Tag Archives: murder

Mar 19 2011

Jerusalem people gather to remember deaths in Itamar

When I came back from Tel Aviv at the first day of setting up at the robotics event, I was sad to hear about the earthquake in Japan, and fear of a nuclear disaster.
Even more so as I have worked with at least 6-7 Japanese people in the last year and half.

The other tradgedy just after then was five members of a Jewish family were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist who broke into their house.

Only brief snippets of this was on the mainstream news, not mentioned much apart from in Israel news and Christian supporters of Israel was the fact that people in Gaza celebrated the deaths and threw candy at children in the streets.  The news channels took the step of showing deeply upsetting pictures of murdered people, to try and provoke the mainstream media to encourage condemnation of these horrible acts.

I went down to Zion Square, a busy junction where Ben Yehuda Street meets Jaffa Street, often used for events and protests sometimes.

This was more like a tribute event, rather than a protest, there were police here guarding the event.

Later when I went home, some police barriers were still there and some signs but the people had gone.

Mar 14 2011

Yad Vashem visit

A month ago, I went with some friends from work to see Yad Vashem museum.

This concrete bridge over car park has a a scripture from Ezekiel 37 : 14 “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.”

The triangular building on the left is where the exhibits are, in the middle is a ticket hall, although entrance is free, but brochures can be bought and radio headsets can be rented for languages other than English and Hebrew and a cafe and toilets are in the basement.

The museum doesn’t allow the public to take pictures, but I did get one of this tall domed roof hosts photos and documents of children.   I touched on recently how members of the public with families who perished have been invited to submitted to Google recently in conjunction with Yad Vashem.

There are many things that I feel shamed reading about, how Christians accused Jews of being ‘Christ killers’ and how the British denied boat loads of Jews desperate for a safe place to call home from docking with (The British Mandate of) Palestine.  This was many things that were shocking in addition to the  precise way the Nazis committed large scale genocide.

You would think that lessons would be learned from a murder on a mass scale like this.

There are number of things today that deeply trouble me.   One is that are worryingly parallels between Nazi fascism and today’s rhetoric from Arab nations, and bits of this are echoed in the western media.  Some of these things was the Nazi’s call to boycott Jews, as some vintage propaganda posters were shown in a cabinet.   Other similarities are the Nazis burning books, and countries today turning off their internet to try and keep the public in ignorance.

Its crazy today that some people try to change history and pretend this awful event never happened.   There is also a secondary type of hatred, and that is from people who consider the previously mentioned people to be a credible authority of information.

It was only a few years after this terrible part of history before the birth of the modern state of Israel in 1948.   A nation born in a day.  Isaiah 66 : 8 says “Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”

This photo I took at the end of the museum, is this amazing view of the north of Jerusalem onto a forest.   This beautiful and dramatic view is a nice and concludes a visitor’s trip by showing the land that the Jewish people waited so long for.

www.yadvashem.org.il

My mention on Google’s holocaust records project.

Next, a head of state spotted…

Jan 25 2011

As we forgive

Last Thursday, instead of a usual worship and social get together we normally have at my church we watched a movie called ‘As we forgive’.

We saw this film that talks about a large number of murderers where released early from jail in Rwanada where two tribes of people were at war and many people were slaughtered.  The government released these people from prison which caused initial anger and fear from the survivors and families of those lost.

Where as its hard to grasp anyone forgiving someone that was lost in war or terrorism, especially as today I walked past a coffee shop in Hillel Street, and a bakery shop in Jaffa Street that used to be a Sbarro pizza joint – both of these scenes of two tragic suicide bombings that happened in the early 2000s here in Jerusalem.

The film showed rows and rows of skulls and bones on shelves, and talked to murderers all confessed their actions against the families of those who had lost loved ones to killing.   Some of these families amazingly accepted a confession from the killers that were out of prison quite quickly, and some it took several meetings over the space of a few months.

Where as for most people, to forgive someone for the responsibility of a death of a loved one seem enormously hard to comprehend, the point of the movie is about forgiveness can be done with any kind of wrong doing.   This film was really good and I hope it is shown in more churches.

www.asweforgivemovie.com

Jul 25 2010

Bibles for Pakistan and Christians facing persecution

At the beginning of this year when I was at home, I felt an urge to give some money to a Pakistani Christian ministry that supplies bibles to believers in Pakistan.  Its interesting here as there a lots of people coming to Christ but its very hard to get bibles in their native language (which I think is Urdu in Pakistan) so Pastor Shahid Paul aims to get bibles provided which costs them around $500 per box 100 including shipping.

I often worry about the lack of sponsorship I still am trying to live here in Israel, but for this ministry they also seem to be finding it hard.  I know there is a recession, but I guess with various charities it may be hard with limited resources to shout out to places about your ministry.

But very tragically, Pastor Paul the man who is in this organisation said that a fellow believer friend was murdered by Muslims.  There are gangs that frequently go around attacking Christians and burning down their houses, as apostasy or leaving Islam often results in a death sentence in many nations still today.

Its easy to get angry and blame Muslims for this kind of tragedy, but instead we have to both pray and support for our fellow brothers and sisters out in extremely hostile places where the gospel is not heard and that those from other backgrounds who have had hate taught can only change also with prayer out there, also pray for the unbelieving Pakistani people.  “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  Luke 23 : 34

check out some of these links from Pastor Paul from Pakistan
www.christassemblieschurch-intl.org
http://caimpak.blogspot.com
http://christassembliespk.webs.com