity of interest to Sukenik.

They met at the gateway to Military Zone B, separated by a barbed-wire fence. The Armenian held up a sample fragment of leather. Though Sukenik heard tales of such material floating around the black market, it was only once the Jewish scholar laid eyes on the ancient lettering that he comprehended the importance of the desert find. Even through barbed wire, Sukenik recognized the writing style as similar to first-century ossuaries (bone coffins) in Jerusalem.

Five days later, Sukenik acquired a proper pass and traveled to Salahi’s home in Bethlehem, ignoring travel warnings and the wishes of his wife and son. Salahi permitted Sukenik to take the scrolls and study them before negotiating a price. On a bus full of Arabs, the Jewish scholar carried the Hebrew scrolls under his arm, wrapped like an ordinary parcel. Once Sukenik was in the privacy of his home, he unrolled a fragile scroll with trembling fingers. He logged the intensity of emotion in his diary: “I suddenly had the feeling that I was privileged by destiny to gaze upon a Hebrew scroll which had not been read for more than 2,000 years.” As he poured over the text, he heard the radio announce that the United Nations General Assembly had voted in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state. Spontaneous celebrations broke out in the streets.

On behalf of the Hebrew University, Sukenik purchased Salahi’s three manuscripts: the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Psalms, and a second copy of the Isaiah Scroll.

The Dead Sea Scrolls made for a symbolic birthday gift to the state still struggling to survive at birth. For the last 71 years, the texts have been celebrated icons of the heritage of a people long recognized for the literary gifts they bequeathed to the world. The Egyptians have their pyramids, the Chinese have their wall, the Greeks have their marble temple, and the Incas had their mountain ridge citadel. The Jews have their scrolls, monuments built from words rather than mortar.

Shelley Neese is the author of the newly released book The Copper Scroll Project and Vice President of the Jerusalem Connection.

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Spelling Jerusalem

By Shelley Neese

On October 8, 2018, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem unveiled a 2,000-year-old limestone column drum bearing the inscription: “Hanania son of Dudolos from Jerusalem.”

The reason why the column drum made international headlines was not because Hanania is known from history or because Second Temple period finds are unusual. The inscription is the earliest full spelling in stone of the word Jerusalem, spelled exactly in Hebrew as it is pronounced in modern times, Yerushalayim.

In the Roman period, Jerusalem was most often written in Aramaic shorthand “Yerushalem” or “Shalem.” Before the drum was excavated, the earliest known reference to Jerusalem with the full spelling was on a coin of the Great Revolt against the Romans. The column drum predates the coin by 150 years. The Dead Sea Scrolls, many of which predate the column, use the full spelling Yerushalayim with regularity. There was never a question as to what first century Jerusalemites called their capital. The glory comes from seeing the remnant of a professional hand inscribing the name of Jerusalem in stone. The span of time from then to now suddenly collapses in the imagination.

The column drum was discovered during a salvage excavation near the International Convention Center. Salvage excavations occur in Israel when construction crews make accidental discoveries while they are building industrial centers or clearing new parking lots. Construction is a common source of archaeological progress in Israel. According to Israeli archaeologist Danit Levy, the excavation exposed the largest ancient pottery production site in the region. The potters seemed to make a large number of cooking vessels and possibly ritual vessels for use in the Second Temple.

Nothing is known about the person Hanania other than that he was a Jewish craftsman living 1.5 miles outside of the ancient city walls around 100 BCE. Experts believe that Hanania was not actually the son of Dudolos but rather the reference is to the mythical Greek artist with a similar name, evidence of the extent of Hellenization even in the land of Israel. Though the column was likely first used in Hanania’s workshop, the Tenth Roman Legion repurposed the column for their own plastered walls.

If you are planning to visit Israel any time soon, you can see the column drum yourself at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It is displayed prominently in the archaeology wing exhibiting Second Temple period artifacts from Jerusalem. Personally, this is a must-see piece of the museum, right after a visit to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hanania’s column drum is one more historical source, outside of the Bible, that gives witness to the very long history of Jewish presence in the land. I even love that despite the fact that Hanania was only a short distance outside the holy city, he still felt the need to highlight that he was from Jerusalem.

Shelley Neese is the author of The Copper Scroll Project and President of The Jerusalem Connection.

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Layers of Miracles

Israeli Independence Day (known in Hebrew as Yom Ha’atzmaut) occurs this year on the evening of May 8th; celebrations will go on through the next day.

Modern Israel is now 71 years old, a very young country by today’s standards. But the people of Israel and the land of Israel have been set apart by God for nearly four thousand years. Every year on Israel’s Independence Day, I am struck by the strangeness that one of the world’s oldest nations has one of the youngest countries.

How Israel won its independence in 1948 is a multi-level miracle story that I am sure is familiar to most of our subscribers, but I think it is an act of faith and devotion that each year we reconsider how God intervened on behalf of His people and give credit to the fact that the reestablishment of the Jewish state is an event that can’t be explained without recognizing the hand of the Divine Composer.

The first type of miracle was demographic. The initial waves of Jewish immigration to Israel were primarily from Russia in the 1880s. Violent pogroms were sweeping through the long-established Russian Jewish enclaves. Zionist leaders from these areas realized there was no future for the Jewish people in the Russia of the Czars and no end to the persecution. Zion was their only answer. The first wave was around 30,000 and the second wave was 40,000. A third wave of Yemenite Jews joined them. The goal of the Zionist movement was to establish farming communities and collective communities, despite their lack of agricultural knowledge. Over half of these refugees left after finding life in the new settlement communities too difficult. You can hardly blame them. The ones that stayed were critical in forming a base of Jewish settlement well before a formal Jewish state was within reach. Though most of them had no prior agricultural experience, they had to learn how to farm the land and make it yield produce for the hungry and growing communities. They reinvented themselves in that process. At that point, the land of Israel was a neglected backwater of the Ottoman Empire, but the persecuted but ambitious Jews of Russia showed they had not forgotten about the covenanted land.

The second type of miracle was linguistic. In 1881, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda revived the Hebrew language. Though Hebrew had been retained as a language of prayer and the Bible, it had not been spoken as a national tongue since the second century when Jews were scattered throughout the world. Ben-Yehuda, in an act of both genius and extreme discipline, modernized Hebrew so that it was a language capable of conducting trade, instructing children, digging ditches, and debating politics. Ben-Yehuda’s children were the first to learn Hebrew as their mother tongue in two thousand years. There is no other ancient language that has successfully been revived as a national language, and it happened within one generation.

The third type miracle was defensive. When the leaders of Israel declared independence as a country on the 14th of May, they were still uncertain if that hope would become a reality. It was understood from the beginning that right after they made the announcement, and the British mandate ended, the battles between Arabs and Jews which had been going on for years would escalate into a full-fledged regional war. They would no longer be battling Palestinian militias but organized state armies. The day after the announcement, six of Israel’s neighboring Arab countries invaded. These Arab armies had more soldiers and better weapons than Israel. The women and teenagers in Israel had to take up arms and join the men in fighting. Survivors of the Holocaust, still reeling from their tremendous loss and trauma, fought for their survival once again. Everyone outside of Israel thought it was impossible for one small new state to beat back so many invading armies. They feared all the Jews in Israel would be killed. Despite all odds, the Israeli army defeated every invading country. Not only did they defeat all their enemies, Israel won even more land than what had been partitioned for them by the United Nations.

I would say though that even more than these three layers of miracles (demographic, linguistic, and defensive), what happened in 1948 with the clearest signature of our creator God was the dramatic act of redemption. There was redemption in bringing the Jewish people from their lowest point in their long history, the Nazi’s Final Solution, to their highest point, the reestablishment of the Jewish nation state.

For two thousand years the Jewish people have known their share of persecution. From the crusades to the Spanish inquisition, to the Islamic armies to the Russian pogroms, and finally to the Nazi’s Final Solution. The Jewish people had survived, but their hearts were broken and their spirits stunned. How do you rebuild a people when one single war wiped out half of your population? There can only be one answer: a miracle.

David Ben Gurion famously said that “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”

 

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Passover and Christians

In Exodus 13, the Bible presents a holy script for the holiday of Passover. Essentially, God designed a ritual which makes certain that the Jews institute the Exodus in their collective memory. Their Egypt experience binds them as a people who share a history of oppression but also one where they are commanded to remember God’s signs and wonders and his outstretched arm.

In this sense, the Passover Seder is an explicitly Jewish observance. It is arguably quintessential to the Jewish faith. According to Israeli statistics, 82% percent of Israelis conduct a Seder every year and 70% of Jewish Americans do. This makes Passover the most commonly observed feast on the Jewish calendar, even more than Yom Kippur or Sukkot.

So, why are more and more Christians starting to observe some kind of Passover diner?

The first and most obvious answer to that question is Jesus did it. The Last Supper was the disciples meeting to observe the Passover with wine, matzah, and herbs. When Jesus commands his followers to eat this bread, and drink this cup in remembrance of me. He is referring to moments of ritual in the Passover diner and holding up the Passover elements of wine and matzah. In my opinion, there is no richer and more authentic way to take communion than in the context of a Passover Seder.

Once in Israel, my husband and I were having a Seder dinner with our orthodox Jewish neighbors. When the father of the house, our friend, go to the last cup of wine, he looked over to us and said, “I bet you are thinking about Jesus during this part.” From that goosebumps kind of moment on, we have held our own Seder dinners in our home every Passover.

The essence of the Passover dinner for both Jews and Christians is to celebrate God’s perfect plan of redemption. God’s pattern of calling for substitutionary sacrifice started with Abraham and Isaac on Mount Moriah and it climaxed on that night in Egypt when the Israelite firstborns were consecrated instead of killed. For Christians, Jesus’s death was the final act of substitutionary sacrifice but his death meant nothing without these prior moments where God communicated the theology of redemption. So as Christians, when we observe Passover, we are not only continuing the example of Jesus and the last supper, we are following a prophetic thread from Genesis to the gospels. It is also not my intention to take something Jewish and Christianize it. I try to always make that clear to Jewish friends. When we observe the miracles of the Exodus and relive God’s acts of deliverance for the Israelites, we are also allying with them and I hope partnering with Jews in the commitment to continue fighting for the freedom of the oppressed in today’s world.

This year, Passover Seder occurs on the eve of Resurrection Sunday. I can’t imagine a holier week and a better way to celebrate freedom over tyranny, life over death, and joy over mourning.

I close with a passage from Galations 4: Because you are the sons of God, He has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. The Spirit cries, “Father!” So now you are no longer a servant who is owned by someone. You are a son. If you are a son, then you will receive what God has promised through Christ.

Chag Semeach.

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