Confusion in OUR Camp!
by Donna Diorio
Anti-Messianic “superstar” activist
Tuvia Singer must have thought he hit the jackpot when Shannon Nuszem showed up
because the former Houston pastor’s daughter has turned into Singer’s most
valuable player. Nuszem’s aggressive new non-profit Beyneynu specializes in exposés that seek to provoke
new rounds of persecution of Israeli Messianic believer ministries.
Several of her latest reports have been to expose Christians who are engaged in false impersonation,
deceitfully passing themselves off as traditionally religious Jews.
Splashy headlines follow, and not just in Jewish publications, but
also in some of the major international newspapers. One reason non-Jewish news
publications pick up on the stories is because of the hysterical terminology of
anti-Messianic (antimissionary)
activists, who say repeatedly that they consider Christians who present the
gospel to Jews are “worse than terrorists.” The use of counter-terrorism
terminology is standard procedure in the hysterical accusations against
Israel’s Messianic Jewish believers in Yeshua/Jesus. Demonizing believers in
shrieking accusation helps create an urgency to destroy with all haste.
One UK newspaper picked up on the inflammatory accusation of the
most recent incident Beyneynu exposed. The Daily Mail wrote in their headline,
“Arizona
father and son are accused of being a 'sleeper cell' of fake Orthodox rabbis
who are actually Evangelical Christians: Any rituals they performed like
weddings and washing the dead could be invalid.” The article goes on to report, “Some rabbis fear they are Messianic Jews
whose ultimate goal is to bring about the second coming to the Holy Land.”
Did you catch that wild leap from
the bad acts of Christian-wannabe-Jews to the Israeli Messianic believers? You see, to the
anti-Messianic activists, there is no differentiation made between non-Jewish
Christians and Jews who believe in Jesus. To them, if a Jew believes in Jesus
he has ceased to be a Jew. It is much the same as the long standing but
erroneous belief of many Christians that it is not possible for a Jew to
believe in Jesus and remain Jewish.
There is a difference between the
followers of the Messiah/Christ who are Jewish and those who are non-Jewish
Christians and it is similar to the difference in God’s calling on male and
female. The trouble here is that by not making the differentiation of a
non-Jewish Christian passing themselves off as Jewish rabbis, the
anti-Messianic activists can whip up more persecution against Israel’s
Messianic Jews who are not being deceitful about their
faith in the least.
The latest Beyneynu expose is of an America Christian
family who has been passing themselves off for years as Jewish, and not only
Jewish, but the father has been passing himself off as a rabbi. The report also
circles back to include making a native Israeli Messianic leader ‘guilty by
association’ of knowing the American family.
The Israeli Messianic leads a congregation in his birthplace and is from
a family of rabbis. Now I have known the leader in question for twenty years or
more. He loves his people, fellow Israelis, and has never hidden his faith in
Yeshua even from the hometown rabbis or city officials that govern the city.
City officials have come and gone, but they have all welcomed the humanitarian
aid provided for the needy of their town.
Beyneynu would like to destroy all
relationships Messianic congregations have with Israeli municipalities. They would
cut off the aid Messianic congregations give to forgotten Holocaust survivors
and poor immigrants without the any hesitancy.
Anti-Messianics in Israel first stir up the religious, then they to
apply pressure to whatever group is working with Messianic Jews, which are
many. The Messianic Jews of Israel are exemplary citizens, but the continual
and ongoing hysterics among the anti-Messianics, sometimes intimidates
municipalities and organizations into dropping relationship with them.
That is what makes it all the more
urgent to address how we got here and how we defend the falsely accused,
provide necessary back up for them and stop just watching Christians morph into
a Jewish identity that is not a healthy identity for them take on and is
trickery when they present themselves as Jews to unsaved Jews. We have so much
confusion in the camp over Jewish identity because we have not taught a
scrupulous biblical differentiation in the callings of Jewish and Gentile
believers. When Christians became fascinated by all things Jewish, we did not
guide them away from spiritually unhealthy attempts to become Jews themselves.
It is like the gender confusion we see so much of today as first there is
cross-dressing, then the person tries to make themselves into something there
are not biologically. It is essentially the same identity confusion at work.
How
that Works | First we have the evangelical Christian pastor’s daughter who
became so fascinated by the Jewish roots of the faith that she started sitting
at the feet of the renowned Jesus hater, Tuvia Singer, who convinced her to
embrace Judaism and reject of Jesus. Singer’s teachings also convinced her
pastor father to identify as a Noahide (I assume this means rejecting Jesus,
too).
I don’t think it is a coincidence
that Shannon Nuszem’s testimony is in an
exact reverse of the apostle Paul’s in Acts 9 where Paul goes from “breathing out threatenings…against the disciples of
the Lord” to being knocked
off his high horse and asking Yeshua, “Who are You, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am
Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Shannon says not all
Christians are the “enemy” but she most definitely breathes out threatening to
the Messianic Jewish believers and any evangelical Christians who know that the
Gospel is meant for Jews too.
Even without Tuvia Singer
confusing Christians who become Israel-fascinated, there are many Christians
who travel that road. Some go to a Messianic congregation and next thing you
know they are imitating the outward appearance of ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox
Jews. It seems to me we are far past the
time in American Messianic congregations where the identity issue confusion should
put to rest with scriptural teaching: Christians are not to become Jews and
Jews are not to be Christians in Messiah. Both identities are valid and
necessary – just like male and female.
The encouragement of Christians
seeking to be supportive of Messianic Jews, to themselves present as “Messianic
Gentiles” is really not a kosher idea according to the first Jerusalem Council
(Acts 15). Perhaps some of these cases of Christians deceiving Jews into
thinking they are Jewish would not be taking place if we started having “the
talk” with Christians in the early stages of transforming into appearing to be
Jews. It may not create big problems here in the US, but it surely does create
major repercussions for the Messianic Jewish community in Israel and we have
some accountability for that.
In the most recent case of a
Christian passing himself off as a Jewish rabbi, the man and his family moved
from Michigan, to Houston, to Phoenix.
In Houston he was the director of the Kashrut organization that does Kosher
oversight and certification! Beyneynu
became suspicious of them in the process of scouring the internet for
Messianics…just like counter-terrorism groups do in search of potential
terrorists before they go operational. Beyneynu wants to root out any Messianic
believer who potentially could try to immigrate to Israel.
So in scouring the web they came
across an event featuring the (Dawson-Isaacson) family who touted their
connection to an Israeli Messianic leader saying they had “the
privilege of working with” him involving
“humanitarian aid.” They also claimed he was a “close family friend.”
The Messianic leader named told me
that “my last contact with them was 8-9 years ago.” He also told me that
he emphasized to them that “salvation does not come from converting to Judaism”
and not to renounce Yeshua to fit in among Jews. Shannon Nuszem
also find fault with the Messianic Jews providing humanitarian aid to Israeli
Holocaust survivors calling it “Deathbed Evangelism.” She see evil in the good
works of those seeking to feed Holocaust survivors the 1/4th of
Israel’s Holocaust survivors living below the poverty line. Shannon accuses
Messianic ministries, who almost all provide humanitarian aid to Holocaust
survivors as seeking “to take advantage of
the elderly who are vulnerable, fearful of death, and feelings of loneliness in
order to convert them to Christianity in their dying days or even last
moments.”
These are evil accusations and an outright
lie in my knowledge of twenty years of associating closely with Israeli
Messianic ministries. The Israeli Messianic Jews are not living deceitful lives instead they
are open books – “living letters” of
Messiah’s love for the Jewish people.
I know we have all heard the urban
legends of the great many Jewish rabbis in Israel who “secretly” believe in
Yeshua but just don’t want to reveal themselves lest they get kicked out of
their congregations. Personally, I have never
believed in this and in fact think it would be an incredibly deceitful way for
anyone to live in any honest measure of faith in Yeshua. The Israeli ministries
I know of, not one of them live in closeted existence which is a betrayal to
God and man of hiding their faith. They are openly believers in Yeshua, and
willing to share their faith with any who are seeking to learn of Him.
Which brings me to another point of
Christian confusion in the camp about Jewish identity: In researching to write
this article over the past couple of days, I saw a news article about the first
Christian Shannon Nuszem blew the whistle on for false impersonation of a
Jewish rabbi. The man was sitting on the TV set of an American prophetic
figure. I have many questions about how this all unfolded, but one thing that
was reported was that the prophet’s ministry had been donating $500 a month to
this Christian posing as a Jewish rabbi.
Did the prophet think the man was
really Jewish, a “secret rabbi” or did he know he was a Christian posing as a
Jew? I don’t have the answer to that yet, and whether I ever get a direct
answer on that question, this is one thing I do know: far too many Christians
assume that they can sort out who to financially support in Israel and it is
pretty clear most do not have a clue. If they did, they would be supporting the
leaders of the body of Messiah in Israel and consulting with them any time they considered giving
regular support to someone in Israel.
All the statistics show that
Christians financially supporting things in Israel are supporting the Israel
Messianic Jewish believer ministries the
least —by far.
Not only would we stop supporting
people who are operating deceitfully in Israel (and I can think of other
examples over the past years including
outright conmen!) but also we would not have Christians aligning themselves
with nationalist-religious settlers who indoctrinate Christians to think of any
Jew in Israel who believes in Jesus as belonging to “a cult” and/or being “an enemy
of the State of Israel.” That is what they did recently when they convinced a
high-profile Christian supporter of Israel to condemn the Messianic ShelanuTV
network all the way to then Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office. It consequently
forced the cable TV network that approached the Messianics in the first place
to pull the plug on airing their own channel in Hebrew. Her anti-Messianic
campaign stopped the Gospel in Hebrew from airing on Israeli television. An
America Christian woman did that and she thinks she did God a favor.
It
is not a crime in Israel to believe Yeshua is the Messiah. These are issues
of identity confusion and we need to do better.
This is only the first article I will be writing on this issue.
There is a lot of ground to cover and I hope both Christians and Messianics take
those issues to heart — especially for the sake of the LORD’s body in Israel.
* Just to drive home the point in my
article above, it was in the Sept 30th 2021 issue of the Weekly Summary
and Arrows from Zion that I wrote a
special alert about the anti-Messianic campaign against the Dugit outreach “Times of Israel runs Fake News about the
Tel Aviv HaOgen Messianic Coffee House.” Times of Israel were picking up on a Jewish Telegraph Agency article, but ultimately it was “Beyneynu,
another anti-Messianic activist
group akin to Yad L'Achim, appears to have kicked off the persecution against
the HaOgen coffee house. Its founder, Shannon Nuszen is the proverbial
Israel-supporting Christian gone bad, winning great approval from aish in an article, From Christian Missionary to Observant Jew.”
This
is no time to sit on our hands and let these false accusations against Israeli
ministries go unchallenged! Also online at KehilaNewsIsrael and Fruit of the Fig Tree blog PLEASE SHARE
Arrows from Zion
Summarized
from the Weekly Summary of Prayer
Requests Israeli Ministries
Since Carolyn Hyde has been sharing the dreams and visions God has given her on
various platforms, she writes that many young Israelis contact her to share
their own dreams and visions. Her example is giving them freedom and sure sound
like a prophetic promise we all know: Acts
2:17 In the last days, God says, I will
pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your
young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. I always
wondered why God specifically pointed out the “old men” dreaming dreams. Is it
because it comes natural to the young to metaphorically speaking dream dreams, but as we age we tend to dream dreams less? It is
wonderful to know that in Messiah, we never get too old to have dreams of the
future.
Carolyn shared a couple of divine
encounters they have had recently in Israel. It is also good to know that if we
go out in our life with an expectation that God is directing our path to people
He wants us to touch, that we will surely encounter them. Spiritual
expectations are like a petition before God to make things happen. A BEAUTIFUL
but “messy intercession” Carolyn relates about an accident that involved
breaking a bottle of Frankincense &
Myrrh anointing oil where the bottle bottom completely broke away, then hearing
the Spirit of God say: "The bottom is falling out of the Muslim world and
My fragrance is being released on the people." Amen and amen! Read her vision of
Ezekiel 16 which is shared on the Kehila News Israel site.
Ron Cantor of Messiah’s Mandate & Shelanu TV talks about a project to
provide a bomb shelter for the elderly Ethiopians in Ashkelon’s Jewish
Community Center. Watch the VIDEO. It is only a matter of
time before Hamas in nearby Gaza starts up the bombing again. This is a project
they hope to have raised funds for by Hanukkah—November
28th. They are also including a computers buy in the project for the
children who also gather at the Ashkelon JCC. Ron hits on a very
important understanding of Romans 11:11 about the gentiles making Israel
jealous. “One of the ways that we share
our faith in Yeshua our Messiah in Israel is through humanitarian aid. Most of
them do not know about the real Yeshua. After 2,000 years of Christian
antisemitism, their view is distorted. Our goal is to show them the true face
of the Messiah. They understand that we are Messianic Jews and our donors are
mostly evangelical Christians who love the Jewish people. This becomes a
powerful witness of God’s love and compassion. Finally, the body of
Messiah is taking up Paul’s challenge to provoke Israel to jealousy through kindness
(Rom. 11:11, 22). CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT
“
DD’s FYI Many Christians think they can express direct kindness to
unsaved Israeli Jews and provoke Israel to jealousy, cutting the Israeli
Messianic Jews entirely out of the equation. I do not believe that is EVER going to
produce the fruit they expect, but by ignoring the Israeli Messianic Jews as
if they are inconsequential, it is just speaking volumes to unsaved Jews of
how little Christians really regard Jews as a whole if they do not treasure the
Jews of like precious faith.
Rania Sayegh, Arab Christian prophetic intercessor in Nazareth shares a vision
of spiritual awakening in the UK she had on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
Read it Midnight
Call on Yom Kippur, You can also read her past several newsletters New Building
Suddenly! | Angel of
Awakening Vision | August
Update Please remember their needs for their
new House of Prayer and Exploits building DONATE
NOW
Chaim Malespin of the Aliyah Return Center writes about
hosting a Pastor’s Conference on the ARC campus last week (see
video): "we showed them around the facilities
and presented an overview of projects currently underway, and spread out a
finger-lickin’ BBQ for lunch outdoors.
“Without wise advice, plans go awry and fail, but in the presence of
many counselors they are established” – Proverbs 11:14, 15:22, 24:6 | They were
most impressed with the work God is doing here in the Jordan Valley, and have
expressed intentions to spread the word abroad and rally further support for
this cause. It is critical to always be sure we are following God’s perfect
plan, but it is equally as important to have oversight from and accountability
with those God has placed in positions of spiritual guardianship over us. |
They are working on several projects including their Bloom Project, Ulpan
(Hebrew school) renovation, and the “Livracha” downtown free clothing distribution center (see their videos on Facebook and YouTube Channel)
Like so many of the Israeli
ministries, they are in great need of committed financial supporters to fulfill
their calling.
Israel Pochtar —Beit Hallel and Voice of Judah Ministries in Asdod—writes something that has certainly been entering my mind a lot lately in this video devotional: “None of My words will be postponed any more…” | Also an article and video on Recognizing the times we’re living in — How you can get involved in our groundbreaking evangelism events | a report on their 21 days of Intercession | another Video Devotional “No Expiration Date on God’s Faithfulness!” | Article and VIDEO Reaching the Nation of Israel with the Gospel | The Importance of the Nations for Israel - with Sasson Pochtar | A Father to the Fatherless - Our Widows and Orphans Project
This fall, the Revive Israel | Tikkun Global
is thrilled to reveal some of the new, yet ancient, paths Yeshua is leading our
ministry family in. We hope you will come along! Watch this short video, O Jerusalem: Building the Eternal City, and look for coming communication about how you
can be part of this big move throughout the fall. Build with us! Your
partnership strengthens the establishment of a base of outreach, ministry,
prayer, teaching, and an Acts 2 community for both Jew and Arab in the heart of
the city of the Great King—Jerusalem. ALSO the new Revive Israel and Tikkun Global combined website is live | All this did not come about overnight but
has been 40 or so years in the making. Read Dan Juster’s view of this in A
Restoration Journey. Weekly Video Global
Broadcast | Weekly Praise, Prayer,
Prophecy, Preaching from Israel. | Partner With Us |
Thank you for your love and trust in us. Together we are reaching Israelis with
the Gospel of Yeshua through evangelism, congregations, discipleship, and
worship.
Avner Boskey takes on
the present and past of government and media collusion to LIE to the public to
achieve their own AGENDA in These are the Days of Izvestia.
As usual, Avner does an outstanding job of digging through historical facts so
we can’t say, ‘We didn’t know.’ And it is happening in nations all over the world.
The Beit Immanuel congregation is beautiful seaside Jaffa sends an outstanding
testimony from one of the men in the congregation that pastor Aleksey
Raikhstadt had an alarming vivid dream about. The very next day the man was
rushed to the ER with “excruciating pain in my neck,
accompanied by a severe headache. The pain soon became so unbearable that I
started vomiting and losing control of my senses.”
In the hospital he learned that he had a stroke and ended up staying 4 days for
observation. While there he was tended by a young Arab nurse who had been a
believer fur became disappointed and lost faith. He was able to minister to her
spiritually as she was ministering to him as a nurse. The man Pedro writes, “As most Israeli
believers will agree with, there's never a dull moment in Israel and a battle
rages 24/7 in the spiritual realm which can sometimes exhaust and overwhelm
ministers and pastors in the Land.” This is no joke as anyone with any
degree of spiritual discernment who has been to Israel can testify to: the
spiritual heat is really burning much hotter in Israel!
But God is doing great things among
the Beit Immanuel congregation as many citizens are brought into their
facility, one because it is an Israeli historical site, and two from projects
like the recent blood drive that was conducted there for Jaffa. They write, “we
understand that in the spiritual realm a real war is taking place. The enemy
does not want us to continue to glorify the name of our Lord Yeshua among His
people here in Israel, and attempts to attack us daily in many different ways.
We are in the throes of this war and we need your prayers. Please stand with us
in prayer for the people of Israel, that they might be saved” Yes
and amen! “If you have a heart for
reaching the people of Israel with the Gospel, and for demonstrating the love
of God through life-changing humanitarian aid, then I would like to invite you
to support our
work by sowing a financial seed”
From Out of Zion ministries, Josie and David Silver invite you to watch David’s Midweek Update Video 10/26 and To watch the 10/22 Friday Video Update | ALSO Video:
the Power of Prayer & Proclamation Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 | Article : Living Between Heaven & the Earth
Plus the Out of Zion Prayer for
Israel Zoom meeting every Tuesday 9 pm Israel time - 7 pm UK - 2 pm EST - 6
am NZ | Go to https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82351582826 (Passcode: 146188)
For a full list of resource and products available please see the RESOURCE page on the Out of Zion Website where you can also read our teachings on the new Out of Zion website and watch our VIDEOS
Urgent HEALING Needs: Life and Death is in the power of the tongue
Please keep in prayer
the Israeli believers who are fighting for their lives or other urgent health
needs:
Please Pray for Claude Ezagouri of
the Morning Star Fellowship who has started a treatment that is due to last at
least 6 months for a medical problem he has been suffering from. Believe in prayer with them as they look to
the Lord for complete healing and for
prompt recovery from some other ailments. | Ronit Bender finally
has seen a new cardiologist she likes because he is caring, she’s taking new
meds, feels better but still asks for our prayers | Pray for Carolyn Hyde whose left hand is so
pained she can no longer play guitar and it is also sometimes painful to play
piano | Silvers: David's knees and Josie's back pain | A prayer request for Naomi, for a dear
family that is a part of Israel Pochtar's pastoral team, who was diagnosed with
colon cancer. "Despite what this battle entails, we are confident in God’s
unfailing Word and promises." Read in her
own words| Please continue to pray for Jacob Damkani for the LORD's mercies over Jacob and his dear wife, Elisheva | Dov Bikas
– I have been very
tired these days: probably as a result of a combination of factors: my age,
stress of the days of running to the bomb shelter, work load in the ministry,
etc. Olga Bikas: We are
grateful that Olga is feeling better these days! Though the doctors never found
the cause of the dizziness that put her in hospital a month ago, they did rule
out major issues like brain tumors, heart problems, etc., so this is already
comforting. Olga’s back also keeps improving and she is able to walk more
outside now than she did before.
Thank
you for donating to my ministry if it is a blessing
to you.♥
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