Home » October 1995

Zola Levitt

The Jerusalem Post, which I often quote in this newsletter, is a serious newspaper dealing with issues of some gravity. But with that said, it also takes time now and again for a more lighthearted look at the drama of the 'peace process.' In the June 30, 1995 issue, an American rabbi who now lives in Jerusalem set his imagination to work on what might happen in negotiations with Syria, and he came up with the following article.

The funny part is that he's right. And the sad part is that he's right. In Rabbi Feldman's reckoning, Israel, after pleasing Syria, the American government, the New York Times, several of its own newspapers, its Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and sundry Parliament members, will end up giving away all of its property, except for a part of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station!

Zola

In 1996 it finally happened: Israel and Syria signed a treaty giving Israel undisputed sovereignty over Jerusalem's newly reconstructed Central Bus Station, including one outgoing lane. President Clinton, in a ceremony on the White House lawn, praised Israel for not allowing petty details like territory to stand in the way of peace, adding that "to attain full jurisdiction over this revered bus station is a fitting climax to the history of the wandering Jew."

Prime Minister Rabin declared: "It has been a long journey, but we finally have a homeland the world can live with — and the outgoing lane will guarantee safe passage if we have to wander again." [Syrian President] Hafez Assad publicly renounced all attempts to wrest land by terrorism, since it was much easier to do so by negotiation. He pledged that those Jews who could not be squeezed into the bus station would be repatriated to friendly regimes like Syria and Iraq.

[Foreign Minister] Shimon Peres stated that "this accord proves to all the world that for us, 'Land for Peace' is not just a slogan. Unfortunately, we have no more land to surrender — but if we did, we would give that up, too. We hope the world will now see what really fine people we are once you get to know us."

Then Assad declared that it was intolerable for a foreign power to have full sovereignty over so hallowed an Arab site as the Jerusalem Bus Station. But as a gesture of goodwill he would allow Israel to retain a lower level, plus the concession stands, since "they do so well at concessions."

Peres agreed: The fewer buses we have the more difficult it will be for terrorists to attack them. The world was ecstatic. The New York Times declared that "Assad is to be commended for his patience that overcame paranoid Israeli fears." Said [Israeli newspaper] Ha'aretz: "No longer will we have to dominate other people through might and power." Ma'ariv's cover featured a full-color picture of the new, compact bus station under a banner headline: "If you will it, it is no dream."

In the Knesset, Rabin was challenged about the bus station referendum he had promised. "I will hold it," he pledged, "the day after the implementation of the treaty. Stop whining," he added.

[Parliament member] Shulamit Aloni was livid at the opposition. "Only the haredim [the Orthodox] are opposed to peace. It will serve them right to have to live in a crowded bus station. Who tells them to have such large families? We have pledged to build a brand new western wall at the western wall of the station and they're still not satisfied."

Intoned Peres: "It is always the religious who oppose progress. They are living in medieval times. They should come into the 20th century, where there is compromise and tolerance. I have read the Bible, and nowhere does God promise the Jews both upper and lower levels of bus stations. Any religious Jew who doesn't like it can go back to Brooklyn."

Terror intensified. As a goodwill gesture, the government gave Syria 50 military trucks. It also released 400 convicted terrorists, and changed the words of Hatikva [the Israeli anthem] so that Arab sensibilities would not be offended. As anti-government demonstrations erupted, the Knesset pushed through a bill sponsored by the Party to Prevent Religious Coercion labeling all anti-government statements subversive. All protesters were placed under house arrest.

Terror increased. Peres flew off to Damascus. Two days later he returned in triumph. "In my hand are 25 post-dated letters from the president, in which he regrets in advance the next 25 terrorist attacks. No longer need we worry whether we have his regrets for I hold them firmly in my hand. And as an additional good-faith gesture, he has pledged that as soon as we run out of these, he will issue new ones. He is prepared to do this for as long as necessary."

The next day Syria declared that the term "Central," as in Central Bus Station, was offensive to Arab sensibilities. He demanded that the new Jewish homeland be known as "The Final Solution" (Tahana Sofit).

Rabin's response was unequivocal: "We must not falter over a mere name after finally arriving at a solution. But I faithfully vow: This lower level of our beloved bus station, which carries so many memories for all of us, will forever remain eternal and undivided."

The writer, formerly a rabbi in Atlanta, Georgia, is the editor of Tradition magazine, and lives in Jerusalem.

Thomas McCall

Throughout this series we have been promoting an unusual view of the history of the last one and one-half centuries: a biblical view. A secular view would emphasize the rise and fall of various powers in the West and the East, resulting in the titanic struggles of two World Wars and the Cold War. A biblical view, however, would put the emphasis on the steps involved in the restoration and subsequent survival of the relatively obscure, tiny, and apparently insignificant nation of Israel. The Jewish nation has pitifully few battalions in their citizen army in the geo-political scheme of world power, but Israel's influence in the 20th century has been far and away greater than its small size and population would otherwise warrant.

Why do we call this a biblical approach? Because the Bible is Israel-centered. Since the initial promise of the Land to Abraham, there have been two restorations of the Hebrew people to Canaan: the Exodus and Conquest under Moses and Joshua, and the return from the Babylonian Captivity under Ezra, Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. Contrary to the contemporary and current historical treatment, the Bible concentrates on these events in Israel's history. Now, after nineteen centuries of dispersion, we have the remarkable privilege of observing firsthand the beginnings of the predicted third restoration of Israel in preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.

Secular history scarcely recognizes the Exodus or the return of the Jews from Babylon. Egypt, Babylon and Persia tended to sweep unfavorable information under the rug and ignore it, and the modern secular historians have followed their lead. World histories of the period concern themselves with the rise and fall of dynasties of Pharaohs and Emperors, with their great wars and conquests. The comings and goings of Jews in and out of their little land scarcely rate a mention in the broad histories of the world.

But the Bible concentrates on Israel as the Chosen Nation, the repository of the Covenants, the channel of the Messianic Hope, the custodian of the divinely approved Temple, the keeper of the oracles of God, and the capital nation of the returning crucified and risen King of Kings. Thus page after page, book after book in the Old and New Testaments deal with these issues that mean little or nothing to world powers or historians. Israel is the central theme of the Bible.

But the New Testament seems to leave Israel behind, and the Church is the new center of God's plan. Thus, some might say that the Church has replaced Israel, and that Israel is no longer the center of the biblical plan. It is true that the Holy Spirit is currently concentrating on evangelism, church planting, pointing people to the Lord Jesus Christ, and growing the overall body of Christ. The Church age has lasted for almost two thousand years, and is very significant as a previously unrevealed mystery in which God is calling out believing Jews and Gentiles as a glorious bride for the Son of God. However, the Church age is in some ways just a biblical parenthesis.

The Church age has actually interrupted the previously revealed prophetic stream that has to do with the first and second comings of Christ, and His relationship to Israel and the nations. After the Lord has removed the Church through the promised Rapture, He will resume His activities of judgment and intervention that have to do with the Tribulation and the establishment of His kingdom in Jerusalem, Israel and the world. What is amazing is that, even though the Church age has not yet ended, we are already seeing the transition to the beginning of the third restoration of Israel, and the preparation for the events of the Tribulation.

Therefore, in order to view modern world events in a biblical perspective, we have to take off the glasses provided to us by secular journalists and historians, and put on our biblical glasses that see the movements of the nations from the microscopic vantage point of Israel. Modern Israel has fought four major wars during the last fifty years, and each one has played an important role in setting the stage for the prophesied events of the Tribulation:

Through all these wars, which were relatively minor in comparison with the World Wars but major for Israel's survival, the Satanic strategy was to destroy Israel through the Arab armies, mostly armed by the Soviet Bloc. But God protected His Chosen Nation through the sacrificial dedication of the Jewish people, and the support of the United States and a handful of other nations. If we do not recognize this titanic supernatural background behind the observable struggle, we are not looking at recent history from a biblical viewpoint.

The four wars each played a significant role in the great struggle between the Lord and Satan over the preservation of Israel. The last one, the Yom Kippur War, illustrates how deeply committed Russia and the Soviet Union were to supporting the Arab nations against Israel.

Egypt and Syria completely surprised Israel when they attacked the Jewish nation on the most holy day of the year, Yom Kippur. All the reserve citizen-soldiers were in their synagogues fasting and praying. During the first few weeks of the war, Israel was in dire straits, and it looked for a while that the tiny nation might be destroyed by the massive onslaught. The U.S. was having great difficulty in re-supplying Israel with military equipment. None of the European nations would allow American planes to refuel at their airports because of the threat of an Arab oil embargo.

Gradually, the vaunted Israeli army began to turn the tide and repel the Egyptian and Syrian forces. Eventually, they were able to push the Egyptian army across the Suez Canal and surround them in the desert south of Cairo. Egypt called on its patron, the Soviet Union, to assist its beleaguered army. Amazingly, the Russian army declared a red alert and made preparations to send paratroopers to Egypt with relief supplies. The U.S. in the fall of 1973 was completely engulfed in the Watergate scandal, but nevertheless was able to announce its own red alert in response. It was a very tense time in Cold War politics.

The upshot was that Israel relaxed its stranglehold on the Egyptian army, relief was allowed in, and a cease-fire was accomplished. This was about as close as the world has come to a preview of the Gog and Magog war predicted in Ezekiel 38 and 39. That war and Armageddon are the two primary wars prophesied about restored Israel in the End Times in the Scripture. In our next article, we will examine how events are shaping up for these two devastating Israel-centered wars in the End Times.

Dear Friends,

As you read this, I am in the glorious land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, celebrating the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. Can there be any better place for a Christian to be than at the site of our future Kingdom? Small as it is, Israel is a testimony to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His Word.

And yet so few people in the world, even among Christians, see Israel for what it is: the Land of the Chosen People, given by God's covenant to Abraham and his descendants forever. In a September 9 Jerusalem Post article, Yasser Arafat's senior adviser, Abdel Salam Abu Shuheide, declared, "Jerusalem has been an Arab city throughout history." An Arab city throughout history? Where does he come up with this? Until the 7th century a.d., the Arabs were a relatively scattered group seemingly emanating from Saudi Arabia. They didn't enter the picture until centuries, even millennia, after Israel was established as a Jewish land with Jerusalem as its capital.

What has irritated Shuheide, along with the Palestinian groups and even the European Union, are the celebrations for Jerusalem 3000, which marks 3,000 years since King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel. This 15-month-long birthday party is being boycotted by the European Union, and the Palestinians are using it as an opportunity to make a lot of noise about their unfounded claim that the land is rightfully theirs.

PLO leader Faisal Husseini said at a Palestinian conference, "We should have a clear position against these celebrations, which deny completely the true Arab reality of the holy city." With comments such as these being trumpeted by the media, it is more important than ever that Christians stand up for the true reality of the Holy City: God's dwelling place during the ancient Jewish kingdom, Christ's focus during His earthly ministry, and our future home.

To that end, during the Fall Festival Tour we will begin filming on a new series, to be titled Jerusalem 3000. This series will document events taking place in Jerusalem during their 3000th anniversary with interviews of political leaders, editors and Messianic believers. I urge you to join us with your support as we start production on this important project. The world needs an accurate picture of what is happening. It's certainly not going to get it from the media. Thank you for your generous help.

We also invite you to come and see Jerusalem for yourself on our upcoming Hanukkah/Christmas Tour. This is always a special time and is our most economical tour of the year. The Basic Israel Tour runs from December 11 to the 20th and includes the major biblical sites. The Deluxe Tour features an extended tour of Israel, including a journey through the strikingly beautiful Negev Desert to the resort city of Eilat, situated by the Red Sea. Our Grand Tour, in addition to Eilat, will travel into Jordan to see ancient, 'rose red' Petra, a city carved out of a mountain. Both the Deluxe and Grand Tours will leave December 11 and return on December 26, and both will have the unforgettable experience of spending Christmas Eve in Bethlehem, city of our Lord's birth. Please call Cynthia at 214-690-1876 or 1-800-WONDERS for your free, full-color brochure.

Your messenger,

Carl Saltarelli, our video cameraman, has come on a number of our tours and recorded the goings on for the use of our pilgrims. He is not connected with our television program, but rather uses home-style equipment to produce a servicable record of the tour sites and teachings. He sent to us his observations of last year's Hanukkah/Christmas Tour, which I would like to share with you.

Zola

As I write, I am on the return flight from the 1994 Christmas Grand Tour of the Holy Land, and wish to offer you some recollections of the highlights of the tour. Overall, the Winter Tour was fantastic. The members of this tour were apparently hand-picked by the Lord to mesh together as a family. The spirit of unity, love, prayer, and sharing was just marvelous. People whom we met along the way could not understand the love that we shared for Israel, her people, her God, and her Messiah, Yeshua.

We began in the Galilee and studied the miracles of our Lord which He performed on and around the Sea of Galilee. It was so enlightening to be in the exact area where the Lord ministered and to see the things which He saw. The Scriptures came alive as we studied the Sermon on the Mount on the mount. We studied particularly Matthew 6:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

Later we went to Capernaum and saw the relatively new (4th century a.d.) synagogue built upon the ruins of the older synagogue where Jesus taught the people of that fishing village. During our evening cruise on the Sea of Galilee, the Lord brought home to us by the glittering lights of the cities on the shoreline, the illustration of Matt. 5:14-16: "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." The imagery of this Scripture was never so vivid to me as in that special moment.

The Lord blessed us with the ministry of Reverend Bill Moore, an evangelist, who was also my roommate. It was brave of him to perform the baptisms in the Jordan River. We didn't have to break any ice, but the water was cold! Many braved the water nonetheless. I only got my feet wet while videotaping. After our explanation about Old and New Testament foundations for baptism, we had a simple Gospel invitation. Soon after the baptisms, we learned that a dear sister in our group had simultaneously been witnessing to two young ladies volunteering at a local kibbutz. They received Jesus. Hallelujah! One night our Israeli-Christian guide, Yossi Ashkenazi, brought in a special guest speaker, David Friedlander, an American who now lives and works in Tiberias. He told us of the opposition politically, religiously, and spiritually to living in the Land as a Christian. His family is an effective missionary witness in these times. Their visit blessed us, and we prayed for and encouraged them. David publishes a dynamic newsletter, The Watchman of Israel. You may contact him at 37/2 Oranim Street, Tiberias, Israel.

The Lord performed many marvelous works among His people on this trip. In a Tiberias hotel room, He healed and delivered a dear brother who was a different type of Holocaust survivor. As we lent him counsel, we discovered his severe hatred toward the people responsible for the Holocaust. Our brother was part of the American liberation force. When he reached the ghastly Nazi concentration camps, he saw firsthand the war atrocities which were beyond belief, including people buried alive. He afterward spent thirteen years in hospitals trying to recover from what he had seen. We ministered to him that this was the work of the Devil against the Chosen People of God. By the Lord's grace, he was healed of this torment and was able to forgive the German people he had hated for fifty years. Fifty years! Later on, when we visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, he was there with us. He remembered, he wept, he attested to the truth of the exhibits, and he expressed his new love for a country and a people which he had hated for most of his life. He had become a new man. Praise God!

The early risers in our group enjoyed a special blessing in Jerusalem: snow. It did not last long, however, and those who slept in were skeptical of our reports! The snow turned to sleet and rain, so we had a leisurely worship service and Bible lesson in the hotel auditorium while waiting for the weather to clear. Later that morning we descended the Mount of Olives along the same path that Jesus had used, and saw the large ancient olive trees at the Garden of Gethsemane. In the evening we formed an impromptu men's quartet and sang Christmas carols on the entryway of the kibbutz hotel. The stone walls focused our voices, and in much the same way that you sound better when you sing in the shower, we sounded rich and dynamic. Our group very enthusiastically applauded the spontaneous concert. They were not the only ones to appreciate our music: the Israelis also caught the joy of the moment.

While in Jerusalem we had the special privilege of visiting the recent excavations of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. We went deep beneath the current street level to see quarried stones the size of railroad cars and to walk the street of Jesus' time. The biblical accounts of Jerusalem and the Temple came to life before us via scale models, multi-media presentations, and archaeological exhibits.

The Israeli Military Spokesperson, Dennis Avi Lipkin, came to speak to us in Jerusalem. He not only brilliantly informed us of the military/political outlook in Israel, but also answered a wide field of questions regarding Israel, the peace process, Judaism, and Islam. Avi travels to the United States several times a year, speaking at local churches and synagogues in an effort to forge a strong Jewish-Christian alliance in support of Israel in these troubled times. He is available to speak to your church and you may reach him via his representative in New York at (516) 487-6193, or write to P. O. Box 18209, Jerusalem, 91171, Israel.

We traveled to the Negev (the South, in Hebrew) during the Grand Tour extension. The weather was great, and I even enjoyed a brisk dip in the Red Sea. (It was not quite as cold as the Jordan River.) We drove to the borders with Jordan and Egypt, and many of us had our pictures made there. Close to the Egyptian border we enjoyed a lovely beach with live coral reefs, clear blue water, and a fascinating underwater observatory.

Everywhere we traveled we sang, whether it was our guide Zvi Rivai teaching us Hebrew songs, our men's quartet, or yours truly leading praise choruses. We sang in meeting rooms, hotel rooms, at holy sites, in the bus, and even in the showers, it was reported! This group was known by the joy we shared along the way. Even on our return flight, we sang the Hebrew songs we learned in Israel. Some somber Orthodox Jews on the 747 looked at us in disbelief as we sang songs in their language with the joy which only comes from serving a living Savior. Mary Cohen, a Messianic Israeli flight attendant, told us how pleasant it was to have us on board. Praise God for a good report.

The highlight of our tour was the communion service at the Garden Tomb. Any time you visit the empty tomb is precious, but this visit was special. We were given an indoor chapel in which to celebrate the Lord's Supper/Passover remembrance. We used only candles for light, which helped to create a most awesome atmosphere. The chapel was a Byzantine-style stone structure, with an arched ceiling that provided fantastic acoustics for our a cappella praises. It was stirring to give the traditional Hebrew blessing over the bread, "Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth," within sight of the empty tomb where our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life, came forth from the earth. Although it was cold outside, the Lord visited us with the warmth of His presence. Praise God!

I have by no means presented all the people, places, and raindrops of glory which we experienced on this tour. This has been just a few views, some snapshots to inspire you to make the trip (again). I hope to see you then. May God bless you. Shalom.

Dear Zola,

Best wishes in Jesus, A.B.

Dear A.B.,

Thank you for your letter. Actually, you can use your own envelopes. This helps and we welcome it.

Zola's Staff

Dear Zola,

Best regards, A.F.

Shalom Zola,

Yours In Yeshua, A.R.