February 2006 a few Arad Messianic believers were formally charged with assaulting the ultra-orthodox. After attending a court hearing for these false charges ‘hurled’ by the ultra-orthodox, anew trial date was set for March 13th 2006. Meanwhile, the Ultra Orthodox that were charged for their involvement in the burning of the chess club in Arad were released. In another siduation, polie have charged Arad believers with "sharing the gospel", even though there is no such law in Israel against such proclamation.

It is reported that the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs who is also the Minister of Immigrant Absorption and the Minister of Justice has been sending response letters stating that the Christians (Messianic Jews) in Arad are bringing persecution upon themselves because they are ”perceived” as proselytizing the Jewish people. It is a clear case of simply blaming the victim for the attacks.

To understand fully how Jewish believers are viewed by the government we can look at the Israeli High Court statement released in Feb of 1993 regarding Messianic Jews: “The law defines a Jew as a person who was born to a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism. The law also guarantees citizenship under the Law of Return to relatives of Jews, so that families can stay together despite differences in religion. However, a person who was Jewish and converted voluntarily to another religion is deemed to have thereby declared his or her desire to dissociate from the Jewish people; consequently, the Law of Return does not apply to such a person…. they are not considered Jews”.

By this statement they have disregarded this simple fact that Anti-Semitism of any kind has nothing to do with Religious affiliation, but everything to with what race you are from. A Local example of of such anti-Semitism is shown in this personal account:

I was standing at a gas station just north of Toronto, ON Canada when a patron had thrown a handful of pennies at myself and my son and called us a “Dirty —-- Jew.”

For Israel to deny that Jews who do not follow Rabbinical Judaism are not jews, is simply ludicrous! This means even what happened to me, and countless other Jewish believers is not anti-Semitism because we believe in Rabbinical Judaism. Even Hitler looked for those that had at least a Grand father that was a Jew. For him a Jew is a Jew regardless of what the person actually believed.

What is happening in Israel to Jewish Believers in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) is a shame on Israel. I love the state of Israel, but like living in Canada there are many things that limit what a person can say or do with faith in Yeshua (Jesus). Granted we have a lot more freedom in North America to express (for now), but it is slowly being weaned out of Government, schools and becoming more and more secular. Israel is a secular country; and is democratic, however a minority group (Orthodox Jews) are challenging as much as they can to try and prevent people from believing in the Messiah of the Jews.

The example given above shows how far they will go, but let me list a few more for you.

Haredim (an Orthodox Sec of Judaism) are not prevented or stopped from harassing a Christian taxi driver at his taxi stand while screaming at would-be passengers, “This man is a Christian – don’t ride in his taxi!” or the fact that these groups are allowed to curse people standing in front of the entrance of congregations and through out the services, they scream and curse so that they can be heard from inside. Even worse is when these so called religious people caused a mother to have look for her child at night because the Haredim have scared him away from his own front door.

We are looking at a coming persecution greater than we have ever seen before. We must learn to stand together and build strong communities and help each other and train them to be steadfast. It is of great importance that new believers in Yeshua (Jesus) are educated to stand strong with such resistance,Yad L’Achim have claimed hundrends have been saved from believing in Yeshua (Jesus). This can only happen if they are week in understanding.  We must all be diligent to train people to to stand firm of the rock of our salvation.

My prayer and request is that yourself and many others will support those that are willing to train and reach out with the Good News of Yeshua (Jesus) to save lives. Please continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in the Land, Eretz Yisrael.