Monday, June 8, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Can these dry bones live?
On the 5th of Iyyar (May 14, 1948 in the Gregorian calendar), on the day in which the British Mandate over a Palestine ended, the Jewish leadership gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and declared the establishment of the State of Israel. In that moment the Dry Bone prophesy of Ezekiel 37 came to life.
Excerpts from the book "O Jerusalem!" by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre pp 381-383.
The long and dolorous road followed by the Hebrew people from the land of Ur of the Chaldees to Pharaoh's Egypt, Babylon and all the corners of the earth led at last to a simple stone building on Rothschild Boulevard in the heart of Tel Aviv. There, on this humid Friday afternoon in May, the leaders of the Zionist movement prepared to accomplish perhaps the most important gesture in the history of their people since an obscure warrior king named David brought the Ark of the Covenant "with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet" from Abou Gosh to a tabernacle in Jerusalem.
The building, a museum, had been the home of Meir Dizengoff, first mayor of Tel Aviv. Appropriately, its galleries contained not the pottery shards, stone relics and religious vessels of a dead Jewish civilization, but the bold modern art of the new one about to be brought forth in its precincts. Outside, a detachment of Haganah military police meticulously checked the credentials of the two hundred selected guests who would be privileged to witness the ceremony scheduled to take place in the building. The backgrounds of those men were as diverse as the race they represented. Some of them had almost died of malaria clearing the Huleh swamps. Others had survived the death camps of Germany. They came from Minsk, Cracow and Cologne; from England, Canada, South Africa, Iraq and Egypt. They were bound together by a common faith, Zionism, a common heritage, Jewish history, and a common curse, persecution. Looking down upon them as they gathered was a portrait of the black¬hearded Viennese newspaperman who had founded the movement that had hrought them to the Tel Aviv museum's main gallery. Barely fifty-three years had passed since the January day when Theodor Herzl had witnessed the public humiliation of Alfred Dreyfus. They had been years of anguish for his people, and the most apocalyptic of the visions he could have Imagined that morning on the Champs de Mars had just overwhelmed them. Yet they had been years of triumph too, and because his followers had willed it the Jewish people were about to have a state of their own.
At precisely four o'clock, David Ben-Gurion rose and sharply rapped , walnut gavel on the table before him. Clad in a dark suit, a white shirt and, in deference to the solemnity of the occasion, a tie, the Jewish leader picked up a scroll of white parchment. Indicative of the haste with which this ceremony had been prepared was the fact the Tel Aviv artist commissioned to prepare the scroll had had time to finish only the decoration. The text Ben-Gurion was about to read had been typed on a separate piece of paper and stapled to the parchment.
"In the Land of Israel the Jewish people came into being," he began. "In this land was shaped their spiritual, religious and national character. Here they lived in sovereign independence. Here they created a culture of national and universal import and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books."
He paused an instant to insure a properly purposeful tone to his delivery. Always the realist, Ben-Gurion was not carried away by the exultation of the moment. In a few hours he would note in his diary: "As on November 29, I mourn among the happy ones." He had lived for two years with the declaration he was reading. He was saying the words, but, as he would one day recall, there "was no joy in my heart. I was thinking of only one thing, the war we were going to have to fight."
"Exiled from the land of Israel," he said, "the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom. Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood." In recent decades, he reminded his audience, "they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and vilIages . . . "
It was, he continued, "the self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in their own sovereign state." Accordingly, he said, "by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel."
One by one, he set out the principles that would guide the new nation: "principles of liberty, justice and peace as conceived by the Prophets of Israel"; full social and political equality for all citizens without distinction of religion, race or sex; freedom of religion, conscience, education, language and culture; safeguarding of the Holy Places of all religions; and the loyal upholding of the principles of the United Nations charter. Crammed into the only space they had been able to find for their transmitters, a toilet just off the museum's main room, the technicians of the new nation's radio service felt their throats constrict with emotion. Except for the labored breathing of a handful of old men, the main gallery was silent, as though even a foot scraping on the floor might detract from the grandeur of this moment so long awaited by so many. Later, to some of those present the intense silence of their gathering would seem a mystic evocation of their six million dead.
"We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building of its state and to admit Israel into the family of nations," Ben-Gurion read. "We offer peace and amity to all the neighboring states and peoples . . . Our call goes out to the Jewish people all over the world . . . to stand by us in the great struggle for the fulfillment of the dream of generations, the redemption of Israel.
"With trust in the Almighty," he concluded, "we set Our hand to this declaration at this session of the Provisional Council of State . . . in the city of Tel Aviv on the fifth day of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth day of May, 1948. "
When he had finished he said, "Let us all stand to adopt the Scroll of the Establishment of the Jewish State."
Choking with emotion, an elderly rabbi offered thanks to "Him who hath kept and sustained us and brought us unto this time." One by one the leaders in the room put their signatures on the scroll. Then Ben-Gurion announced that the British White Paper of 1939 with its restrictions on Jewish land purchase and immigration was annulled. Otherwise, all mandatory laws would remain in effect for the time being.
It was 4:37 P.M. The entire ceremony had taken barely half an hour. Once more Ben-Gurion picked up his gavel and rapped the table.
"I hereby declare this meeting adjourned," he said. The state of Israel had come into being.
Excerpts from the book "O Jerusalem!" by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre pp 381-383.
The long and dolorous road followed by the Hebrew people from the land of Ur of the Chaldees to Pharaoh's Egypt, Babylon and all the corners of the earth led at last to a simple stone building on Rothschild Boulevard in the heart of Tel Aviv. There, on this humid Friday afternoon in May, the leaders of the Zionist movement prepared to accomplish perhaps the most important gesture in the history of their people since an obscure warrior king named David brought the Ark of the Covenant "with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet" from Abou Gosh to a tabernacle in Jerusalem.
The building, a museum, had been the home of Meir Dizengoff, first mayor of Tel Aviv. Appropriately, its galleries contained not the pottery shards, stone relics and religious vessels of a dead Jewish civilization, but the bold modern art of the new one about to be brought forth in its precincts. Outside, a detachment of Haganah military police meticulously checked the credentials of the two hundred selected guests who would be privileged to witness the ceremony scheduled to take place in the building. The backgrounds of those men were as diverse as the race they represented. Some of them had almost died of malaria clearing the Huleh swamps. Others had survived the death camps of Germany. They came from Minsk, Cracow and Cologne; from England, Canada, South Africa, Iraq and Egypt. They were bound together by a common faith, Zionism, a common heritage, Jewish history, and a common curse, persecution. Looking down upon them as they gathered was a portrait of the black¬hearded Viennese newspaperman who had founded the movement that had hrought them to the Tel Aviv museum's main gallery. Barely fifty-three years had passed since the January day when Theodor Herzl had witnessed the public humiliation of Alfred Dreyfus. They had been years of anguish for his people, and the most apocalyptic of the visions he could have Imagined that morning on the Champs de Mars had just overwhelmed them. Yet they had been years of triumph too, and because his followers had willed it the Jewish people were about to have a state of their own.
At precisely four o'clock, David Ben-Gurion rose and sharply rapped , walnut gavel on the table before him. Clad in a dark suit, a white shirt and, in deference to the solemnity of the occasion, a tie, the Jewish leader picked up a scroll of white parchment. Indicative of the haste with which this ceremony had been prepared was the fact the Tel Aviv artist commissioned to prepare the scroll had had time to finish only the decoration. The text Ben-Gurion was about to read had been typed on a separate piece of paper and stapled to the parchment.
"In the Land of Israel the Jewish people came into being," he began. "In this land was shaped their spiritual, religious and national character. Here they lived in sovereign independence. Here they created a culture of national and universal import and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books."
He paused an instant to insure a properly purposeful tone to his delivery. Always the realist, Ben-Gurion was not carried away by the exultation of the moment. In a few hours he would note in his diary: "As on November 29, I mourn among the happy ones." He had lived for two years with the declaration he was reading. He was saying the words, but, as he would one day recall, there "was no joy in my heart. I was thinking of only one thing, the war we were going to have to fight."
"Exiled from the land of Israel," he said, "the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom. Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their statehood." In recent decades, he reminded his audience, "they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and vilIages . . . "
It was, he continued, "the self-evident right of the Jewish people to be a nation, as all other nations, in their own sovereign state." Accordingly, he said, "by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and of the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel."
One by one, he set out the principles that would guide the new nation: "principles of liberty, justice and peace as conceived by the Prophets of Israel"; full social and political equality for all citizens without distinction of religion, race or sex; freedom of religion, conscience, education, language and culture; safeguarding of the Holy Places of all religions; and the loyal upholding of the principles of the United Nations charter. Crammed into the only space they had been able to find for their transmitters, a toilet just off the museum's main room, the technicians of the new nation's radio service felt their throats constrict with emotion. Except for the labored breathing of a handful of old men, the main gallery was silent, as though even a foot scraping on the floor might detract from the grandeur of this moment so long awaited by so many. Later, to some of those present the intense silence of their gathering would seem a mystic evocation of their six million dead.
"We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building of its state and to admit Israel into the family of nations," Ben-Gurion read. "We offer peace and amity to all the neighboring states and peoples . . . Our call goes out to the Jewish people all over the world . . . to stand by us in the great struggle for the fulfillment of the dream of generations, the redemption of Israel.
"With trust in the Almighty," he concluded, "we set Our hand to this declaration at this session of the Provisional Council of State . . . in the city of Tel Aviv on the fifth day of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth day of May, 1948. "
When he had finished he said, "Let us all stand to adopt the Scroll of the Establishment of the Jewish State."
Choking with emotion, an elderly rabbi offered thanks to "Him who hath kept and sustained us and brought us unto this time." One by one the leaders in the room put their signatures on the scroll. Then Ben-Gurion announced that the British White Paper of 1939 with its restrictions on Jewish land purchase and immigration was annulled. Otherwise, all mandatory laws would remain in effect for the time being.
It was 4:37 P.M. The entire ceremony had taken barely half an hour. Once more Ben-Gurion picked up his gavel and rapped the table.
"I hereby declare this meeting adjourned," he said. The state of Israel had come into being.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
4th Israel Solidarity Event
Message of Rev. Helmut Loeffler to the participants of the 4th Israel Solidarity Event
Monday, January 26, 2009
Dear Friends of Israel,
We send special greetings from Jerusalem to all of you who are assembled this afternoon in the Makati Park and Gardens to show solidarity with the people and land of Israel.
It was our vision in the early nineties to kindle a flame in the hearts of the Filipino Christians to remind them of their Jewish roots and heritage. From the crowd here today, it appears that Mount Zion Center together with other Israel-oriented organizations were successful.
Israel today is becoming more and more isolated from all the other nations in the world. Therefore, we who are followers of Yeshua must identify and associate with the people and land of Israel stronger than ever.
Paul in the letter to the Romans reminded us, the followers of Yeshua, that because we have received so many spiritual things from the Jews, we now are debtors to them and are to help them also in material things.
In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul reminds us, the followers of Yeshua, that through Yeshua we are part of the Commonwealth of Israel and therefore must dutifully exercise our rights and privileges as citizens. And that’s exactly what you are doing today by being part of this solidarity rally.
We urge you to continue to express your solidarity as you meet with your neighbors and friends in the coming days, weeks, months and years.
Shalom from Jerusalem!
Revs. Helmut & Erika Loeffler
Mount Zion Center
Jerusalem
Friday, January 9, 2009
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