2022 C2B NEWSLETTER

2022 Newsletter presents pertinent, condensed news related to and from Israel.   You will see prophecies about the Jew’s return to The Land from all nations.   Also, short “Did you know…” pieces.  Entries will have a final notation about where the information came from, although edited for brevity.   We encourage you to read more from that source.  You also will find prayer subjects within each short article.

Tourism Given Green Light                         

One of Israel’s most critical economic markets is tourism.  In 2019, articles were exclaiming four million tourists visited the Holy Land!  However, tourist industry jobs were doomed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck.  Israel’s government reacted inefficiently.  Back in 2018, when tourism was thriving, 1.8 million people lived under the poverty line in Israel, the .8 being children.  Since then, the pandemic has pillaged 15% of the middle class into poverty, forcing financial aid to rise to 70%.  “Economic deterioration is much more significant than the SARS outbreak.”  Tourism now has the green light; fully vaccinated and unvaccinated travelers can enter Israel.  However, a passenger statement is mandatory, which includes an updated COVID-19 history.  Israel’s economy is recuperating slowly.  In the meantime, the impoverished continue to need our help.   All Israel News, Jose Ahumada.                       

New Year is Three Different Dates

Did you know that Israelis recognize three dates for the New Year?  January first is the Gentile new year and the “legal and fiscal year in Hebrew.”  Second is the spiritual date on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei in early fall, called Rosh Hashana or the Feast of Trumpets.  Thirdly, Passover is considered the beginning of the biblical new year in the spring.   All Israel News, Joel C. Rosenberg

Am I Jewish or a Christian?                                                     

Do you know the difference between Messianic Judaism and Christianity?  The foundations of both spring from Judaism.  Christians are non-Jews or Gentiles, having embraced Jesus (in Hebrew, Yeshua) as Savior and Lord.   “Messianic Jews are people of Jewish heritage who maintain their Jewish identity, practice biblical commandments found in the Torah, and acknowledge Yeshua as the Messiah.”  Jews who accept Yeshua as their messiah are sometimes confused, asking, “Am I Jewish or a Christian?”  Most Jews who accept Yeshua as their messiah consider themselves Jewish believers.  Jewish Voice Ministries International

From All The Nations: Prophesies Fulfilled in our Time

 “In the future, when you experience all these blessings and curses, I have listed for you, and when you are living among the nations to which the Lord your God has exiled you, take to heart all these instructions.  2) If at that time you and your children return to the Lord your God, and if you obey with all your heart and all your soul all the commands I have given you today, 3) then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes.  He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you.  4) Even though you are banished to the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will gather you from there and bring you back again.  5) The Lord your God will return you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will possess that land again.  Then he will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors!  Deuteronomy 30: 1-5 NLT Bible (Italics and capitalizing “lord” are mine)

Dr. Halvor Ronnin at JCBT

  Do you know that Dr. Halvor Ronning and his wife Mirja train mother-tongue Bible translators in Hebrew at Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators, which Hebrew University accredits?  JCBT is addressing the following facts.  There are over 6,900 languages in the world.  The “Old Testament” and the “New Testament” were translated into 450 of those 6,900 languages.  Of the 450 that already exist, the translations are from English, French, and Spanish, “so you are getting a translation of a translation done by people who never had a chance to come to the country” (Israel).  The point is to translate from the original Hebrew source rather than from other languages.  The translations are more vivid and meaningful if done in Hebrew and if the translators have visited and toured Israel.   For example, David wrote the Psalms about the paths of righteousness, which to him, as a former shepherd, were the paths around the hills where the sheep grazed.  You might draw false conclusions if you did not visit Israel and see these paths in person.  1,200 New Testaments translations are without the Old Testament: the roots are without foundation, creation, the patriarchs, the psalms, and the prophets.  Israel Vision TV, Jay Rawlings interviews Halvor Ronning

Dave and Marjie Austen, who went on a C2B tour, sponsored a baby and donated clothing at Be’ad Chaim. 

Did you know that “one in five of all pregnancies in Israel end in abortion?”  Since 1948, abortions in Israel have surpassed the number of children who died in the Holocaust, about 1.5 million.  Although there are numerous examples of the government and citizens of Israel saving lives, Israel is one of the only countries that allow abortion up until birth.  The government funds 20,000 abortions annually.  Through Be’ad Chaim Israel Pro-Life’s Project Moses, Connect 2 Bless has sponsored two babies and mothers at USD 1800.00 per baby and mother for one year.  Please help sponsor a mother and save a life; support advocacy and provide clothing.

Janusz Korczak Memorial at Yad Vashem

To the left is a picture of the life-sized memorial to Janusz Korczak, who would not abandon the children under his care and so accompanied them into the gas chambers at Treblinka, sharing their fate.  As many as 1.5 million Jewish children died at the hands of Nazis or their supporters.  So, what of the survivors of the Holocaust?  It has been about 78 years since World War II ended in Europe, and the survivors of the Holocaust in 2022 were children back then.  They were the same age as those children depicted In the Korczak memorial.

Shimon Sabag’s Yad Ezer LaHaver partnered with the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) to allow more than 120 elderly Holocaust survivors to live in comfort and dignity at the Haifa Home in Haifa, which is celebrating 20 years.  Recently, in Ukraine, under fire, in a dangerous operation, members of the Yad Ezer LaHaver humanitarian delegation rescued 4 Holocaust survivors over 80 years old.  Each of the four survivors’ homes was destroyed by the war.  Preparations for immigration to Israel are underway.  They look forward to living in new apartments set aside for them at the Home of Holocaust Survivors.  yadezer.org.il (the site gives you choices of translations)

At the age of 100, holocaust survivor Shoshana Colmar passed on Shoshana had survived the Holocaust’s extermination camp of Auschwitz, where she lost most of her family. She lived at the Holocaust Home in Haifa from 2009 to 2019. She was an active volunteer at the Holocaust Home and the Holocaust Museum, which is on-site. Susie and I met Shoshana, then 95, in 2014 at the Haifa Home, where she shared some of her compelling life experiences. In 2016 Prime Minister Netanyahu, who knew her from earlier gatherings, held a moving meeting honoring a group of Holocaust survivors with Shoshana in the chair next to him. She passed in 2019 after celebrating her 100th birthday, attended by the Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev Safda. For much more detail about her resilient life and comments from dignitaries, go to yadezer.org.il, (choose English) Association News, “The symbol of survival.”  

Connect 2 Bless, over its nearly nine years of operation, has donated over 100,000.00 USD to bless Messianic and Christian ministries in Israel, an impossible task without your contributions.  Please see our “Connections” page at connect2bless.org for a partial list of Connect 2 Bless supported ministries.  Please consider donating to Connect 2 Bless.  Thank you, Bob and Susie Hirtzel