On the Road Again: Odessa, Ukraine

I am back in Odessa, Ukraine to visit with the Messianic congregation, Gateway to Zion, which we helped plant in 1995 and which we became leaders of in 1996. In the first photo, the congregation, led by Sasha, is worshipping the Lord and the middle photo is of the dedication of Elijah, our youngest "member. The last photo is of a wedding reception in McDonalds! My friend, Pastor Barry Boucher of Ottawa, and I are preparing for a leadership retreat in nearby Nikolaiv from May 6th to 8th and a time of sharing in the Messianic congregation there on the 9th. We expect 100 to 150 leaders and congregational members to attend. We should be back in Odessa on May 10th after sharing in a church led by a Jewish couple. We both return to Paris on the 12th and Barry leaves for Canada on the 13th. From May 19th to 29th we will host a team of 4 Messianic believers from the US and Canada including Messianic Rabbis David Chernoff and Jeff Forman. We will have meetings in Amsterdam on May 24th and Paris on May 27-28th to introduce our friends to Messianic leaders in Europe and to discuss the possibility of an all Europe Messianic conference in 2010 which Paul Wilbur has committed to be at. Please be in prayer for all of this and for Leslye in Paris while I am away for 2 weeks. Shalom. David Schneier

Constantine's Blunder

In 312 AD Constantine fought a battle to determine who would be emperor of the Roman Empire. Before the battle, in a French seaside town known as La Croix Valmer, Constantine prayed to Mithras, the sun god, for victory and he saw a vision of a flaming cross next to the sun and the words, "Conquer by this." Constantine was victorious and so he decided he was a Christian. He never stopped being a sun worshipper and his claim of Chrisitan faith is unsupportable. From this "revelation", the state and Christianity became one entity controlled by the Emperor. Three hundred years later the world was in the Dark Ages. For the Jews and Jewish believers in Yeshua, persecution was almost immediate as Constantine sought to rid all Jewish connections from Christianity. He also formalized the faith making home worship illegal. Now, to be legitimate, one had to have emperor style worship and liturgy in a basilica with professional clergy controlling religious experience and the Bible itself. His blunders affect believers today and if you want a great account of this transition read "The Messianic Church Arising" by Robert Heidler which can be found at www.glory-of-zion.org.

We had a chance to visit La Croix Valmer this week. In front of their city hall there were two olive trees (photo above). Constantine separated the natural and wild olive trees but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is reuniting them in this day. This is what we prayed in La Croix Valmer, that the Lord would undo what has been considered normal since 325 AD (the Council of Nicea drove Jewish believers out of the body of Messiah) and reunite Jews and Gentiles under the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua. Shalom. David Schneier

Kristallnacht in Paris!

Kristallnacht in Paris !:

To the left are photos of Kristallnacht in Germany in 1938 and a metro worker making repairs where hooligans broke the glass covering for an ad for the Paris Holocaust Museum's current exhibit "Nuit de Cristal." It is worse than ironic: "Kristallnacht" or "Night of the Broken Glass" marked the real beginning of the Holocaust!!

It was a night of horror in Germany as Nazis terrorized Jews and stormed through the streets breaking store windows, burning synagogues and rounding up 30,000 Jews to the concentration camps. One historian said "Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed." It marked a shift in persecution from political and social to physical, incarceration and murder.

Kristallnacht was Nov. 9-10, 1938, but the breaking of the glass over the remembrance of "Nuit de Cristal" in the Paris metro was just two weeks ago! It is indicative of the blatant anti-Semitism that prevails in Paris today.

The dumbing down of the print media

These two cartoons have caused a lot of controversy in the past weeks. The first one was highly objected to by the African American community because they felt the cartoonist was really depicting President Obama as the dead gorilla thereby bringing up the old racist stereotypes against African Americans and even promoting the President's assassination. Probably the cartoonist meant no such thing, but common sense should have dictated that this cartoon should not have been published by the NY Post. I support free speech but sometimes sechel (Yiddish for common sense) is a wiser path.

The 2nd cartoonist, Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most published cartoonist in the world, clearly meant to compare Israel to a jack booted, goose stepping, headless Nazi who was wheeling a piranna toothed Star of David in pursuit of Gaza depicted as a defenseless, small woman and child. No confusion as to his meaning - and it is anti-Semetic, anti-Israel, false, slanderous, unfactual (no one cares about that anymore when it comes to Israel) and without any merit. This is the exact type of cartoon used by the Nazi regime to distort the truth concerning the Jewish people so that the German population would be psychologically prepared for any outrages committed against the Jews.

Aren't thousands of rockets indiscriminately fired at Jewish civilians for years enough to warrant an outbreak of war against those who perpetrate such clear war crimes. And if you place your civilian population in danger by the way you fight and where you fight from, you are guilty of war crimes. The civilian deaths in Gaza should be laid at the feet of the leaders of Gaza. They should be tried for war crimes but all we hear are investigations of Israel's handling of the Gaza war. What would those who condemn Israel today have done if they were confronted with the real Nazi war machine? File genocide and war crime cases against the US and British forces when civilians died? Then, the world's survival was at stake. Today Israel's survival and survival of freedom in the world is at stake.

Yet, who has risen to defend Israel from these types of Nazi cartoonism similar to the outrage by African Americans to the NY Post cartoon? This is the time for Jews and Christians to speak out against virulent neo-Naziesque propaganda and send their protests to the newspapers that carried this cartoon and to demonstrate publicaly that they will not tolerate such baseless hatred. What if this cartoon were reversed and it was Gaza depicted as headless Mohammed firing rockets at defenseless Israelis? What would the reaction have been in the Muslim world? By the way, the old slander that the Jews control the media must not be valid given the wave of anti-Semetic articles and cartoons in newspapers and magazines these days.

What do you think? Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Sunny skies, Anarchists and European style Communists

Yesterday thousands marched through the Place de Bastille of every labor and political persuasion, young and old out for a day in the Parisian sun. The T-shirt above was worn by a member of an anarchist group who strenuously distanced himself from the communists. He believed a very long strike was necessary to bring the government down, not a day strike under blue skies. I was struck by the many elderly people sporting communist banners and arm bands. I mentioned my years in Ukraine and what happened there under communism including the deliberate starvation or deportation of Ukrainian farmers causing the death of 7 million of them. But, that wasn't real communism they replied! Wishful thinking at best. It's so interesting to be in a country where people pay 40% of their income for taxes for social programs that pay them more than they were making if they lose their jobs, where the university costs about $900 a year, where there is full socialized medicine and where the people believe the government is not doing enough. So yesterday millions marched in France for more even though there is no more. I would not like to be an elected official here. At least when I was in the middle of the sea of marchers everyone was having a good time and there were no outbreaks of violence. Not sure how the day ended but everyone was back to work today as far as I could see. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Aux Barricades

The great rallying cry of the revolution of 1848 in France was "Aux barricades!" -- meaning workers should go out and block the streets against the government and its troops. Tomorrow is supposed to be another general strike of some sort in France to call on the government to help the workers. The photos show what it can look like in France. (Upper photo-Lionel Cironneau/The Associated Press, lower photo-BBC) I'll be out trying to get my own photos of this country stopping event.

According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide, "More than two million people are expected to take part in nationwide strikes in France on Thursday in protest against proposed cutbacks by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Trade unions and left-wing parties have urged workers to come out in large numbers in the second show of force against the government since January. Public services will be affected nationwide. The strikes will also disrupt commuter trains, intercity rail services and air traffic. International trains like the Thalys and Eurostar are planning to run as scheduled, although delays are not being ruled out. The strikes across 200 towns - which should last until Friday morning - come against a backdrop of mounting anger over job losses and factory closures."

Please pray for France and for Leslye and I as we try to get around in the city. Often the strikes go an extra day when the start on Thursday so that the workers can have a long weekend. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

"...seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear." Mat 13:13

(Photo above:Veronica Weber,Palo Alto Weekly) (Photo left, Mathew Filipowich,The Medium Online)

Psalm 83:1-4 Do not keep silent, O God! Do not hold Your peace, and do not be still, O God! For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more."

That seems a clear message for those who seek to eliminate Israel from the world map: The plans of man will not go unnoticed in Heaven and "He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."(Ps 121:4) In Europe few care if Israel is slandered for allegedly creating a modern Holocaust in Gaza or called a Nazi, apartheid state. Let's be clear: Israel was created to be Jewish homeland. It is home for 6 million+ Jews, and, therefore, anti-Israelism is also anti-Semitism. So why are students and faculties in Europe, Canada and the US turning against Israel while asserting that they are not anti-Semites - because it is easy for the confused liberal mind to separate the two (Israel and the Jews) when they are inseparable. But we who know better must clear a path through this world wide fog.

There is not one nation on earth that has had to put up with years of indiscriminate missile attacks and terrorism against its civilians which are war crimes and genocide, yet these acts carry little weight in the court of world opinion. Not one nation would show the restraint that Israel has shown and yet many university students and professors cannot see what is obvious. Therefore it is up to those who truly follow the God of Israel and those who know Yeshua as Messiah to stand up, proclaim the truth and take whatever is thrown against them in every arena of life. "Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."(Joshua 1:9)

Shalom from Paris. David Schneier