(Jerusalem, Israel) — Thanks so much to everyone around North America and the world who watched the webcast. And thanks to everyone who has sent me notes and comments. Hope you found the event helpful.
(Please share this message and the link with family and friends on social media so they can watch as well.)
DETAILS OF THE WEBCAST FOR THOSE WHO MISSED IT
Join Joel Rosenberg for an exclusive webcast from Jerusalem, where he will share a message of hope and encouragement from the Scriptures that will help bring peace to you during these difficult global situations. Joel will share with you from his own life experiences, and answer your questions.
Register today – and encourage others on social media to register, as well – for this unique event in an unprecedented time.
Joel C. Rosenberg is not simply a New York Times best-selling author with some 5 million copies of his novels and non-fiction books in print. He’s an author known around the world for writing about – sometimes even seeming to predict – worst case scenarios. And creating characters forced to operate in times of grave danger and distress.
Joel is no stranger to the subject – he and his family live in the Middle East, he runs a ministry that has invested more than $50 million in strengthening the Church in Israel and the Arab world, and he’s traveled to and ministered in war zones, from the borders of Gaza to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Joel travels across the U.S. and around the world, he regularly speaks to audiences and meets with religious leaders and heads of state.
Yes, today marks 72 years since the rebirth of the modern State of Israel in 1948 (Israelis go by the lunar calendar; on the Western calendar, Independence Day is May 14th.)
Today, despite the coronavirus pandemic, Israelis are joyfully celebrating our freedom and security. Not everyone is happy, though. Too many in this region and the world despise Israel and seek our isolation, demise, and even annihilation.
That said, I don’t want to focus on geopolitical issues today.
Rather, I’d like to draw your attention to two curious numbers:
Set aside, for a moment, questions of how to make peace with the Palestinians, and with other Arabs in the region. Important topics. But let’s discuss those later.
Right now, just take a moment to consider how bizarre this is that twice as many American Evangelicals see Israel as the Biblical “promised land” than American Jews.
Why?
There are a number of reasons, but here’s the central one: Most American Jews do not spend much time reading, studying or memorizing the Bible. Few consider the Hebrew Scriptures the authoritative, inspired, inerrant Word of God. Thus, what the Bible teaches about God’s love and plan for Israel and the Jewish people is not something they spend much time thinking about, much less believe.
For most Evangelicals, just the opposite is true.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and praying on this topic, specifically about how to help Jews, Christians, Muslims and others better understand Israel’s place in the region, the world, in history and in the Bible. I’ve been talking with a wide range of leaders. As a result, I’ve got some thoughts that I’d like to share with you. But not right now.
At the moment, I’m going out to our grill in the backyard of our Jerusalem apartment to make dinner for my family and celebrate the Lord’s unfailing love and mercy for my family and my people. Shalom from the City of the King!
(Jerusalem, Israel) — As someone born and raised in the United States, and still an American citizen, and deeply in love with “the land of the free and home of the brave,” it grieves me to see how hard the coronavirus pandemic is hitting the American people.
Understandably, frustration with the lockdowns is building — people want this to be over and to go back to their lives.
But fear is growing, too — so many have lost their lives, many more may still die, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many businesses are increasingly in danger of going bankrupt, devastating their owners and throwing more out of work.
First, a reminder: I hope you’ll join me tonight for a free webcast from Jerusalem. You need to register while there’s still space available — you can do so by clicking here.
Topic: “How Can I Live By Faith, Not Fear, Amidst Worst Case Scenarios?”
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Time: 8:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Duration: 45 minutes
Excerpts from the Reuters report:
U.S. cases have doubled in 18 days and make up one-third of all infections in the world, according to the tally.
The actual number of cases is thought to be higher, with state public health officials cautioning that shortages of trained workers and materials have limited testing capacity.
About 30% of the cases have occurred in New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania….
The outbreak could take more than 74,000 U.S. lives by Aug. 4, compared with an April 22 forecast of over 67,600, according to the University of Washington’s predictive model….
Globally, coronavirus cases top 3 million since the outbreak began in China late last year. The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has five times as many cases as the next hardest-hit countries of Italy, Spain and France.
Of the 20 most severely affected countries, the United States ranks fifth based on cases per capita, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has about 30 cases per 10,000 people. Spain ranks first at over 48 cases per 10,000 people, followed by Belgium, Switzerland and Italy….
The coronavirus deaths in the United States fall short of the approximately 100,000 Americans killed by seasonal flu in 1967, according to the CDC. It is also far less deadly than the Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and killed 675,000 Americans.
Unprecedented stay-at-home orders to try to curb the spread of the virus have hammered the economy, with the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits over the last five weeks soaring to 26.5 million….
Please continue praying:
for all those who are suffering in Israel, the U.S. and all over the world that the Lord would heal and comfort them
for all those who have lost a loved one, that the Lord would comfort them
for all those struggling with fear and anxiety to turn to the Lord for comfort and the Bible for answers
for protection and strength for all health care workers and first responders
for wisdom for our national leaders to know how best to contain/defeat the virus
for pastors to continue teaching the Word of God with clarity and compassion, and to know how best to minister to people with church doors closed
for all those who have lost their jobs and all who are struggling financially, and for the economy to recover quickly
for The Joshua Fund team to have both the wisdom and financial resources to continue investing in, strengthening and encouraging vital ministries in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the neighboring Arab countries
(Jerusalem, Israel) — Please join me this Wednesday for a special webinar that I’m quite excited about. You have to register, which you can do byclicking here.
Here are the details from LifeWay and Tyndale House Publishers:
Title: How Can I Live By Faith, Not Fear, Amidst Worst Case Scenarios?
Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Time: 08:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Duration: 45 minutes
Join Joel Rosenberg for an exclusive webcast from Jerusalem, where he will share a message of hope and encouragement from the Scriptures that will help bring peace to you during these difficult global situations. Joel will share with you from his own life experiences, and answer your questions.
Register today – and encourage others on social media to register, as well – for this unique event in an unprecedented time.
Joel C. Rosenberg is not simply a New York Times best-selling author with some 5 million copies of his novels and non-fiction books in print. He’s an author known around the world for writing about – sometimes even seeming to predict – worst case scenarios. And creating characters forced to operate in times of grave danger and distress.
Joel is no stranger to the subject – he and his family live in the Middle East, he runs a ministry that has invested more than $50 million in strengthening the Church in Israel and the Arab world, and he’s traveled to and ministered in war zones, from the borders of Gaza to Iraq and Afghanistan.
As Joel travels across the U.S. and around the world, he regularly speaks to audiences and meets with religious leaders and heads of state.
Of these, 203,332 people have died as of Sunday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
One in four were in the U.S., which tragically has seen some 54,265 deaths.
The economic toll has been devastating, and social and political pressure is building on governments to re-open society rather than risk total economic collapse.
That said, Israel is faring far better than most countries — indeed, one might say it is leading the league in terms of containing the virus and saving lives.
Why does is Israel’s death toll 35 times smaller than Belgium’s? An analysis published this morning by The Jerusalem Post notes the reasonis in large part because Israel’s government responded to the threat much faster, imposing an escalating series of ever-tighter lockdowns, quarantines, business closures and restrictions on social interaction than Belgium or most other countries.
Based on the early trends experts were seeing, if Israel hadn’t acted fast, “today we’d have over 600,000 people [sick], over 10,000 on ventilators, and many thousands who would have ended their lives,” noted Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, director-general of Israel’s Health Ministry, specifically comparing the situation with Belgium.
Consider another comparison.
The State of Georgia in the U.S. has a population of some 10.6 million, also making it comparable in size to Israel.
for all those who are suffering in Israel, the U.S. and all over the world that the Lord would heal and comfort them
for all those who have lost a loved one, that the Lord would comfort them
for all those struggling with fear and anxiety to turn to the Lord for comfort and the Bible for answers
for protection and strength for all health care workers and first responders
for wisdom for our national leaders to know how best to contain/defeat the virus
for pastors to continue teaching the Word of God with clarity and compassion, and to know how best to minister to people with church doors closed
for all those who have lost their jobs and all who are struggling financially, and for the economy to recover quickly
for The Joshua Fund team to have both the wisdom and financial resources to continue investing in, strengthening and encouraging vital ministries in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the neighboring Arab countries
(Jerusalem, Israel) — To put it mildly, some of the political allies that were once closest and most loyal to Benny Gantz are livid that he has formed a national unity government with their mortal enemy, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lapid apologized “to all those people who I convinced to vote for Benny Gantz and Blue and White this past year. I didn’t believe that they would steal your vote and give it to Netanyahu, that they would use your vote to form the fifth Netanyahu government.”
That said, frustrated and exhausted by three national elections in one year, most Israelis are very supportive of the deal and want it to work.
“Sixty-two percent of Israelis support the newly agreed upon Likud-Blue and White unity government, while just 22% oppose it, according to a survey released Tuesday,” reported the Times of Israel.
Other key findings:
“The coalition deal inked Monday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White chief Benny Gantz was supported by 80% of Likud voters and 57% of Blue and White voters, the Channel 13 poll found….
“However, only 31% of respondents believed Netanyahu would honor the rotation deal requiring him vacate the Prime Minister’s Office; 41% believe he won’t do so and 23% said they don’t know.
“Finally, 48% believe Gantz gave up more to strike the deal, while 25% said Netanyahu made greater concessions.
“Channel 13 polled 710 Israelis and the survey had a 3.7% margin of error.”
I have no idea if this new government can work. But I certainly hope so. The country needs unity right now, not more partisan division.
Please continue to pray for Israel’s leaders to know best how to help Israel defeat the coronavirus, reboot the economy, and to effectively deal with a range of other threats, including from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Thanks.
Netanyahu “will remain Prime Minister for another 18 months and then be replaced by Blue & White leader Benny Gantz, who will serve as vice prime minister in the meantime,” reports The Jerusalem Post. “Netanyahu will be vice prime minister under Gantz after that.”
“The cabinet will include about 30 ministers,” reports Ynet News. “Blue and White will receive 16 ministries, including defense, foreign affairs for half of the term, justice, immigration and absorption, culture and sports, economics and welfare…communications, agriculture, strategic issues, tourism, social equality and diaspora affairs. Likud will receive the foreign affairs portfolio for half of the term, public security, transportation, housing, education, environmental protection, energy, Jerusalem affairs and other less key posts.”
“We prevented fourth elections — we’ll safeguard democracy,” Gantz said, reportedthe Times of Israel. “We’ll fight the coronavirus and look out for all Israeli citizens. We have a national emergency government.”
(Jerusalem, Israel) — The coronavirus pandemic and related lockdown in Israel has been painful. Fully 26.1% of Israelis are out of work, and businesses are hurting.
That said, strict containment measures taken by the Israeli government — earlier than almost every other country — appear to have proven effective.
Israel currently has 12,591 confirmed cases of infection
141 Israelis have died, almost all over the age of 70 — each case is very sad, but overall the numbers are quite low given the high percentage of elderly and thus vulnerable people in Israeli society
2,626 Israelis have recovered
Increasingly, authorities are discussing how/when to re-open society and reboot the economy. We’ve been on a full lockdown through much of Passover. Now, restrictions are easing a bit. Netanyahu and Gantz still haven’t finalized a national unity government — and on-going negotiations may still fall apart — but more on that later.
In the United States, the pandemic entails a far more sobering story. The curve may be flattening, but the number of deaths have hit record highs for the past several days.
U.S. coronavirus deaths increased by a record number for the second day in a row, rising by at least 2,371 on Wednesday to top 30,800.
The United States recorded its first coronavirus fatality on Feb. 29.
It took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and just nine more days to go from 10,000 fatalities to 30,000.
The previous high single-day death toll was 2,364 on Tuesday.
U.S. confirmed cases topped 635,000 in the United States and 2 million globally
The good news: “FEMA is actually working as we speak to move facial masks to priority infrastructure,” Vice President Pence noted yesterday. “There’ll be 6.5 million masks that go out before the end of this week and additional 20 million before April the 20th. And then we’ll be adding 6.5 million each and every week.”
Here are some useful numbers, provided by the White House:
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) deliveries coordinated or currently being shipped by FEMA and HHS:
2 million N95 respirators
6 million surgical masks
5 million face shields
7 million surgical gowns
3 million gloves
212,000 coveralls
8,600 medical station beds
Please continue praying:
for all those who are suffering that the Lord would heal and comfort them
for all those who have lost a loved one, that the Lord would comfort them
for protection and strength for all health care workers and first responders
for wisdom for our national leaders
for pastors and ministry leaders to continue teaching the Word of God with clarity and compassion, and to know how best to minister to people with church doors closed
for all those who have lost their jobs and all who are struggling financially
for The Joshua Fund team to have both the wisdom and financial resources to continue investing in, strengthening and encouraging vital ministries in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the neighboring Arab countries
(Photo from the White House website. Graphic courtesy of the Times of Israel)
(Jerusalem, Israel) — “We put out the call for subscribers’ favorite spy novels, to provide a bit of international intrigue for any grudgingly homebound readers,” the Wall Street Journalreported on April 10.
“Many readers remembered the book that began their obsession with the genre. ‘Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity,’ one subscriber wrote, ‘was the very first spy novel I read and led me on a 40-year journey through Ludlum, Clancy, Silva, Flynn, Thor and so on.’”
“Some of those names—Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy—may be known to those who have only a passing familiarity with the genre,” the Journal noted. “But their contemporary peers also turned out to be among the favorites of many WSJ readers.”
I’m deeply honored that my latest international political thriller, The Jerusalem Assassin, made the list. It’s the third in my new series that began with The Kremlin Conspiracy and The Persian Gamble.
“During these times of quarantine and distancing,” another Journal subscriber wrote, “finding a new novel is great but finding a new series is gold!”
(Jerusalem, Israel) – In a week in which many are celebrating Passover or Easter, it’s worth noting that Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua, in Hebrew) is the most famous and beloved Jewish person in human history.
Jesus is certainly the most famous and beloved Israeli in human history, followed by more than 2.2 billion people around the world.
Yet few Jewish people – and even fewer Israelis – know much about Jesus.
While the New Testament is the best-selling Israeli book in human history, few Jewish people have ever read it.
Yet, all this is changing.
Over the past decade or so, more Jewish people in Israel and around the world have been reading the Gospels, reading the entire New Testament, and exploring the claims of Jesus than at any other time in the last 2,000 years.
Online short-form videos in English of Jewish people explaining the Gospels and the New Testament to other Jewish people have been watched more than 68 million times over the last several years, according to Eitan Bar, the Israeli-born Jewish director of media at One for Israel, the non-profit organization that produces the videos. [I was featured in one of these videos, which you can watch by clicking here.]
The Hebrew-language versions of these online videos in Israel have been watched more than 28 million times over the past few years, Bar tells me.
In fact, I’m astonished by the growing interest Jews have in understanding the New Testament, and by how many Rabbis and Jewish scholars are encouraging their fellow Jews to read the New Testament in full.
Consider the following:
• EXAMPLE: In this column a few years ago on the Times of Israel news site, Joshua Stanton, the Associate Director of the Center for Global Judaism at Hebrew College writes about three American Rabbis who were competing on the “American Bible Challenge” TV quiz show. Stanton found it interesting (and good) that these Rabbis were competing in an environment that requires them to know the New Testament in great detail, not just the Hebrew Scriptures. He noted: “The presence of the new rabbinical team might point to a different phenomenon altogether: an interest on the part of some Jews to read the Christian Bible. Far from an exercise in assimilation, it stems from the increased recognition that embedded within Christian texts are kernels of wisdom about early rabbinic Judaism. If Jesus was a rabbi, then he and his followers would likely exhibit traits similar to those of other rabbis and their discipleship circles. In learning about one early rabbi (albeit a unique one, whose followers eventually split from the rabbinic tradition), we as Jews might gain insight into our own tradition.” He also noted that “while some of us still experience surface tension in reading the sacred texts of other traditions, the concern associated with reading the Christian Bible may be decreasing. With animosity quite low between Jews and Christians in the United States, and differences clearly defined, Jews may grow increasingly comfortable with the insights they gain from Christian texts, even as they recognize the differences inherent to them.”
• EXAMPLE: CNN ran a story called, “Jews Reclaim Jesus As One Of Their Own.”
• EXAMPLE: A book was released a few years ago by a prominent American Rabbi named Shmuley Boteach called, Kosher Jesus. The Rabbi argued that while Jesus is not the Messiah, he was Jewish, was a Rabbi, was a great teacher, and that Jews should read the New Testament and learn from this remarkable “brother” of theirs. “Why is it necessary for Jews to reclaim the Jewish Jesus and educate Christians about the source of his teachings?” Boteach wrote. “First, virtually all Jewish ideas that have shaped the world have been taken from our people without attribution so that Judaism is treated today as a discarded relic with little contemporary relevance. We gave the world God. Today his name is Jesus. We gave the world the Sabbath. Today it’s called Sunday. We gave the world the Ten Commandments. Today it’s called morality. And we gave the world the biblical insistence that all humans are created equally in the image of God. Today it’s called democracy. As a result, young Jews are not even aware of the transformative ideas of their own faith, which might explain their lack of attachment to it….”
• EXAMPLE: Josh Fleet, the associate religion editor at the Huffington Post, wrote an article entitled, “The J-Word: Why Jesus Is Taboo in Polite Jewish Conversation.” Excerpt: “[T]he topic of Jesus should not be a Jewish taboo. If we believe so much that our relationship with Christianity is based on deceit, tragedy and senseless hatred — that it has broken us — then we are obligated to believe it can be based on trust, opportunity and boundless love — that it can be fixed….Though we may not admit it, we are fascinated by Jesus. The latest trend has some reclaiming him as a devoutly Jewish sage — or at least someone Jews can learn from today. The Jewish Annotated New Testament, published in November 2011 and written from a Jewish perspective, re-contextualizes Christian Scripture and provides an opening for increased Jewish-Christian communion.”
• EXAMPLE: Rabbi Jason Miller, an American Rabbi based in Michigan, posted a blog with this headline: “Jesus, We Can Finally Talk About Jesus.” Excerpt: “I’ve always said that the only times Jewish people mention Jesus are when they stub their toe, miss the bus, or tell you about their theater tickets to a certain Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera. Two new books will change that. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s Kosher Jesus and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (edited by Marc Z. Brettler and Amy-Jill Levine). The former discusses the Jewish life of Jesus of Nazareth and the latter is a newly revised edition of the Christian Scriptures with notes and essays from Jewish scholars in the hope of making the “New Testament” accessible to Jews.
• EXAMPLE: Several years ago, the New York Times ran an intriguing article headlined, “Focusing on the Jewish story of the New Testament.” It was about two professors – Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt, and Marc Zvi Brettler of Brandeis – both practicing Jews, who had just released The Jewish Annotated New Testament (through Oxford University Press) in hopes of encouraging more Jews to read the New Testament and learn more about their own Jewish history and the Jewish roots of Christianity. Levine told the Times, “The more I study the New Testament, the better a Jew I become.” The release of their version prompted much news coverage (though for space I won’t link to the articles here.)
• EXAMPLE: The Jewish Chronicle published an article headlined, “We Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of Saying ‘Rabbi Jesus.”
• EXAMPLE: Benyamin Cohen, the son of an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, published a book entitled, My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith.
• EXAMPLE: Rabbi Michael J. Cook, an American Reform Jewish leader, published a book nearly a decade ago titled, Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-Being in a Christian Environment. This was a topic Rabbi Cook had been discussing for several years. In April 2006, Ynet News published this story: “Rabbi: Jews should know New Testament — Reform rabbi says time has come to break ‘self-imposed ignorance’ about Christian bible; conservative and orthodox movements: matter so simple.”
I’m encouraged by these trend lines, and during this Passover/Easter week I hope you are too.
After all, shouldn’t every Israeli — indeed, every Jewish person — read and understand the full story of Jesus, the most famous and beloved Jew in human history?
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