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July 12, 2022
Jews and Christians Learning to Relate: Rabbi Shmuel Bowman's Story
Rabbi Shmuel Bowman grew up in a home that was always open to non-Jewish friends from the community. After making Aliyah to Israel, he discovered the critical security needs of communities near the Gaza strip, and as he began raising money to place portable bomb shelters he discovered a natural partnership with Christians. Through his work at Operation Lifeshield he travels the world speaking in churches and Christian conferences and has great experiences of interfaith friendships to share with our listeners.
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Transcript
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural
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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith in bringing the
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Bible to life in your everyday world.
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Now let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Well, a warm welcome to everyone.
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We have back with us here live in beautiful Jerusalem, our good friend Rabbi Shmuel Bowman,
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who is not only a Rabbi but a Torah scribe and is the Executive Director of Operation
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Life Shield.
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And he is a really treasured partner of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
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and a dear friend of ours and dear friend of mine.
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And it's just a joy to have this time with him today to share with you, our audience,
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his story as someone that has been a real pioneer and mover and shaker in Jewish Christian
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relations.
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And you know, my premise is that we don't read a book about Jews and Christians working
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together and go out and do it.
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We learn how to work together by actually working together.
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We learn the most from our mistakes.
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But in this series, we are interviewing several individuals that have really been very involved
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in working between Jews and Christians so that we can learn from them.
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We can hear their stories.
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And so it's really wonderful to be here with you again today.
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And so tell our audience just a little bit about your background, you're from Canada,
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but tell us a bit about your family and your background.
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Thank you, Susan.
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Yes, I'm from Toronto, Canada.
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And I grew up in a home that was very traditional in terms of our Jewish observance, very strong
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Zionists.
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And we had a very open home.
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I learned really from my parents that our home was a place in a sense like the Tent
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of Abraham, right, open on all sides.
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Everyone is invited to come in.
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And since we were so proud of our Jewish identity and our practice, we're just happy to model
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it.
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And we found that that was something that a lot of people wanted to experience, a place
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to ask questions, a place to try things out.
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And so as a result, it was very, very common for our home to have guests from all backgrounds,
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including many, many Christians who would just sit around the table with us and go through
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the holidays with us.
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I look back at our family scrapbook and I see Hanukkah, for example.
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And there's me and there's my sisters and my brothers and my brother and my parents.
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And then, you know, other friends and families were all there lighting candles.
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So this is Passover Seder at my grandparents.
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My grandfather was a rabbi.
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And it was very important to him and his gratitude for having found safe shores in Canada.
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He came from Europe.
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His gratitude was really, again, please come and be our guest.
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I remember as a child growing up at Passover Seder, my grandparents would have every year
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the chief of police of Toronto and his wife and family at our Passover table.
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And this is a man who was a Christian.
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He was from Holland and originally.
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And so this became something that I was very, very used to.
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And I was also very used to the kinds of discussions that would happen and the respect that everyone
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would have for one another and for their differences.
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That's kind of like the background to how I grew up in a sense by being exposed to Christians.
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That's wonderful because it wasn't just about working together on some common cause.
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It was really developing friendships and true relationships and relationships of really
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just mutual respect and two-way street.
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Such a perfect background.
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And now I understand so much more about why God led you into the work that you're doing
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and why you're so effective at it.
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So finish the story a little bit.
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Tell us how you personally then got involved in working with Christians here in the land.
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You know, it's funny because, you know, a Jewish person winds up making aliyah, means
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moving to Israel.
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They're moving to the Jewish homeland.
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They're surrounded by Jews.
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Everything's Jewish.
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Okay.
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Everything's kosher.
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A lot of things.
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A lot of the country is closed on Shabbat.
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You know, there's a whole Jewish vibe going on here.
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And then I wind up doing a lot of work with Christians.
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It's almost like it's funny.
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And that's, I mean, that's the power of our God.
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And so my entire worldview of how things worked with Christians is exactly the way you said
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it.
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It's about the relationship.
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To be quite honest, this whole thing called interfaith dialogue, that wasn't really something
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that I was into.
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And I know a lot of people do that.
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And I think that's really, really interesting.
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I'm not looking for dialogue.
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I'm looking for relationships.
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Okay.
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A dialogue seems to denote, okay, you've got your thing to say and I've got my thing to
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say.
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And in some cases, maybe you want to win me over with your points and I'm going to win
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you over with my points.
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It almost becomes like not an interfaith dialogue, but an interfaith debate.
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I don't want that.
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I want a relationship.
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More than anything else, I want you to come to our children's weddings.
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I want to be there for you during your happy times and during your not so happy times.
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I want to be able to have a real relationship, an honest relationship and sometimes a relationship
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where it may even get difficult and even uncomfortable, but when there's real relationship, we can
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persevere.
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When I came to Israel and after a short while, got into, in a sense, the life-protecting
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business of placing bomb shelters in vulnerable communities, we found in very short order
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that the community that jumped in quickly and with 100% support were our Christian friends.
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And it's like, what is this?
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And what happened, Susan, was that anything that may have been differences between us,
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that became so far, far, far away from the core idea.
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The core idea is the sanctity of life, the saving of life, the protecting of life.
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What can we do?
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What can we do together to keep people alive?
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Okay?
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Because you know what?
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All the dialogue and debate and discussion isn't worth anything if you're not alive.
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Let's keep people alive.
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Let's protect children.
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Let's protect the elderly.
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Let's protect the survivors.
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The disabled.
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Let's work with soldiers who have PTSD.
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These are all the communities that are top of our list when we provide bomb shelters.
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And the Christian Zionists, in other words, the Christians who look at Israel as the fulfillment
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of biblical prophecy, okay, who look at Israel as not just any other country in the world,
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but as the land that God chose for the chosen people and our partners with us in this great
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laboratory, this great, great, great adventure, okay?
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And it was a very refreshing, surprising, okay, thing to wind up literally partnering
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with Christians in the work of saving and protecting lives of Israel.
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And as a part of your work, you've traveled to many countries, you've spoken in many churches,
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many Christian conferences.
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I know I run into you at a lot of Christian conferences.
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It's like, of course, great to see you again.
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So tell me, how did it get started?
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Like who was the first contact?
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And I know, let me just explain to our audience, we partner with Rabbi Bellman by raising funds
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to place these bomb shelters.
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We've been concentrating on southern Israel, which is near the Gaza Strip.
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And now I think we're focusing more and more on northern Israel because there is a threat
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there as well.
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And we as an organization have funded over 170 bomb shelters by now.
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But you have placed over 500.
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Wow, what a special ministry it is because we are saving lives.
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But in addition to saving lives, we're just giving a greater sense of security to many
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families when they know that there is a shelter nearby now or that there is a shelter at their
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children's playground that wasn't there before.
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They have a greater sense of security and that gives them just a little bit more peace.
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They may sleep just a little bit better at night.
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It's very impacting on many lives.
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And then the fact that there's a donor plaque on each bomb shelter that tells this has been
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placed here by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem or whoever the donor is
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really encourages the people that these Christians care enough about us, that they funded this
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bomb shelter.
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So tell us how you got started in this and working with the Christians specifically.
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So when we started Operation Life Shield in 2006 following the Second Lebanon War as a
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response to the fact that the type of warfare that the enemy was launching against Israel
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had changed.
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You have during the Second Lebanon War, 3,300 rockets firing at northern Israel in a period
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of one month.
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There's about over 100 rockets a day.
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And over almost a half a million Israelis were replaced.
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Okay.
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They were in a sense refugees in their own country having to flee northern Israel.
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When the dust settled, so to speak, we looked around and said, well, what's needed?
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And the founders of Operation Life Shield turned to the Israeli army and said, what can we
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do?
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Because this is a country where we do.
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We step in.
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And they said, they told us that what we needed were shelters that you could run to quickly
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and then go back and carry on your life.
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And so we took that on as our focus.
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And we're the lead charitable organization in Israel that places bomb shelters.
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And so when we started this, really, we didn't know who to turn to.
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And it just so happened that God placed it that one of the team member happened to be
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on a bus sitting by the side a Christian named Earl Cox.
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And Earl Cox and his friend Ben Kinslow of blessed memory memory had a show with ICJ
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called front page Jerusalem, if I'm not mistaken, way back.
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And she started talking to him and invited him to see a bomb shelter.
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And when he saw that, and when he saw the bomb shelter, he actually saw it and a siren
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went off.
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And he understood how important was he started opening doors and introducing us to the ICJ,
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to Darrell heading, who is the head of ICJ in Jerusalem at the time.
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Malcolm.
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Excuse me, Malcolm heading, pardon me.
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And that started in a sense, this wonderful, wonderful relationship that has just flourished
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and gone onward.
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Today when you talk about the partnership, you talk about these plaques.
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And I'm so, you know, like I've told, I've told my colleagues at ICJ, I've told Nicole
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Yoder, who's head of Aiden, Elia, I believe that when you put a plaque, a dedication plaque
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on a shelter that says this bomb shelter is donated by ICJ, you know, USA, for example,
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I think that that's a sanctification of God's name.
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People have a chance to look at that and stop and say, wait a second, who donated this?
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Who just saved my life?
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Who is providing day to day comfort so my child can go to kindergarten and I can leave my child
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in school while I go to work?
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Who's this?
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Oh, let me look into this a little bit more.
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This is very interesting.
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So when you talk about doing Jewish Christian relations, that's doing Jewish Christian relations
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because now somebody whose life was just protected goes, wait a second, I need to understand
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this.
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I need to rethink anything that I may have thought about regarding this 2000 year history
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of Jewish Christian relations, not all of which was so fantastic to put it lightly.
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Israelis, many of whom have never, ever met a Christian before, are suddenly asking questions
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and they're often coming to me, which makes it even more hilarious because here I am,
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an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, answering questions about why Christians love Israel.
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So as I said, it's a sanctification of God's name.
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So I'm sure you've gotten some pushbacks.
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Like you've had to explain a lot of times, I'm sure, why you're doing what you're doing
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and why you're working with us.
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But I do know that there's also been moments of great gratitude too from those that are
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receiving these shelters.
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So tell us, first of all, if you would give our audience some advice.
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Both we may have Jews listening to us and we have Christians listening to us.
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So what would be your advice to each group if they're wanting to begin to work together,
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that they really have not yet begun and would like to learn from you?
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What would be your advice?
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This is when we are sitting in a window of opportunity and windows usually stay closed.
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But this window is open.
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If you were to ask my great grandparents back in Europe, back in Poland, what do you think
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about the possibility of a relationship with Christians?
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After they finished laughing, they would be crying.
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It just wasn't possible.
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If you were to ask Christians in our history, what do you think of that idea of having a
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real, honest, true, loving relationship?
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It would be an impossibility.
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We are literally sitting in this incredible God-given window of opportunity.
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So now that what do we do when we have a window of opportunity?
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We need to really be careful.
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We need to use this opportunity wisely because that window can be shut or a window over there
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can be shut or a door over there can be closed.
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So how do we keep that window open?
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We need to really think about what this relationship looks like.
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We need to think about how we have respectful consideration towards one another.
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We may be coming with our own worldviews and with our own marching orders.
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We may need to park that and focus on the relationship.
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It's like a family coming together finally after many, many years of bitter rivalry and
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infighting in a family or amongst friends or even in a business.
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You come down to that dining room table if it's a family or the board room table if it's
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a company or the negotiation table if it's between countries.
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And what you're going to do is you're going to say, we're going to have to leave all of
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our the bitterness and the difficulties at the door for now.
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And let's focus on just, let's start with the basics.
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Who are you?
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What's important to you?
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Tell me about your family.
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Tell me about your parents.
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Where are you from?
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What are your dreams?
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What are your hopes?
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The basics of being a human being and not to start hammering each other over the head
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with, oh yeah, well the Torah thinks, believes that, that, that, that, that, that, that's
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why, that, that, or to come along and say, yeah, well the gospel and this is what, you
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know, I'm supposed to be telling you very nice.
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We've heard it all before.
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That's when the window is closed.
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Right now the window is, is open and let's work on the relationship.
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Let's dance at each other's weddings.
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Let's cry at each other's funerals.
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Let's be there for each other.
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That's my advice for beginning.
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We have so much to learn from each other.
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And if we are just there with our agenda or we're just trying to push something on the
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other when we rob ourselves of being able to learn from the other, my life has been
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so enriched by this relationship.
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And I assume yours has too.
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Would you be able to share with us something that is impacted you personally from this
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work?
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Yes, many things and we don't have the time for this in this conversation at the moment.
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One thing that has impacted me is a two-part thing, is knowing that we're not doing this
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alone, that we have partners in this great journey.
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I do believe that God is looking at us, at his children and saying, all I want from my
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children is for them to get along and to respect one another.
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Right?
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What would any parent want for their children, if not for others to like their children and
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to take care of them?
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That's what God wants from us.
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So I have seen that we have that and we're able to fulfill that and it's absolutely amazing
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that we can do that.
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And the second thing is what happens when that happens?
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What is the effect in the world, in our lives, in our communities, when this relationship
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happens?
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And I've seen this.
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So there's a very powerful story, if I may share.
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I think about all the powerful, many, many powerful and meaningful stories that have happened
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that have come out of this Jewish-Christian relationship, this Shmuel-Susan relationship.
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It's when we actually visited with ICEJ directors and visitors to southern Israel, a farm field
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had gone up in flames in the region of Stotnegov on the Gaza border at a kibbutz called Kibbutz
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Al-Omim.
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And it was such a horrific experience to be there, literally as the char on the wheat
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had literally, it was still smoldering.
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I was there.
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And you were there.
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And I don't know about you.
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I think I don't, to wash your clothes afterwards, I think I had to throw my clothes out afterwards.
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The smell of the burning stayed with us, right?
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And we literally drove the bus into what was just a day before a totally burning field.
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And the security chief, Rafi Babyan, who lives there and is a farmer there, has a personal
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relationship with this community, with this field.
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And he was so bitter and so sad.
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It was such a tragic, tragic, tragic moment.
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And here we are, Jews and Christians on this bus and Muslims.
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There were two buses and each bus had a Muslim Arab driver.
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And Rafi, Orthodox Jewish man, keep on his head, stood in the middle of a burning field,
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what had been a burning field, with the ashes still smoldering and asked all of us to come
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together in a circle, Jews and Christians, and to pray.
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And then he invited the Arab Muslim drivers to join us.
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And he also understood that if they didn't come, it was also because that they would
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fear for their lives because we're all taking pictures.
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And if their pictures were ever shared, their lives and their lives of their families would
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be in very serious danger.
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And so he understood that if they wouldn't be able to join us, but then we noticed something.
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We noticed even with the threat of death, the Arab drivers left the buses and joined
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the circle a little bit back so they wouldn't be photographed, but they joined our prayer
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circle.
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And I thought, isn't this amazing?
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Isn't God great that we are able to do this in this relationship with Jews and Christians
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being able to come together in this tragedy of this burnt field that we're able to, in
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a sense, elevate and turn our prayers heavenward and be joined also by our Arab Muslim cousins?
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Isn't that amazing?
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I thought for me that was one of the great moments in my life.
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You know what I love about it?
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I said, I was there that day and that your number one story is one that I witnessed and
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was a part of.
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And it was really special.
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He, Rafi, wanted to pray.
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He really wanted to pray together.
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And it was so heartfelt.
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And you've worked with a lot of these security chiefs in the South that we have come alongside.
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We not only placed bomb shelters, we provided firefighting equipment for them and safety
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gear and all.
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Do you have another story of maybe a response from some of the security chiefs of what this
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has meant to them?
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Look, when you're talking about practical equipment, our prayers have to have feet.
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Okay?
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Our prayers have to have feet.
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We can pray and pray and then the idea is how do we act?
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And yes, I'm literally talking and meeting with the security chiefs from all the regions
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and municipalities in southern Israel around the Gaza border and all the security chiefs
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in northern Israel facing the Lebanon border.
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I'm talking with them literally every single day.
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And they're reporting back to me on how these projects, these gifts that are coming from
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Christians who want to stand with us and be partners with us are literally saving lives
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on a day-to-day basis.
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So for example, a kibbutz sa'ad, where on that particular day, school had been canceled.
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Okay? and the principal, Yechazkel, his name, imagine having the name of Ezekiel, you know,
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the principal Ezekiel is having a staff meeting.
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And meanwhile, rockets are falling on the school, but the school is protected.
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At the end of the day, he goes out into the schoolyard where we have placed bell shelters
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by the ICEJ.
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He notices something strange because he knows that schools canceled that day.
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He notices something strange.
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He sees a baby stroller.
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He sees a telephone, a cell phone in it, abandoned.
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What's going on?
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He goes a little bit further in the darkness of the bell shelter because it now is nighttime.
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There was a mother, a child, an adult friend, and a dog cowering inside this dark bell shelter.
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She had left her cell phone in the baby stroller because they ran and left everything so she
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couldn't be in contact with anybody.
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And there she was in that bomb shelter.
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Bombs had literally, rockets had literally fallen around her.
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This mother, her friend, her child, and their dog, their lives were all saved and it was
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witnessed by the principal, the school principal, who reported back to me and called me and said,
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Your friends, your Christian friends, saved an entire world.
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That's beautiful.
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Well, I hope that you all have enjoyed learning from Rabbi Bowman today and just get a taste
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of the depth of the relationship that we are privileged to be a part of in our generation
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and our day.
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As he said, the window is open now and such a fulfilling relationship.
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And so we've learned so much from you today and from your experiences.
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We thank you for sharing with our audience and we look forward to having you back on
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another day.
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So we will see you back here next week.
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And until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion Now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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Welcome to the Israel Answers series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you.
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Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural
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perspective to equip the Christian world with a balance and biblical response.
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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes, which will ignite your faith in bringing the
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Bible to life in your everyday world.
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Now let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.
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Well, a warm welcome to everyone.
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We have back with us here live in beautiful Jerusalem, our good friend Rabbi Shmuel Bowman,
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who is not only a Rabbi but a Torah scribe and is the Executive Director of Operation
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Life Shield.
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And he is a really treasured partner of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
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and a dear friend of ours and dear friend of mine.
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And it's just a joy to have this time with him today to share with you, our audience,
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his story as someone that has been a real pioneer and mover and shaker in Jewish Christian
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relations.
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And you know, my premise is that we don't read a book about Jews and Christians working
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together and go out and do it.
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We learn how to work together by actually working together.
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We learn the most from our mistakes.
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But in this series, we are interviewing several individuals that have really been very involved
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in working between Jews and Christians so that we can learn from them.
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We can hear their stories.
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And so it's really wonderful to be here with you again today.
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And so tell our audience just a little bit about your background, you're from Canada,
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but tell us a bit about your family and your background.
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Thank you, Susan.
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Yes, I'm from Toronto, Canada.
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And I grew up in a home that was very traditional in terms of our Jewish observance, very strong
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Zionists.
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And we had a very open home.
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I learned really from my parents that our home was a place in a sense like the Tent
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of Abraham, right, open on all sides.
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Everyone is invited to come in.
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And since we were so proud of our Jewish identity and our practice, we're just happy to model
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it.
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And we found that that was something that a lot of people wanted to experience, a place
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to ask questions, a place to try things out.
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And so as a result, it was very, very common for our home to have guests from all backgrounds,
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including many, many Christians who would just sit around the table with us and go through
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the holidays with us.
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I look back at our family scrapbook and I see Hanukkah, for example.
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And there's me and there's my sisters and my brothers and my brother and my parents.
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And then, you know, other friends and families were all there lighting candles.
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So this is Passover Seder at my grandparents.
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My grandfather was a rabbi.
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And it was very important to him and his gratitude for having found safe shores in Canada.
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He came from Europe.
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His gratitude was really, again, please come and be our guest.
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I remember as a child growing up at Passover Seder, my grandparents would have every year
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the chief of police of Toronto and his wife and family at our Passover table.
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And this is a man who was a Christian.
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He was from Holland and originally.
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And so this became something that I was very, very used to.
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And I was also very used to the kinds of discussions that would happen and the respect that everyone
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would have for one another and for their differences.
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That's kind of like the background to how I grew up in a sense by being exposed to Christians.
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That's wonderful because it wasn't just about working together on some common cause.
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It was really developing friendships and true relationships and relationships of really
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just mutual respect and two-way street.
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Such a perfect background.
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And now I understand so much more about why God led you into the work that you're doing
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and why you're so effective at it.
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So finish the story a little bit.
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Tell us how you personally then got involved in working with Christians here in the land.
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You know, it's funny because, you know, a Jewish person winds up making aliyah, means
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moving to Israel.
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They're moving to the Jewish homeland.
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They're surrounded by Jews.
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Everything's Jewish.
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Okay.
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Everything's kosher.
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A lot of things.
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A lot of the country is closed on Shabbat.
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You know, there's a whole Jewish vibe going on here.
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And then I wind up doing a lot of work with Christians.
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It's almost like it's funny.
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And that's, I mean, that's the power of our God.
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And so my entire worldview of how things worked with Christians is exactly the way you said
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it.
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It's about the relationship.
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To be quite honest, this whole thing called interfaith dialogue, that wasn't really something
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that I was into.
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And I know a lot of people do that.
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And I think that's really, really interesting.
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I'm not looking for dialogue.
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I'm looking for relationships.
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Okay.
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A dialogue seems to denote, okay, you've got your thing to say and I've got my thing to
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say.
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And in some cases, maybe you want to win me over with your points and I'm going to win
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you over with my points.
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It almost becomes like not an interfaith dialogue, but an interfaith debate.
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I don't want that.
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I want a relationship.
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More than anything else, I want you to come to our children's weddings.
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I want to be there for you during your happy times and during your not so happy times.
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I want to be able to have a real relationship, an honest relationship and sometimes a relationship
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where it may even get difficult and even uncomfortable, but when there's real relationship, we can
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persevere.
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When I came to Israel and after a short while, got into, in a sense, the life-protecting
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business of placing bomb shelters in vulnerable communities, we found in very short order
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that the community that jumped in quickly and with 100% support were our Christian friends.
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And it's like, what is this?
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And what happened, Susan, was that anything that may have been differences between us,
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that became so far, far, far away from the core idea.
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The core idea is the sanctity of life, the saving of life, the protecting of life.
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What can we do?
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What can we do together to keep people alive?
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Okay?
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Because you know what?
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All the dialogue and debate and discussion isn't worth anything if you're not alive.
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Let's keep people alive.
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Let's protect children.
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Let's protect the elderly.
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Let's protect the survivors.
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The disabled.
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Let's work with soldiers who have PTSD.
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These are all the communities that are top of our list when we provide bomb shelters.
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And the Christian Zionists, in other words, the Christians who look at Israel as the fulfillment
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of biblical prophecy, okay, who look at Israel as not just any other country in the world,
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but as the land that God chose for the chosen people and our partners with us in this great
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laboratory, this great, great, great adventure, okay?
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And it was a very refreshing, surprising, okay, thing to wind up literally partnering
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with Christians in the work of saving and protecting lives of Israel.
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And as a part of your work, you've traveled to many countries, you've spoken in many churches,
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many Christian conferences.
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I know I run into you at a lot of Christian conferences.
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It's like, of course, great to see you again.
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So tell me, how did it get started?
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Like who was the first contact?
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And I know, let me just explain to our audience, we partner with Rabbi Bellman by raising funds
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to place these bomb shelters.
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We've been concentrating on southern Israel, which is near the Gaza Strip.
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And now I think we're focusing more and more on northern Israel because there is a threat
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there as well.
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And we as an organization have funded over 170 bomb shelters by now.
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But you have placed over 500.
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Wow, what a special ministry it is because we are saving lives.
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But in addition to saving lives, we're just giving a greater sense of security to many
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families when they know that there is a shelter nearby now or that there is a shelter at their
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children's playground that wasn't there before.
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They have a greater sense of security and that gives them just a little bit more peace.
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They may sleep just a little bit better at night.
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It's very impacting on many lives.
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And then the fact that there's a donor plaque on each bomb shelter that tells this has been
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placed here by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem or whoever the donor is
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really encourages the people that these Christians care enough about us, that they funded this
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bomb shelter.
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So tell us how you got started in this and working with the Christians specifically.
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So when we started Operation Life Shield in 2006 following the Second Lebanon War as a
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response to the fact that the type of warfare that the enemy was launching against Israel
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had changed.
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You have during the Second Lebanon War, 3,300 rockets firing at northern Israel in a period
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of one month.
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There's about over 100 rockets a day.
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And over almost a half a million Israelis were replaced.
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Okay.
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They were in a sense refugees in their own country having to flee northern Israel.
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When the dust settled, so to speak, we looked around and said, well, what's needed?
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And the founders of Operation Life Shield turned to the Israeli army and said, what can we
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do?
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Because this is a country where we do.
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We step in.
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And they said, they told us that what we needed were shelters that you could run to quickly
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and then go back and carry on your life.
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And so we took that on as our focus.
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And we're the lead charitable organization in Israel that places bomb shelters.
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And so when we started this, really, we didn't know who to turn to.
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And it just so happened that God placed it that one of the team member happened to be
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on a bus sitting by the side a Christian named Earl Cox.
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And Earl Cox and his friend Ben Kinslow of blessed memory memory had a show with ICJ
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called front page Jerusalem, if I'm not mistaken, way back.
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And she started talking to him and invited him to see a bomb shelter.
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And when he saw that, and when he saw the bomb shelter, he actually saw it and a siren
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went off.
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And he understood how important was he started opening doors and introducing us to the ICJ,
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to Darrell heading, who is the head of ICJ in Jerusalem at the time.
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Malcolm.
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Excuse me, Malcolm heading, pardon me.
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And that started in a sense, this wonderful, wonderful relationship that has just flourished
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and gone onward.
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Today when you talk about the partnership, you talk about these plaques.
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And I'm so, you know, like I've told, I've told my colleagues at ICJ, I've told Nicole
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Yoder, who's head of Aiden, Elia, I believe that when you put a plaque, a dedication plaque
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on a shelter that says this bomb shelter is donated by ICJ, you know, USA, for example,
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I think that that's a sanctification of God's name.
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People have a chance to look at that and stop and say, wait a second, who donated this?
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Who just saved my life?
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Who is providing day to day comfort so my child can go to kindergarten and I can leave my child
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in school while I go to work?
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Who's this?
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Oh, let me look into this a little bit more.
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This is very interesting.
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So when you talk about doing Jewish Christian relations, that's doing Jewish Christian relations
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because now somebody whose life was just protected goes, wait a second, I need to understand
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this.
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I need to rethink anything that I may have thought about regarding this 2000 year history
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of Jewish Christian relations, not all of which was so fantastic to put it lightly.
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Israelis, many of whom have never, ever met a Christian before, are suddenly asking questions
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and they're often coming to me, which makes it even more hilarious because here I am,
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an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, answering questions about why Christians love Israel.
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So as I said, it's a sanctification of God's name.
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So I'm sure you've gotten some pushbacks.
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Like you've had to explain a lot of times, I'm sure, why you're doing what you're doing
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and why you're working with us.
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But I do know that there's also been moments of great gratitude too from those that are
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receiving these shelters.
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So tell us, first of all, if you would give our audience some advice.
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Both we may have Jews listening to us and we have Christians listening to us.
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So what would be your advice to each group if they're wanting to begin to work together,
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that they really have not yet begun and would like to learn from you?
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What would be your advice?
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This is when we are sitting in a window of opportunity and windows usually stay closed.
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But this window is open.
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If you were to ask my great grandparents back in Europe, back in Poland, what do you think
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about the possibility of a relationship with Christians?
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After they finished laughing, they would be crying.
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It just wasn't possible.
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If you were to ask Christians in our history, what do you think of that idea of having a
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real, honest, true, loving relationship?
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It would be an impossibility.
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We are literally sitting in this incredible God-given window of opportunity.
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So now that what do we do when we have a window of opportunity?
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We need to really be careful.
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We need to use this opportunity wisely because that window can be shut or a window over there
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can be shut or a door over there can be closed.
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So how do we keep that window open?
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We need to really think about what this relationship looks like.
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We need to think about how we have respectful consideration towards one another.
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We may be coming with our own worldviews and with our own marching orders.
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We may need to park that and focus on the relationship.
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It's like a family coming together finally after many, many years of bitter rivalry and
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infighting in a family or amongst friends or even in a business.
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You come down to that dining room table if it's a family or the board room table if it's
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a company or the negotiation table if it's between countries.
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And what you're going to do is you're going to say, we're going to have to leave all of
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our the bitterness and the difficulties at the door for now.
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And let's focus on just, let's start with the basics.
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Who are you?
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What's important to you?
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Tell me about your family.
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Tell me about your parents.
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Where are you from?
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What are your dreams?
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What are your hopes?
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The basics of being a human being and not to start hammering each other over the head
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with, oh yeah, well the Torah thinks, believes that, that, that, that, that, that, that's
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why, that, that, or to come along and say, yeah, well the gospel and this is what, you
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know, I'm supposed to be telling you very nice.
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We've heard it all before.
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That's when the window is closed.
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Right now the window is, is open and let's work on the relationship.
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Let's dance at each other's weddings.
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Let's cry at each other's funerals.
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Let's be there for each other.
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That's my advice for beginning.
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We have so much to learn from each other.
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And if we are just there with our agenda or we're just trying to push something on the
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other when we rob ourselves of being able to learn from the other, my life has been
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so enriched by this relationship.
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And I assume yours has too.
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Would you be able to share with us something that is impacted you personally from this
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work?
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Yes, many things and we don't have the time for this in this conversation at the moment.
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One thing that has impacted me is a two-part thing, is knowing that we're not doing this
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alone, that we have partners in this great journey.
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I do believe that God is looking at us, at his children and saying, all I want from my
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children is for them to get along and to respect one another.
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Right?
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What would any parent want for their children, if not for others to like their children and
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to take care of them?
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That's what God wants from us.
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So I have seen that we have that and we're able to fulfill that and it's absolutely amazing
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that we can do that.
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And the second thing is what happens when that happens?
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What is the effect in the world, in our lives, in our communities, when this relationship
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happens?
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And I've seen this.
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So there's a very powerful story, if I may share.
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I think about all the powerful, many, many powerful and meaningful stories that have happened
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that have come out of this Jewish-Christian relationship, this Shmuel-Susan relationship.
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It's when we actually visited with ICEJ directors and visitors to southern Israel, a farm field
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had gone up in flames in the region of Stotnegov on the Gaza border at a kibbutz called Kibbutz
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Al-Omim.
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And it was such a horrific experience to be there, literally as the char on the wheat
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had literally, it was still smoldering.
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I was there.
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And you were there.
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And I don't know about you.
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I think I don't, to wash your clothes afterwards, I think I had to throw my clothes out afterwards.
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The smell of the burning stayed with us, right?
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And we literally drove the bus into what was just a day before a totally burning field.
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And the security chief, Rafi Babyan, who lives there and is a farmer there, has a personal
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relationship with this community, with this field.
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And he was so bitter and so sad.
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It was such a tragic, tragic, tragic moment.
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And here we are, Jews and Christians on this bus and Muslims.
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There were two buses and each bus had a Muslim Arab driver.
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And Rafi, Orthodox Jewish man, keep on his head, stood in the middle of a burning field,
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what had been a burning field, with the ashes still smoldering and asked all of us to come
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together in a circle, Jews and Christians, and to pray.
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And then he invited the Arab Muslim drivers to join us.
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And he also understood that if they didn't come, it was also because that they would
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fear for their lives because we're all taking pictures.
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And if their pictures were ever shared, their lives and their lives of their families would
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be in very serious danger.
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And so he understood that if they wouldn't be able to join us, but then we noticed something.
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We noticed even with the threat of death, the Arab drivers left the buses and joined
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the circle a little bit back so they wouldn't be photographed, but they joined our prayer
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circle.
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And I thought, isn't this amazing?
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Isn't God great that we are able to do this in this relationship with Jews and Christians
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being able to come together in this tragedy of this burnt field that we're able to, in
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a sense, elevate and turn our prayers heavenward and be joined also by our Arab Muslim cousins?
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Isn't that amazing?
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I thought for me that was one of the great moments in my life.
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You know what I love about it?
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I said, I was there that day and that your number one story is one that I witnessed and
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was a part of.
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And it was really special.
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He, Rafi, wanted to pray.
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He really wanted to pray together.
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And it was so heartfelt.
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And you've worked with a lot of these security chiefs in the South that we have come alongside.
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We not only placed bomb shelters, we provided firefighting equipment for them and safety
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gear and all.
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Do you have another story of maybe a response from some of the security chiefs of what this
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has meant to them?
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Look, when you're talking about practical equipment, our prayers have to have feet.
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Okay?
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Our prayers have to have feet.
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We can pray and pray and then the idea is how do we act?
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And yes, I'm literally talking and meeting with the security chiefs from all the regions
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and municipalities in southern Israel around the Gaza border and all the security chiefs
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in northern Israel facing the Lebanon border.
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I'm talking with them literally every single day.
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And they're reporting back to me on how these projects, these gifts that are coming from
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Christians who want to stand with us and be partners with us are literally saving lives
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on a day-to-day basis.
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So for example, a kibbutz sa'ad, where on that particular day, school had been canceled.
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Okay? and the principal, Yechazkel, his name, imagine having the name of Ezekiel, you know,
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the principal Ezekiel is having a staff meeting.
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And meanwhile, rockets are falling on the school, but the school is protected.
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At the end of the day, he goes out into the schoolyard where we have placed bell shelters
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by the ICEJ.
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He notices something strange because he knows that schools canceled that day.
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He notices something strange.
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He sees a baby stroller.
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He sees a telephone, a cell phone in it, abandoned.
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What's going on?
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He goes a little bit further in the darkness of the bell shelter because it now is nighttime.
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There was a mother, a child, an adult friend, and a dog cowering inside this dark bell shelter.
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She had left her cell phone in the baby stroller because they ran and left everything so she
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couldn't be in contact with anybody.
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And there she was in that bomb shelter.
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Bombs had literally, rockets had literally fallen around her.
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This mother, her friend, her child, and their dog, their lives were all saved and it was
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witnessed by the principal, the school principal, who reported back to me and called me and said,
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Your friends, your Christian friends, saved an entire world.
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That's beautiful.
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Well, I hope that you all have enjoyed learning from Rabbi Bowman today and just get a taste
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of the depth of the relationship that we are privileged to be a part of in our generation
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and our day.
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As he said, the window is open now and such a fulfilling relationship.
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And so we've learned so much from you today and from your experiences.
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We thank you for sharing with our audience and we look forward to having you back on
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another day.
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So we will see you back here next week.
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And until then, God bless.
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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael.
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Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion Now on Apple Podcasts, CPNshows.com, YouTube, or
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wherever you like to listen and learn.
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Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJ USA All Rights Reserved.
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