MidnightCall Magazine
In this issue:
- Hear theWord of the Lord — By Thomas Lieth
- FirstThessalonians 3 and the Rapture — By Dr. Ron J. Bigalke Jr.
- Popular Prophecy:CheckingDogmaTwice — By Wilfred Hahn
News From Israel MagazineIn this issue:
- Why Jerusalem is Jewish — By Arno Froese
- ON THE HORIZON:
- Analysis: Birthright Needs to Transform on Larger Scale
- Israel Praises Turkish Authority for Preventing Hezbollah Attack
- Relationship with American Jews Is Changing
- A Festival of Discrimination—Funded by the EU
- The Cyrus Cylinder
Tell the World Jews Belong in Israel
Israel’s leading rabbis told Pope Benedict XVI that it was his duty to spread the message that the Jewish people belong in the Land of Israel.
“You represent a large nation of believers that knows what the Bible is, and it is your duty to pass on the message that the Jewish people deserve a renaissance, and a little respect – to live in this land”, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar told the pope.
Benedict visited the Temple Mount, where he shook hands with the mufti of Jerusalem and senior Islamic Waqf officials.
With the mufti, he recalled the common roots of all three monotheistic religions in the story of Abraham and Jerusalem. He placed a written prayer in the Western Wall, a traditional gesture, and then met Israel’s two chief rabbis.
“Send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family”,the prayer said, according to text provided by the Vatican.
Palestinians later released balloons over Jerusalem’s Old City in the colors of the Palestinian flag while the pope was at the Western Wall.
http://www.haaretz.com, 12 May 2009
The Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar wants the pope to be a missionary for Israel, to encourage Jews to return to the land of Israel. But the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger encouraged the pope to insist on “no missionary activity on Jews”.
It needs to be emphasized that this is a matter between churchianity and the Jews, and not Bible-believing Christians. But the tendency is clear: unity at all costs. Peace must be attained in order for Israel and the Middle East to function in a civilized manner.
Rabbi Shlomo Amar’s desire will be fulfilled, but not by religious activity; it is the God of Israel who will cause every single Jew to return to the land of Israel: “Then shall they know that I am the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there” (Ezekiel 39:28).