Dear and Precious Friends and Partners,
As I was praying about writing this letter to you this month, I felt the “Still Small Voice” say to me, “Tell them about your early days in Israel.” I wasn’t sure how far to go back, but then this verse came to me in my Bible reading,
And now, friends, we ask you to honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!
1 Thessalonians 5:12 MSG
That’s it! I want to overwhelm you with appreciation and love – today. I want to honor, many of you leaders, pastors and evangelists, both men and women around the world, who have worked so hard and given so royally to help Meridel and myself and our team to educate a large worldwide audience about God’s faithfulness to His Word and keeping power concerning His covenants to Israel.
When we came to Israel as a family in 1969, we had no idea what we were going to do. All we knew was that our marching orders, way back 50 years ago, were twofold, First, Meridel heard the Lord say to her, “If you love me? Then love My people.
Secondly, the Lord gave me a scripture from Jeremiah 50:2a which says, in the MSG Bible,
“Get the word out to the nations! Preach it! Go public with this, broadcast it far and wide:
Back then, five decades ago, we were a young married couple with one son, David, nine months old. We had no clue how to be obedient to and to fulfill these clear and quite simple instructions. We felt like Meridel’s pioneering forefathers when they came to Canada from Switzerland, England, and Ireland in the 1800s. Likewise, my grandparents came to Canada in the early 1900s, very poor, uneducated, with a few clothes on their backs. They arrived from England, Scotland, and France. They too were pioneers!
Like countless thousands and thousands of thousands, they faced the cold, foreboding Canadian winters. A vast uninhabited wilderness lay before them. This scenario of settlers seeking a better life also happened in America, Australia, South Africa, and South America to name a few places.
We too felt like we were pioneers in Israel. We discovered, that our first task was to pray! Then to listen for His instructions and act upon them in obedience.
In 1969, Israel was a lot different than it is today. Following Israel’s miraculous victory in the 1967 Six Day War, there was a sense of euphoria in the nation. But this, however, would be short-lived, as by 1973 the Yom Kippur War, severely hurt Israel. In the beginning, Syrian and Egyptian tanks devastated the IDF or Israel Defence Forces in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights. Initially, this war, which the Arabs started on the Holiest Day of the Jewish year, caused huge losses in personnel and equipment. It was also a case of nuclear brinkmanship between the USA and the USSR. The current situation today is quite similar in that Syria involves Russia, Iran, Turkey against Israel and the USA.
Back then in the late 1970s, our first prayer meetings were held out in the woods where we could sing and praise God without calling attention to ourselves. Month by month a small group of us would turn up for these meetings. Our children played around us as we interceded and petitioned Heaven’s Gate.
At that time, I would estimate that there were about 25 to 50 Jewish believers in Yeshua in all of Israel. Slowly the numbers began to increase. The relations between the Arab believers and Jewish believers in Yeshua began to blossom. Miracles started to happen in spite of strong persecution by the ultra-Orthodox religious Jews. Thank God for the bravery, grit, and perseverance of the early believers, Arab and Jew, and internationals alike.
Today, there are about 20 to 25,000 Messianic believers and an equal number of Evangelical Arabs. This coupled with many vibrant congregations, Bible Schools, Pro-Life works, prayer groups plus services to the poorest of the poor in Israel today, represent His hands at work. Over the years I have made several promotional documentaries on the vibrancy of the Gospel work going on in Israel today. Thank God for these miracles.
In obedience to the Lord, we continue to send our regular TV and Internet reports on interesting prophetic subjects happening in Israel today. We have also started a pioneering work in Greece. In fact, our son Josh and I are there as I write this letter to you. Again it is pondering work for the Lord.
( I now know what the Apostle Paul must have felt like when writing in this part of the world, it’s a bit lonely)
We send our love and appreciation to you for your support to our ongoing, “pioneering works for the Lord.” May you be overwhelmed with love and appreciation, – TODAY
In His service,
Jay, Meridel, sons, and team.
Ori Ansbacher, aged 19, was a gentle Jewish soul who volunteered with disadvantaged kids of all faiths. On Feb. 7th, 2019, while walking alone in the forest near Jerusalem, she was raped, stabbed multiple times and decapitated.
Arafat Irfayia: Ori’s murderer, a proud Palestinian from Hebron smirks, “I wanted to return to an Israeli jail. “Now officially a Hero of the Resistance, according to the Palestinian Authority, he will receive $3,700 US. salary monthly for life (paid by UK & EU taxpayers). He will likely spend at most 10 years in a comfortable Israeli jail and will also enjoy the honor of having schools and roads named after him.
Here in Israel, we feel that justice has been turned upon its head. This despicable murderer is no doubt the victim of the P.A.’s educational system of hatred of Israel; brainwashing their children and youth to believe the highest honor is to murder an Israeli.
Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, since the Oslo Accords in 1982 was ‘Inspector’ on behalf of Israel for anti-semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric perpetrated in Palestinian school books. Recently he confessed to never having looked between the covers of their school books. My question is, AT WHAT PRICE? We have a generation of adult Palestinians who believe the highest good is to murder Israelis. It was Plato who said:
“The most important quest in life is who gets to teach the children and what they teach them?” How true. “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
Iran is on the move, celebrating 40 years as the Islamic Republic. They boast of their strong presence in Lebanon and Turkey to fight the terrorism of Israel. They work to assure the world that they have never attacked any nation.FACT: Iran installed enough long-range missiles in Lebanon to attack Israel day and night for three weeks non-stop. One must use critical thinking in reading any ‘so-called’ news.
Photo: Eutoday.net news
– Why are so many grandchildren of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who brought us the Holocaust once again declaring war on the Jews?
– Why have we seen such an increase in anti-Semitism and irrationally virulent anti-Zionism in Western Europe?
To answer these questions, a myth must first be exposed. That myth is the one perpetrated by the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Swiss, Belgians, Austrians, and many other western Europeans: namely that the Holocaust was solely the work of German Nazis aided perhaps by some Polish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian collaborators. False.
The Holocaust was perpetrated by Europeans: by Nazi sympathizers and collaborators among the French, Dutch, Norwegians, Swiss, Belgians, Austrians and other Europeans, both Western and Eastern.
If the French government had not deported more Jews than their German occupiers asked for, to the death; if so many Dutch and Belgian citizens and government officials had not cooperated in the roundup of Jews; if so many Norwegians had not supported Quisling; if Swiss government officials and bankers had not exploited Jews; if Austria had not been more Nazi than the Nazis, the Holocaust would not have had so many Jewish victims.
In light of the widespread European complicity in the destruction of European Jewry, the pervasive anti- Semitism and irrationally hateful anti-Zionism that has recently surfaced throughout Western Europe toward Israel should surprise no one. “Oh no,” we hear from European apologists. “This is different. We don’t hate the Jews. We only hate their nation-state. Moreover, the Nazis were right-wing. We are left-wing, so we can’t be anti-Semites.”Nonsense. The hard left has a history of anti-Semitism as deep and enduring as the hard right. The line from Voltaire to Karl Marx, to Lavrenti Beria, to Robert Faurisson, to today’s hard-left Israel bashers is as straight as the line from Wilhelm Mars to the persecutors of Alfred Dreyfus to Hitler.
The Jews of Europe have always been crushed between the Black and the Red – victims of extremism whether it be the ultra-nationalism of Khmelnitsky to the ultra-anti-Semitism of Stalin. “But some of the most strident anti-Zionists are Jews, such as Norman Finkelstein and even Israelis such as Gilad Atzmon. Surely they can’t be anti-Semites?” Why not? Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas collaborated with the Gestapo. Atzmon, a hard leftist, describes himself as a proud self-hating Jew and admits that his ideas derive from a notorious anti-Semite. He denies that the Holocaust is historically proved but he believes that Jews may well have killed Christian children to use their blood to bake Passover matzah. And he thinks it’s “rational” to burn down synagogues. Finkelstein believes in an international Jewish conspiracy that includes Steven Spielberg, Leon Uris, Eli Wiesel, and Andrew Lloyd Webber!
“But Israel is doing bad things to the Palestinians,” the European apologists insist, “and we are sensitive to the plight of the underdog.”
No, you’re not! Where are your demonstrations on behalf of the oppressed Tibetans, Georgians, Syrians, Armenians, Kurds, or even Ukrainians? Where are your BDS movements against the Chinese, the Russians, the Cubans, the Turks, or the Assad regime? Only the Palestinians, only Israel? Why? Not because the Palestinians are more oppressed than these and other groups. Only because their alleged oppressors are Jews and the nation-state of the Jews. Would there be demonstrations and BDS campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians if they were oppressed by Jordan or Egypt? Oh, wait! The Palestinians were oppressed by Egypt and Jordan… The West Bank and Gaza were an open-air prison between 1948 and 1967 when Egypt and Jordan were the occupying powers. And remember Black September, when Jordan killed more Palestinians than Israel did in a century? (3,000) I don’t remember any demonstration or BDS campaigns — because there weren’t any.”
When Arabs occupy or kill Arabs, Europeans go ho-hum. But when Israel opens a soda factory in Maale Adumim, which even the Palestinian leadership acknowledges will remain part of Israel in any peace deal, Oxfam parts ways with Scarlett Johansson for advertising a soda company that employs hundreds of Palestinians. Keep in mind that Oxfam has provided “aid and material support” to two anti-Israel terrorist groups, according to the Tel Aviv-based Israeli Law Group.
The hypocrisy of so many hard-left western Europeans would be staggering if it were not so predictable based on the sordid history of Western Europe’s treatment of the Jews. Even England, which was on the right side of the war against Nazism, has a long history of anti-Semitism, beginning with the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 to the notorious White Paper of 1939, which prevented the Jews of Europe from seeking asylum from the Nazis in British-mandated Palestine… And Ireland, which vacillated in the war against Hitler, boasts some of the most virulent anti-Israel rhetoric. The simple reality is that one cannot understand the current western European left-wing war against the nation-state of the Jewish people without first acknowledging the long-term European war against the Jewish people themselves.
Theodore Herzl understood the pervasiveness and irrationality of European anti-Semitism, which led him to the conclusion that the only solution to Europe’s Jewish problem was for European Jews to leave that bastion of Jew-hatred and return to their original homeland, which is now the State of Israel.
None of this is to deny Israel’s imperfections or the criticism it justly deserves for some of its policies. But these imperfections and deserved criticism cannot even begin to explain, much less justify, the disproportionate hatred directed against the only nation-state of the Jewish people and the disproportionate silence regarding the far greater imperfections and deserved criticism of other nations and groups including the Palestinians.
Nor is this to deny that many western European individuals and some western European countries have refused to succumb to the hatred against the Jews or their state. The Czech Republic comes to mind. But far too many western Europeans are as irrational in their hatred toward Israel as their for-bearers were in their hatred toward their Jewish neighbors.
As author Amos Oz once aptly observed: the walls of his grandparents’ Europe were covered with graffiti saying, “Jews, go to Palestine.” Now they say, “Jews, get out of Palestine,” by which is meant Israel.
Who do these western European bigots think they’re fooling? Only fools who want to be fooled in the interest of denying that they are manifesting new variations on their grandparents’ old biases. Any objective person with an open mind, open eyes, and an open heart must see the double standard being applied to the nation-state of the Jewish people. Many doing so are the grandchildren of those who lethally applied a double standard to the Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.
Israel Vision Thanks you… March 2019
You do not have because you do not ask.
Ask and it shall be given to you,
For everyone who asks receives;
and he who seeks finds;
and to him who knocks it shall be opened.
James 4:2 Matthew 7:7,8.
Shalom all who want to make a difference in these dark days:
I asked our eldest son, David, over Shabbat, “Which area is the most dangerous for Israel; militant Iran or Europe with its sweeping radical changes?” In France alone, ISIS has murdered 230 people. Without hesitation, he responded: “Europe.” I agree and the following information will substantiate this conviction.
Our conversation continued: “David, we’ve been working for aliyah, helping to encourage Jews to come home to Israel for 50 years now. And with all of the Jew-hatred worldwide; this call is even more important than ever! As a family, we created, films, TV shows, books, and lectures. Together we have told the world of Israel’s historic and prophetic place in ancient and modern history. We have also been vanguards for victims in the war on sexual abuse globally. BUT, nothing has changed! If anything, anti-Semitism and sexual abuse continue to grow. We hear daily about the parabolic rise of anti-Semitism globally linked to hatred of Israel. Sexual abuse has never been more prevalent. And right here in Israel, the issues remain basically unchanged… terror threats, hatred and clever smear champagnes from the Palestinians never seem to change.” We have entered a very dark night.
David agreed and shocked me by saying: “The Holocaust could happen again. The stage is being set. Just think, now with the world GPS systems, we would n’t be able to hide Jews. It’s very serious in spite of the miracle that Israel is an island of democracy and sanity surrounded by the growing sea of madness.
I said. “When I read the books Dad and I wrote 40 years ago… the basic issues are exactly the same. The difference is that today the Judaeo-Christian ethic is under fierce attack by the godless Right and Left in Europe; add to this the continued rise of Fundamentalism Islam in both East and West.
David encouraged me with: “You and Dad have always been prophetic; I want to encourage you to arrange speaking engagements. You need to spend time with the people of Europe. In every meeting it’s important to have question and answer sessions!”
FACTS:
USA: Minneapolis Minnesota according to the FBI is the top hotbed of terror. 45 Somalis left to join ISIS and El Shabab over the last 5 years. 12 were arrested trying to join ISIS. Congresswoman Ilan Omar was put into office by this radical Muslim Islamic sentiment. This socialist Democrat detests Israel and says so!
UK: Prime Minister Theresa May addressed anti-semitism within the institution of the British Parliament; which has increased 75% nationwide in one year. ISRAEL is the only nation who has signed a 10 Billion Pound trade deal with a Britain free from the restrictions of the EU to go into effect in April 2019.
REMEMBER: THE UK and the USA have been the greatest global Lighthouses for the Gospel in history! Christian Britains have been fasting and praying holding days of prayer for their nation. We must all pray, speak out, warn all you meet. Invite Jay and I to come to your area to speak out and bring clarity.
Together we were used to changing history in the 1980s and 1990s and we can do it again!
Contact us: jvrawlings@gmail.com
Dance for Kindness
Dancing has a way of breaking down barriers of bitterness and hatred, ignorance and isolation. 120 nations joined together with Jerusalem to “dance for kindness.” For the first time ever Gaza joined in. The common thread that stitched these inspiring dancers from across the globe to come together was the character quality of Kindness.
Jerusalem Vistas was called by Adi, the choreographer, and our daughter in law. “Jay, come we need to film this very special event.” Daniel headed the film crew as she led 500 Israelis of all ages in a dance celebrating… yes KINDNESS! They danced to the song ‘Unity’ created by the Solomon Brother’s and played by their Jerusalem Band. The lyrics go like this…
“There is a shining light in every one of us…
Every person in this world is a diamond in the rough.
One soul, one goal, one love, Unity!
Join us. One forever!
We put this awful program on our websites for Holocaust Remembrance Day to address the ignorance of all anti-semites and holocaust deniers. My father, and our grandfather as well as our great grandfather, Victor Alloway Rawlings fought and died for this “hell on earth” to be stopped. Warning this is not suitable to be seen by children!
Shalom!
Every year in early November during the days leading up to Remembrance Day on the 11th; I think of my father, Victor Alloway Rawlings. He volunteered for service as a Canadian Soldier, leaving his pregnant wife and loved ones as so many hundreds of thousands of other men. She received the telegram in April 1945 announcing that at the age of 28 he died liberating Holland from the Nazi horror of World War II. His death, as that of any loved one, was sadly tragic to all who knew him; coming on 09 April 1945 He fell just three weeks before the Armistice or the Nazi surrender to the allies that was signed on 08 May 1945, marking VE Day or Victory over Europe.
I don’t believe my Mother ever got over her loss. I was 2 months old at the time, and have an illustrated love letter that he wrote to me just weeks before he died. It is a treasure. Thankfully, I can say with assurance that he was a believer and that one day I (we) will be united with him in heavenly places.
Through the tender mercies of our God,
with which the Dayspring.
(The Messiah) from on high has visited us;
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and under the shadow of death.
To guide our feet into the way of Peace ”
Luke 1:78-7
Portrait: Victor Rawlings by James Christian Rawlings grandson.
The Greek word for ‘peace’ is ‘Eirere’ in the above verse it refers to “a state of rest, quietness and calmness; an absence of strife; or tranquility.” It generally denotes a perfect sense of well being. “Eirene” includes harmonious relationships between God and man, men and men, nation and nations, family and families. Jesus as the “Prince of Peace’; gives true, lasting peace to those who call upon Him for personal salvation. My prayer is that you hold this peace very close to your heart and mind. And may you be enriched because of your loving kindness to us Rawlings living here in Israel. You cannot know how encouraging it is to receive your responses via our websites and letters. I pray you are as happy about hearing from us as we are hearing from you. I say within all sincerity. Times are not getting easier to any of us and friends have never meant more than they do right now. For those of you suffering health challenges, I want you to know that we take your words to heart and pray for you. Often the Holy Spirit will keep bringing you to mind until you are on your feet again. We are watchmen and count it a privilege.
From the Greek word for ‘peace’, we have the lady’s name, Irene. Irene Bredlow and Meridel became best friends at age 18 when in 1960 they met and entered nurses training together at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. They were both adventurous, becoming life saviors, earning the bar to their bronze in swimming in their spare time. Both won special awards at graduation for their excellence work. Unknown upon graduation, was the calling to Israel that they both received. Today Irene lives about 1 kilometer from Tiberias in Poriyah in the Galilee. We get together when time permits, perhaps four times a year for fellowship, prayer, and fun. She and Meridel talk for hours and hours. I get to witness them laughing and giggling like girls. My job when we are together is to be their butler and chief cook. I become ‘Throck Morton’ and place a towel over my right arm as I serve their food. I enjoy it, they deserve a break, and spoil me as the butler! What fun! There are no friends like old friends!
Irene has a beautiful ministry of serving those who love the Lord all around the Sea of Galilee. For years she volunteered as a nurse in Beersheba, and also in the Poriya General Hospital. She is also an excellent tour guide for visitors from abroad and takes them to the Biblical locations where the gospel stories unfolded. Her Bed and Breakfast ministry is known as Galilee Gardens. If any of you would like to visit the Galilee and stay with Irene; just let us know and we will make the connection. For sure, you will find “peace” in her home.
Thanks again for your words of encouragement, and your prayers for us as a family and team. We are humbled by your own difficult circumstances and your assurance of prayers for each one of us. We will never underestimate the price you pay for your financial help. Together you make it possible for us to remain in Israel. We have one million seniors in this land who live under the poverty line. It is tragic. And we know that the LORD is watching out to keep us well and cared for.
So we do count our blessing every day and are grateful. Only the Lord will be able to adequately reward you on that Day!
In His Love,
Jay Rawlings, Meridel, David, Chris, Josh and Daniel.
Jay Rawlings, Box 84156, Mevasseret Zion, 90079097 ISRAEL
Email: jvrawlings@gmail.com www.israelvision.tv
Sketch by Josh Rawlings when in high school.