Sid: There has never been a time in the history of planet earth as what were living in right now. That’s why I have a long time friend on the telephone I’m speaking to her from the Maoz Office in Tel Aviv, it’s Shira Sorko-Ram. Shira has been in Israel over 35 years; she’s really one of the pioneers in Israel as far as Jewish believers and Jewish evangelism. And Shira and her husband Ari you might have seen Ari was a professional actor, Ari is originally from India isn’t he Shira?
Shira: No, he was born in the United States but his father was from India.
Sid: Ah but any way he was an actor on the television series Chips and a number of other things. And Shira you got a hold of this Jewish actor and was about to sky rocket and you talked him into Aliyah going to back to Israel and the rest is history. But Shira on yesterday’s broadcast we ended on a point I really didn’t want to end. And that is whoever I talk to who is involved in Jewish ministry in Israel says “There’s something new in the air there now.” We know about the intifada, we know about the peace efforts by the United States and England and other countries, but we don’t know about this new thing in the air. And if anyone knows the difference between the old and the new it’s got to be you having been there all of these years. Where you said that when you first started back in ’73 that probably not more than 100 believers in the Messiah that spoke Hebrew; what is going on in Israel today?
Shira: What is going on? Well first of all the terrible violence in this part of the world has called Israel to despair and to despair more and more. And so of course in trouble we tend to turn to God. We can see that in the book of Judge, Kings, in the Book of Samuel that when Israel was astray went astray from God and then the trouble came from her enemies at that time she would turn to God and God would answer. So this is definitely a part of what has happened where bombs are going off all the time, any time. There has been I think 900 in 80 some days of intifada and there have been 804 Israeli’s killed that’s almost one Israeli every day killed somewhere. So that has caused a searching for something to bring our people out of this despair. The second thing that has happened is that in this terrible violent atmosphere all of the tourism in the country has come to an almost total halt.
Sid: And that’s one of the major industries in Israel.
Shira: It is, it’s the number 1 industry and so of course the world’s recession that even our second diamond industry has suffered. And so there are many many unemployed. I can tell you that in the congregation of my husband and myself we have… that’s one of our regular prayers for employment for some of our new believers. So that has caused great hardship. For the first time in all the years that I lived in Israel there’s hunger, and in its papers its talked about children coming to school with having no breakfast and they have nothing to eat at lunch. So they’re trying to get at least lunches to these children and so that is second reason I would say. The third reason is that with the tourism dropped off and the world against Israel the European Union is extreme in its anti-Israel stance.
Sid: I’ve done traveling in some of these European countries and the Anti-Israel, Anti-Jewish stance is unbelievable. I have to believe it’s as high a level as perhaps no other time than pre-Hitler Germany.
Shira: You have to see it to believe it. One of the reasons of course is the number of Muslims is constantly growing in Europe. There are now 16 million Muslims in Europe and that is greatly influencing those countries. Because they do these Muslims receive citizenship and they vote they vote for politicians and so there’s a pandering to Islam. And I really believe that the European countries do not realize that the goal of the extreme Islamic religion is to take over Europe; it’s to take over the world. They say it every day; I know that the American’s don’t believe that and the west doesn’t believe it but the Islamic do believe it and that is their goal is to take over those nations. So back in Israel the thing that is happening is that Israel is beginning to see big time that the only friends that she has are Christian. I see that in the papers all the time…
Sid: But wait a second when a Jewish person thinks of a Christian they think of someone that is out to convert me. So how can they look at a Christian as a friend when they’re worried about the Christian wanting to cause them to be a Christian?
Shira: Well that impression is still there, it’s still there, but the need to have friends is becoming greater than the fear of Christians coming into proselyte you.
Sid: Isn’t it there some sort of decline in the respect of the Rabbis’ in Israel by the average Israeli today?
Shira: Well there’s been a great political division in Israel we have a new secular government. The first secular government that I know of yeah I think that it’s the first one of the history of the modern State of Israel where the extreme religious parties are out of office as far as in the ruling coalition. Therefore their power is greatly diminution in the seculars. And one of the persons that’s ahead of the second largest party is he hates the religious; he despises them. And so what that has done I don’t want anyone to despise anyone because I think that we’re supposed to give honor to all humanity. But what it has done it has so lowered the power of the Orthodox that the Messianic believers those that believe in Yeshua and want to tell other people about Yeshua we have much more freedom now than we have ever had. So with that combination of people seeing that Christians are the friends of Israel plus more freedom from a secular government and then the openness of the people from the terrible trouble that’s on the nation that combination is getting a new spirit of openness to our people.
Sid: The people must keep thinking I’m sure people must be thinking in Israel “What is life all about?” I mean with the suicide bombings in the buses and in the public places. There’s got to be such a desperation going on in the land.
Shira: Well let me give you this little set of facts. We started a congregation of Messianic Jews in 1995. From 1995 to 2001 we had about oh I’d say about 60 people. Last year we went up to about 90 people. Today we have in less than a year we have 130 adults, another 25 children and lots and lots and lots of visitors coming all the time. We have every single week maybe 5 or more unbelievers come and the very first time they come they give their hearts to the Lord. It used to take years to bring someone to the Lord; that is not the facts anymore. Out of our 130 people around 70 of these are young people from the ages of 20 to 35. So we’ve seen something we have never ever seen in the 35 years that I’ve been in Israel.
Sid: So these aren’t primarily the immigrants that’s just coming in from let’s say the former Soviet Union these are Israelis you’re talking about.
Shira: In our congregation these are Israelis, these are Israelis. We do have some Russian immigrants that speaks good Hebrew and we have a few that come from the states but very few. Most of our people were born in this country.
Sid: Do you see revival ready to hit Israel?
Shira: We’re waiting for it Sid. We’re waiting for it with bated breath.
Sid: But there’s a new openness, what you’re telling is there’s a new openness.
Shira: Well one of the things that we have always had to deal with is that the congregations in this country have not been able to really put a sign out on the door so that the people could find us. So our solution; we still can’t do that because there’s still a lot of reasons we can’t do that. So people have to be invited by someone else to get to our meetings. But we want to open up coffee house downtown Tel Aviv with big sign…
Sid: Speaking of Coffee House the young people are they really as involved in a New Age and occult as when I was there last?
Shira: They’re empty Sid they’re looking for something so they’re going to go anywhere they see a sign up that says “Come In.”
Sid: Oops we’re out of time; I tell you be the Spirit of the Living God that Jewish people in Israel and Jewish people in the United States are beginning to search. The spiritual scales are coming off of our eyes.
