{"id":1408,"date":"2014-05-09T16:04:32","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T16:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2014-05-09T16:04:32","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T16:04:32","slug":"is-it-dangerous-to-share-your-faith-in-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/is-it-dangerous-to-share-your-faith-in-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it Dangerous to Share Your Faith in Israel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cookie Schwaeber-Issan,<\/p>\n

Managing Director of Makor HaTikvah<\/a> Messianic Hebrew School, Jerusalem<\/p>\n

According to Israeli statistics, about 70% of the Israeli population is secular.\u00a0 That means that, right from the start, most Israelis have no pre-conceived prejudices or particular negative leanings towards Yeshua or the message of salvation.<\/p>\n

To the contrary, from my own personal experience, many Israelis are quite anxious to hear why I am a Jewish believer and what that means.<\/p>\n

Although I am not one who rushes to immediately identify myself as a Jewish believer in Yeshua (Jesus), I often find myself in situations where saying that I am, is both natural to the flow of the conversation and one which I did not plan.\u00a0 In truth, I have always felt that it is more effective for people to get to know you in a full context of who you are as a person, therefore allowing them to judge you by the content of your character rather than by a faith you profess.<\/p>\n

Yet, it is uncanny how almost every single time that a repairman has come to my house, the topic of spiritual issues emerges in one form or another.\u00a0 It is then that I feel that I must say something, because the response to their question or comment is begs an answer which they need to hear.\u00a0 Amazingly, there has not been one such event where one of these people has either tried to stop me, argue with me or even challenge what I am saying.\u00a0 To the contrary, there has been a real openness, a desire to discuss biblical issues, the claims of Yeshua as Messiah and faith in Him.\u00a0 Some of these people have accepted printed literature on the subject, promising to read it.\u00a0 If nothing else, good seed was planted.<\/p>\n

Now while the vast majority of my encounters have been with secular Israelis, my husband\u2019s encounters have also included some more observant Jewish Israelis with whom he has come in contact as a result of his job as CFO for a particular Israeli ministry.\u00a0 They, too, have listened attentively to him after inquiring what it means to be a Messianic Jew.<\/p>\n

Yet another woman, who is a member of our congregation \u2013 albeit not Jewish and not a Hebrew speaker, says she\u2019s had countless opportunities to speak to ultra-Orthodox women about her faith while waiting to be seen in doctors\u2019 offices.\u00a0 Those encounters, according to her, have been largely positive and fruitful.<\/p>\n

While there is a general feeling amongst government lawmakers that sharing one\u2019s Messianic faith can be viewed as \u201cproselytizing\u201d or actively trying to recruit others to believe, it must be taken into account by them that the Israeli population is a free people, with the ability to explore, inquire, question and even conclude that Yeshua was, indeed, the Jewish Messiah as spoken of by the law and the prophets.<\/p>\n

Therefore, answering their inquiries cannot be seen as using force, coercion or active pursuit of Israelis to accept faith in Yeshua but rather a free-will exchange between parties who bring up the subject and want answers to why we believe as we do.<\/p>\n

Having said all that, I don\u2019t think I would recommend that believers in Yeshua openly and anxiously share their faith when coming to visit, because it can and would be seen as a hostile act to \u201cconvert\u201d Israelis to a faith that is not theirs.<\/p>\n

However, for those of us who live here, work here and are part and parcel of the Israeli community and landscape, sharing our faith is something that is both unavoidable but also something that has been, up until now, simple and non-threatening.\u00a0 It is our hope that it will remain this way and that God will use and bless these \u201cdivine appointments\u201d which He has set up in order to stir something in the hearts of Israelis that eventually brings them back home to their God.<\/p>\n

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By Cookie Schwaeber-Issan, Managing Director of Makor HaTikvah Messianic Hebrew School, Jerusalem According to Israeli statistics, about 70% of the Israeli population is secular.\u00a0 That means that, right from the start, most Israelis have no pre-conceived prejudices or particular negative leanings towards Yeshua or the message of salvation. To the contrary, from my own personal more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[131,28],"tags":[184,75,135,631,185,132,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-1408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israeli-life","8":"category-israeli-life-culture","9":"tag-faith","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israel-news","12":"tag-israeli-life","13":"tag-makor-hatikva","14":"tag-messianic","15":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1409,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}