Home » June 1998

Zola Levitt

Once again, we ride the roller coaster: today remembering the 20,332 who fell in Israel’s wars and pre-state battles, tonight celebrating the nation for which they gave their lives. Israel’s jubilee is a time for taking stock, thinking back across the span of time, and trying to fathom how far we have come and where we are headed.

Speaking of the human condition, the American longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote: “Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts.” He must not have been thinking of Israel at 50. Somehow, even during our birthday celebration, speaking of achievements is not quite in fashion, and contemplation of our current condition keeps returning to the matter of unfinished business.

According to a poll commissioned by Ha’aretz, 82% of its citizens expect that Israel will exist to mark its 100th anniversary. The confidence of the overwhelming majority is not as striking as the question itself: What other nation celebrating its jubilee would even ask such a question?

For a nation that is 50 years old, Israel is singularly preoccupied with birth pains. Most nations take the definition of their borders for granted: the prospect of completing hte definition of ours has only recently come into sight. We are only now able to begin grappling with the fact that, as Yitzhak Rabin declared to the Palestinians after the famous handshake on the White House lawn: “We are destined to live together on the same soil in the same land.”

Though it was not always expressed with the same intensity, our desire to coexist has been a fervent one from the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. At one time it was even shared by Arab leaders such as Emir Faisal, who in 1919 wrote to US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter proclaiming “the deepest sympathy for the Zionist movement.”

Faisal viewed Zionism as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement fighting against the colonial powers of the day. “We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home,” he continued, “there is room in Syria for us both.”

Even though hopes for coexistence had been dashed by much bloodshed in the interim, Israel’s Declaration of Independence declared: “We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness.” The Arab response was succinctly expressed by the New York Times headline that day: “Zionists proclaim State of Israel… Tel Aviv Bombed, Egypt Orders Invasion.”

Then it was not known whether Israel would survive another week, let alone 50 years. We have not only survived, but created a thriving democracy that has increased its ppulation tenfold, largely by attracting and absorbing massive numbers of immigrants. Two of the nations at war with us then, Egypt and Jordan, have signed peace treaties with us, and the closing of the circle of peace with our immediate neighbors can be seen dimly — even through the dust kicked up by the current haggling over the peace process. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who rarely seems to mind being out of fashion, exuded holiday spirit in his jubilee interview with this newspaper, calling Israel “the greatest success story of the 20th century, and in many ways it is the greatest triumph of a people of all the nations of history.”

The resurrection of an ancient people in its own land, following the destruction of a third of its number in the Holocaust, is unique in history and represents ample cause for celebration, even had Israel accomplished nothing else.

Healing the religious-secular split, finding a way to be a Jewish state that includes its Arab minority, and revolutionizing the economy are each daunting tasks which have been shunted aside by the existential struggle for too long. But the existence of continuing challenges should hardly be allowed to dampen the celebration.

Zola Levitt,

Sunday I heard your message on Channel 42 with a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke on his head talking about the big bang and millions of years in forming the earth. I finally turned it off. I am disappointed on your lack of giving the Word. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” We have been called to preach the Word and not in the wisdom of men’s word. My calling has been to the Jew first and have won at least two at the Jewish center where I have senior lunch. I enjoyed seeing your pictures of Christians in Israel and not in just your tour group. I wish you showed more of Israel’s Christians.

I am concerned of you leaning toward Judaism, a religion of being Jewish and little toward the people of faith. “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is not of the flesh but of the heart.”

I ask God to show you the way of faith and not to please men. Enclosed find gift.

In Christ,

M.A.

Dear Zola,

Please don’t stop sending me your newsletter! I’m originally from Ohio but I go to school (only one more semester to go!) In Tennessee. My TV here only picks up two channels, neither of which air your show. I rely on your newsletter to carry me through the semester until I can go home and watch your show again!

About five years ago I committed myself to God and God started to share His heart with me. I grew up in a Weslyan Armenian Church. I thought in Christian terms like dispensationalism, Replacement Theology, etc. Then God showed me how Jewish He was! He showed me all this from the Scriptures. The first extra-Biblical experience I had of the Jewishness of our faith was your show. I stayed up late one night and by chance caught your show. I was so excited!

Last semester I started a little “Messianic Fellowship” called “Roots and Branches” here at Lee University. After I graduate, I hope to enter a graduate program in Jewish studies.

About three years ago I taped some of your “Israel: By Divine Right” series. I’ve watched them so much the tape is getting worn. The picture is getting fuzzy and distorted.

Keep your ministry going! I can honestly say your show has changed my life and still continues to inform and to encourage me.

B’Yeshua,

S.B.

Dear Zola,

Enclosed is my gift for the month of April. After reading the last two Levitt Letters, I just felt compelled to include this little note.

You are a blessing in both my life and my mother’s. We look forward to seeing your weekly program, as well as your wonderful newsletters. I felt terrible when I read some of the horrible things that people wrote to you. Please do not become discouraged, keep doing what you are doing!

There are many of us out here who are “with you” and who support you in prayer. Things are so mixed up in today’s world, and you are one of the few people that is trying to help us make sense of this mess, so please know that we are behind you 110%

Thanks for all that you do!!!

Yours in Yahweh,

D & L

Dear Levitt friends,

I would like to join the others who may write concerning the Survey of the New Testament which Zola’s son Aaron found distressing and which Zola and Dr. McCall discussed during the program. Of course I find it distressing also. Please let the college know, although I don’t believe it will do any good. I think God used Aaron to uncover this fact and to make it public and now Aaron should shake the dust off his feet and leave that college since they have dug in their heels and insist on continuing to be anti-Semitic!!!

But in what way is this any different from all the other false “facts” which are being propagated in the Christian world today? I don’t see how Zola can ask us to join him in this effort until he quits using the word, “Christ.” This word also portrays incorrect doctrine. The word used should be “Messiah,” and many other words he uses should also be more Jewish to show that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah. How can we teach the correct ideas without using the correct words? I don’t care if the Baptists use the wrong words. Zola should use the right words. He is a Jew and is to teach them!

Will you show him this letter?

Most sincerely b’ahava Mashiach,

S.W.

Dear Zola,

I would like very much to know how you feel now about Prime Minister Netanyahu. Before his election he said he would do nothing to endanger the people of Israel. I believe he also said he would not give up the land he is now giving up. It is one thing to have high and lofty ideals before you are in the driver’s seat, but quite another when you are.

He is now on his way to Washington, and I believe that he is about to give in to Clinton’s ultimatum. What makes him think that he can obtain peace and safety by giving land to Israel’s enemy, Yasser Arafat? You know as well as I that Arafat has not abided by even one part of the Oslo Accord, and it is not likely that he ever will.

While I prayed for him to get elected … I now have my doubts that he is any better able to lead Israel than the man before him. My heart goes out to God’s people. They have suffered for so long. I pray the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will bring true peace to Jerusalem.

I would like very much to hear your feelings on this important matter, as well as on PM Netanyahu’s land grants (does he not know God forbids the parceling out of His land?).

Sincerely in Yeshua’s Name,

K.W.

Dear Brethren:

We have enjoyed your programs for a number of years and have received many blessings from them. You have done a great job in educating our family on the people of Israel. We were able to take what we learned from your programs on the Passover and present a Christian celebration at our Church. Our youth group did all this, and many people from the community attended and received a blessing.

Your current series on the covenants is great. However, we are writing to you today in response to your program on the textbooks in our Christian colleges. We are appalled at the blatant disregard for the Word. The attempt to control our youth by teaching false doctrine has now made it into our “Christian” environment. This practice is something that we are very familiar with. It was first used in our public education by the likes of Dewey and his ilk. They take small steps, by introducing one or tow incorrect or misleading things into textbooks (accepted as facts). Soon they have completely changed the direction of the nation’s youth. As home-schooling parents, we are constantly in search of good material to teach our children. A number of years ago we found a civic textbook by Harcourt & Brace. Being familiar with the book (the same was used when we attended high school), we began to review it in anticipation of using it. Much to our dismay, it was completely anti-American, anti-Constitution, and extremely anti-family! Needless to say, we disposed of it, making sure it would not be used by any student.

We support your effort to rid our colleges of textbooks that teach false doctrine. We can only hope that the professors who support and teach this will soon follow the book out the door. We pray that the Lord bless you in your effort.

Please send us the names and addresses of all colleges and universities that you know of that are using this book. We are also interested in contacting the publisher. We intend to send a copy of the above letter along with a request for the removal of this book and others like it.

—E.H., V.H., A.H., J.C.H..

Dear Mr. Levitt:

Your television program regarding Robert H. Gundry’s book, A Survey of the New Testament, was very enlightening. God said He would curse those who curse Israel. If the president and vice president of Criswell University failed to act, and in fact defended Gundry’s book, they have, in effect, cursed Israel and will surely suffer the consequence God promised. They should voluntarily resign or be removed from their positions so the University does not also suffer from their error. I will do what I can to obtain that outcome. Thank you for alerting us regarding the above mentioned book.

Very truly yours,

M.R.W.

God bless your efforts in his behalf. Keep up the pressure on those who would pervert the Truth. Shalom.

Your sister in Christ Jesus,

C.B.

Dear Friends,

I enjoy sharing the letters we receive with our audience. Christian people are extremely responsive. I once did a survey and found that this ministry receives more letters than Time Magazine! And many of those letters express strong feelings.

The three big subjects of this spring were forgiveness, Gerald Schroeder’s theory on the six days of creation, and our recent program called A Textbook Case. The last subject concerned a textbook used at Dallas Baptist University and Criswell College, among many other schools, which we found to be full of Replacement Theology, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.

In all three cases, one would think by the majority of our mail, that I’m in the ministry of picking fights. I used to have a radio program, and on there I observed that “the ministry of rebuke is overcrowded.” And I got a few laughs and some agreement on that point. On the other hand, there really is such a Christian work, and it is to be taken especially seriously in the End Times “when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (II Tim. 4:3,4).

The letters about the forgiveness issue — whether we need to forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust specifically — were hardly in agreement with our ministry’s theologians, whose comments I published in this newsletter. Let me tell you straightforwardly that Dr. Thomas McCall and Todd Baker are not yes-men. I know that other ministry’s have put their star on television with a bunch of professional appreciators to congratulate everything he said. That is not how things work in this ministry. When I make a mistake, and I have made some, both men will correct my doctrine, and that is why we have them.

Some people will not be convinced even by a team of theologians quoting the Scriptures. If they were told in their church that Christianity means forgiving all evil on earth, then that’s what they believe. No appeal to the Word of God will change it.

Likewise with Dr. Schroeder, I can say on that score that the evidence is not totally in, and I merely think that his theory is fascinating and worth the attention of serious biblical people. Some unkind letters disqualified this eminent scientist, who was a full professor at M.I.T., for simply being Jewish and wearing a skullcap. Others scoffed at how stupid I was to be taken in by such a charlatan.

A host of letters swore that they heard Gerald Schroeder favor the theory of evolution, although he said exactly the opposite. One writer faulted him because, although Gerald did not believe in evolution, he had left enough time for it to happen if he had believed it! In my view, we have to open our minds to new ideas. All of the creation research society’s brilliant work was new at some point in our history.

Einstein’s theory itself was scoffed at for most of the 20th Century until scientists armed with laboratory equipment equal to the task proved that the theory was right. Most important to people thinking about Creation, is the fact that Einstein showed that time dilates in our universe by tremendous proportions, and to take Gerald at his word, the 15 and 3/4 billion years that scientists say have passed since the beginning of the universe can have passed within six days on the clock that God is using. For a more fascinating idea, consider this: in Gerald’s view, the sixth day is not over yet. God’s day of rest is still upcoming in our own future!

In view of the tremendous interest (and some misunderstanding) about Dr. Schroeder’s theory, he and I will shortly release a booklet containing the transcripts of the television programs, as well as explanations in everyday language of the theory.

Letters concerning A Textbook Case, our program about A Survey of the New Testament by Robert H. Gundry, are included as well. They were 100% supportive of our view with no one trying to defend this awful book. Viewers everywhere deplored this general decline in true bible scholarship at our seminaries.

By the time you read this, we will have taped location material for the series on the great love stories of the Bible. Isaac and Rebecca, Ruth and Boaz, and Messiah and His Bride will be covered along with many others. We’ll be taping on location around the Sea of Galilee and several sites in Jerusalem, traveling along with our tour. This should prove to be a delightful series to watch. I would sincerely appreciate any help you can give us to cover the on-location taping of this wonderful series.

What better way to wish Israel a happy Golden Anniversary than in person? Join me in Israel this September as we celebrate her 50th anniversary! Our Fall Festival Tour also coincides with the celebration of Rosh haShana, or the Feast of Trumpets. We are all hoping to hear the trumpet sound and the Rapture occur while we are in The Land so that our flight home will be a domestic one! Our Deluxe Israel Tour will be September 11 – 26. Our Grand Tour is September 15 – 26 and will include a visit to Mt. Nebo and the ancient Nabatean city of Petra, as well as two incredible nights at Eilat on the north shore of the Red Sea. For a free tour folder, call 1-800-WONDERS (966-3377) or drop us a note.

Your messenger,

One person was stabbed and another lightly injured last week when Armenian and Syrian Orthodox Christians fought in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over who has the right to display religious joy. The dispute took place as 15,000 Orthodox Christians jammed the historic church for the Ceremony of the Holy Fire, the highlight of the Orthodox Easter celebration.

According to historian George Hintlian, a former official of the Armenian Patriarchate, only the Greek Orthodox are allowed to display religious exuberance according to the status quo on the holy places.

[Zola’s comment: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (Gal. 5:22,23).]

Sir,

By now it should be obvious that the terminology of a “peace process” with the Palestinians is a misnomer. Israel will never agree to the re-division of Jerusalem, return of Arab refugees to their original homes, removal of settlements and return to pre-1967 borders, and the Palestinians, will never agree to much less than that.

Therefore, we should start talking about armistice rather than peace. Thus, we can agree on an airport and harbor in Gaza, free passage between Gaza and the northern Palestinian territories and other items, and leave it at that, without calling it a failure of the peace process, but rather a successful armistice agreement.

Sir,

In much of the media, the current Israeli government is forever being accused of using delaying tactics in the peace process, or even worse, of attempting to “kill” the process altogether. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are generally depicted as the compromising party, the genuine peace makers, ready to overcome differences and obstacles in order to achieve harmony in the Middle East.

How come, then, that internationally known and wanted bomb makers such as Ayyash the “Engineer” and his successor Sharif, are regarded as heroes by the peace-seeking Palestinians? And how can one explain that these ruthless killers are elevated to the ranks of “martyrs” by key Palestinian officials, who attend their funerals?

Does this display of admiration and respect to terrorists show a genuine Palestinian commitment to peace, or does it rather reflect a serious predicament when it comes to condemning terror? And why are we turning a blind eye to our “partners’” ambivalence?

One cannot fight terrorism with words and support it with actions.

Those whose mission in life is to blow up innocent people in New York buildings and Israeli cafes should be condemned by all, and their disappearance from the face of this earth welcomed by all. Only when Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people agree that terrorism is a war-like political act worthy of severe punishment, will the real dialogue between Israelis and Arabs have begun.

May 20-June 3

Feast of Pentecost Tour
Israel
Wish you were here!

July 19

Speaking at
Fountain of Life Church
6800 Denton Highway
Fort Worth, Texas
817-485-5433 for information

August 1 - 2

speaking at
Calvary Chapel of Salt Lake
7136 S 1700 E
Salt Lake City, UT
801-944-5188 for information

October 13 - 14

speaking at
Midnight Call Ministries
Atlantic Coast Prophecy Conference
Columbia, SC
800-845-2420 for information