On to Israel

September 22, 2012

    Leslye and I are preparing to leave on Monday for two weeks in Israel to reconnect with old friends and see what the Lord has for us there at this point in our lives. We will be visiting Ashdod. Omer (near Beersheva), Haifa, Carmiel, Tiberias, Jerusalem and points in between. Please pray for our travels and safety, vision from the Lord and the Israeli GPS. We'll be reporting from Israel as soon as possible. Shalom. David & Leslye Schneier

It all begins - Jews under attack in Paris

So someone makes a You Tube film and a Jewish grocery store in Paris is bombed. Sounds insane and it is!!! Jews don't blow up Muslim grocery stores when Jews are vilified in Muslim publications, on Muslim TV and radio and on Muslim blogs and other internet sites. If you want respect. doesn't it have to be both ways? If you could see the rampant anti-Semitism in European and Arabic media, you would wonder why there isn't such a huge outcry against the Jewish and Israel bashing that occurs every day here. Shalom from Paris. David Schneier

Story from The Huffingron Post on-line

France Kosher Store Bomb Explosion Injures 4

By GREG KELLER 09/19/12 12:50 PM ET

PARIS — A small package bomb exploded inside a kosher grocery store in a Paris suburb Wednesday, wounding at least one person, according to an agency that tracks anti-Semitic attacks in France. The reason for the attack was unclear, but it rattled nerves amid global tensions surrounding a U.S.-produced film insulting to Islam. The French grocery store attack came a few hours after a satirical French weekly published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, prompting anger from French Muslim groups.
The Jewish Community Protection Service, set up to register anti-Semitic attacks in France, says on its website that two individuals dressed in black threw an explosive device inside a kosher supermarket in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles at lunchtime Wednesday. It says one person suffered small injuries, without elaborating.
Yves Jannier, the state prosecutor in the Val d'Oise region where Sarcelles is located, cautioned that evidence was still being compiled and it was too early to draw any conclusions about motives behind the attack.
"We'll need to analyze, quantify and measure all these elements, such as to know perhaps the type of explosives used," he said at a news conference. "But for now, we should avoid any extrapolation or hasty conclusions."
The Sipa news agency reported four injuries. It said the two assailants fled after throwing a rock through the shop's window shortly before the explosion, and that the victims are being treated for wounds to their arms and legs from the explosion and broken glass.
A French Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, said in a statement that "it fears this attack" is connected to violent protests in recent days from Asia to Africa against the U.S.-produced film "Innocence of Muslims," which ridicules Prophet Muhammad. CRIF criticized those who are linking Jews to the making of the film and said "nothing can justify the wave of violence that has hit the world since its release."
France, which has western Europe's largest Jewish population, sees sporadic but persistent anti-Semitic acts, often vandalism of gravesites and synagogues. The nation also has the region's largest Muslim population, and mosques and Muslim gravesites are periodically desecrated.
Fears of a new wave of anti-Semitism in France resurfaced after a gunman claiming ties to radical Islam killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March, the worst such attacks in France since the 1990s.
___
Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

From the Schneiers - September/October schedule

     We'll be on the move during the next two months so here is our schedule:

1. September 8th: We'll be with David Schiff's congregation in Metarie, Louisiana

2. September 9th: Possibly sharing in New Orleans if it's not flooded.

3. September 15th: Paris, France

4. September 24th-October 9th: Israel

5. October 12th-18th: MJAA/IAMCS Steering Committee meetings: Orlando

6. October 22nd-29th: IAMCS leadership conference: Odessa, Ukraine

    Remember us in prayer. Shalom. David & Leslye

You'll like this photo

Every so often an image so clearly speaks for itself. Here's one from I Wish News. Shalom, David Schneier

This is a must read and watch the attached video at the end, "The Notre Dame Project." This is from the CFCA website located at www.antisemitism.org.il, Shalom from David Schneier

The Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism - Yearly Evaluation: 2011

18-07-2012

Baptist group pulls 'weeds of injustice' from Jewish cemetery

Paris - His hands trembled when Benjamin* saw a letter his son-in-law received, stamped with the letterhead of the government offices of Paris' fourth administrative district.


In fact he trembled all over, so much that he had to sit down.

It turned out the letter was just asking his son-in-law to renew his driver's license. But it took the rest of the day for the 90-year-old Jewish man to recover from just the sight of the letterhead.


It was too much like the letter that summoned him away from his home 70 years ago during the Holocaust and landed him in a German concentration camp for five years. When he returned home, most of his family was dead.


Seven decades have passed, but the memory is still fresh for the Jewish grandfather.


"Sometimes it's easy for us to think about the Holocaust in terms of, 'That was a long time ago. That kind of prejudice doesn't still exist,'" said Richard Hall*, a social scientist familiar with Jewish history. "But actually we are still in a generation when people can tell their children that the reason they aren't allowed to wear striped pajamas is because their grandma or grandpa had to wear them in prison camps. The memory isn't far removed at all."


And if that were not enough for Jews in Paris, there's a message just for them carved into the front of the city's imposing Notre Dame Cathedral, right in the heart of the city's fourth district.


It's been there 1,000 years. Ships 20 miles away on the Seine River could see it. Tourists from all over the world have their photo made in front of it.


The message is a statue called Synagogua, and it portrays the Jewish community as "damaged goods," Hall said. Synagogua is a woman with a broken staff, broken tablets and a snake wrapped around her eyes to indicate she's been blinded by evil.


She sits on the front of the cathedral opposite the statue Iglesia, a strong, stately crown-wearing woman representing the Christian church.


"For 1,000 years, the front of Notre Dame has been a billboard to the Jews of what Christians think of them," Hall said. "That's a hard message to overcome." Especially, he said, when Christians seem to be oblivious to the fact that messages like that are still being presented today.


But John Simmons* is one person trying to turn some of those messages around by a simple act. He travels from his home in the U.S. to Europe to take care of Jewish cemeteries. There, he and his friends work on walls, pull weeds and clean headstones.


"To honor the dead is a very high good deed for the Jews, so to do that for them is a message of love," Simmons said. "We just want to show love, to see the Jews and the Christians reconciled. We are pulling the weeds of injustice, of the things that happened, so the land can be renewed and restored and relationships can be reconciled."


It's something Christians should be aware of and working to overcome, Simmons said.


"We are just showing the love of Christ," he said. "That is first and foremost."


A six-minute documentary (http://vimeo.com/45358520) on Jews in Paris is available for individuals and churches that want to know how they can be more sensitive and show love to Jewish friends and neighbors.


"As Christians, we sincerely want to make the love of Jesus Christ visible to Jewish people," Hall said. "Yet to do so means that we must now express His love in a way that speaks more loudly than the long history of hatred and distrust which Christians and Jews have inherited from the past."

The Notre Dame project from Dougie James on Vimeo.

Update from the Schneiers June 2012

Dear Friends of the Schneiers,

   So good to be able to write you of all of the wonderful things the Lord has done this past Spring in Europe. But first, please pray for Leslye who had to return to the US to help take care of her Mom who had a heart attack one week ago. Her mother is back home now. Recently she had to return to the ER so she needs prayer to sustain and heal her. Leslye also needs prayer as many decisions will need to be made in the days ahead.

   We returned to Paris in March (1) to prepare for sharing in Dallas at a Passover celebration led by Chuck Pierce, (2) to help lead an IAMCS Regional Leadership Conference in Nikolaiv, Ukraine, (3) to join a prayer team led by Roger & Charlotte Merschbrock to places in the south of France that blessed the Jewish people, (4) to travel to Spain to meet with the only Messianic congregation there, (5) to help lead an IAMCS leadership conference for western Europe in Belgium and finally (6) to be part of a conference team in Lyon, France led by Chuck Pierce with Paul Wilbur in concert. We made a lot of new friends during this process in the Messianic movement and in churches. God gave us many opportunities to share His love for the Jewish people and His plan for reaching them through relationships and Messianic Jewish congregations.

   First, David was asked to share at the Passover service at Glory of Zion in its new center in Corinth, Texas. The title of his message was "Passing Over Into Unity. A Time for Reflection and Action on the Part of the Body of Messiah." It can be ordered at Glory of Zion's web site at https://gloryofzion.org/webstore/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=1190. David connected the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers in reaching the Jewish people with end time revival in the body of Messiah. He shared that the Lord is saying that is it time for the Church to do something to help the Jewish people see their Messiah, Yeshua. And it is time to publicly defend the Jewish people which will be costly to those brave enough to do it. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said, "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."  Here are some photos from the conference which Jonathan Cahn also shared his prophetic vision for the US from his book "The Harbinger."

David sharing at the Passover conference

                               

Jonathan Cahn receiving prayer

  Returning again to Paris, David prepared for the semi-annual IAMCS leadership retreat in Ukraine, this time in Nikolaiv. The IAMCS host congregation there is led by Yura Korshun. David's topic during the three day conference was . We had 230 leaders and congregants attend from 22 cities. There was such desire to worship, to receive teaching and to fellowship. Our next Ukrainian conference is during the last week of October and we are hoping to have Maurice Sklar come and give two concerts in the famous Stolyarsky music school, one for survivors of the Holocaust and one for the city. We need to raise $4,000 for Maurice's expenses to come so if anyone wants to help with that special need please let me know because the Ukrainian congregations do not have the resources for such a venture. Here are some photos from the Nikolaiv conference:

Men dancing in unity

A child sounds the shofar

New art emerges

           

New IAMCS congregation

Torah Procession

Former Muslim who now loves the Jewish people

      

     Leslye and I then joined up with a prayer team from Louisiana led by Roger and Charlotte Merschbrock. We will be joining the Merschbrock's in Baton Rouge on July 20-22, 2012 for a time of sharing at a statewide conference and a church about the one new man from a Jewish perspective. Before setting out on our journey we had a miraculous time participating in an exclusive remembrance in Paris of France's deportation of tens of thousands of Jews during WWII.  Ever where we turned their were French dignitaries, Holocaust survivors, politicians, rabbis and priests and military officers. And we and the team (who we introduced as our "entourage") were permitted to be part of all of this because of Leslye's listening to the Lord and our press passes from the IPA (International Press Association). Here are some photos from the day of remembrance:

A Schneier deported from France

A survivor/deportee in his uniform

Military presence

Private government ceremony

  

       

Rabbi's prayer of remembrance

Laying the wreaths

                                                                 

   Our journey to the south of France began in La Rochelle. In all we visited La Rochelle, Valence and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon and nearby towns where the Huguenots through their ancestors hid and saved thousands of Jews before and during. In one town, false ration and identity cards were prepared in the city hall! Here's a photo description of our time there:

Shabbat in La Rochelle

Young girl's family saved this young boy

The two friends today

This home protected Jewish refugees

Synagogue in Valence

     

    

    

      Our next stop with little rest was a trip to Spain to visit in Madrid the only Messianic congregation in the whole country. Rabbis Mijael Sofer leads a congregation of about 12-15 people. They are officially recognized as a Jewish community. In order to achieve that status they have to have a cemetery and access to a place of running water for a mikvah. I don't know of another messianic congregation that has its own cemetery!. Upon our arrival in Madrid Rabbi Sofer took us to Segovia where the document was signed to expel the Jews from Spain in 1492. It was also the home of Spain's chief Rabbi, Avraham Seneor who our Schneier family may be related to. More on that in the future. We visited Rabbi Avraham's home which is now a museum. After Madrid we had a chance to visit with friends in Toledo, a seat of Jewish culture and learning and ironically the Spanish Inquisition. We had a chance to visit the museum of El Greco (who was from Greece). One of my favorite paintings, "The View of Toledo," was not there since it seems to reside in NYC. Spain ordered 1.200,000 Jews to leave and we were told that 400,000 did and 800,000 "converted " meaning that almost everyone in Spain has distant Jewish relative. Here are some photos from our trip there:

Roman aqueduct in Segovia

Sefarad seal marking Jewish quarter

Great Synagogue of Toledo

Shabbat with congregation in Madrid

Bridge of Tears where Jews left Segovia

  

       

    

     We had one other trip in Europe to La Louviere, Belgium outside of Brussels from June 1-3. We were joined there by Messianic Rabbis David Chernoff and Joel Liberman from the USA and Messianic leaders from Belgium, England, The Netherlands, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine and France for an IAMCS leadership conference. The conference theme dealt with issues facing the Messianic movement in Europe. The worship was awesome and we were excellently hosted by Lorenzo Greco and his congregation Beth Yeshoua. This was really a turning point for unity in the Messianic movement in western Europe and we expect great things to come from this gathering. Here are some final photos from Belgium:

Lorenzo Greco (Belgium)

David Chernoff (Phila.)

Joel Liberman (San Diego)

David Schneier (Paris)

Alexander (Sasha) Popazov (Odessa)

 

   

     

     So now you have joined us on some of our travels in the last three months. God is doing many things in Europe and we thank you for your prayers and financial support for our vision to strengthen the Messianic Jewish movement there and to see revival amongst our Jewish people and the whole body of Messiah.

   If you would like to financially partner with us you can do so as follows below.

Please send your check, made payable to Glory of Zion Int’l Ministries, to:

The Schneiers

c/o Glory of Zion Int’l Ministries

PO Box 1601

Denton, TX 76202-1601 

(Please include a note with your check that it is “For the Schneiers.” (Your gifts are tax deductible).

    If you would like to make a credit card donation, go to www.glory-of-zion.org, click on "Donate" on the left side of the home page, fill in your credit card info on the "Send a Donation" page, in the "Put Toward" section click on "Designated Gift" and in the "Enter Recipient" section fill in "The Schneiers." This last step will insure that  your gift goes to our ministry. You can indicate in the comment section if your gift is one-time or to be charged monthly on the date you provide.

   Blessings, Love and Shalom,

       David & Leslye

 

When Jews were Saved in France

      From April 30th-May 6th, Leslye and I joined up with a prayer team from Louisiana, led by Roger and Charlotte Merschbrock, to visit groups that love the Jewish people and places where Jews were saved by descendants of the Huguenots in the south of France. We were amazed to learn of how extensively the Christians defied the Nazis by hiding, protecting and leading thousands of French Jews to safety in Switzerland. One such town was Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, an hour and a half northwest by car from Valence. In the area around Le Chambon, we meet with a mayor who told us how the City Hall fabricated identity and ration documents for Jewish refugees. We also visited a school that was filled with Jewish children whose identities were hidden from the Nazis and the French Vichy government. We participated in  meetings with believers in La Rochelle on France's west coast and in the the South of France, including opening the Shabbat in a French church. This all followed our attendance of the Deportation remembrance in Paris on April 29th. So it was an eye opening week and an encouragement that there are believers who embrace God's word and who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the Jewish people. This type of courage will be needed in the days ahead. Here are some photos. The rest appear on Picassa at https://picasaweb.google.com/messianic.initiative/May13201202. Shalom, David Schneier

David sharing at a gathering in the south of France

Leslye sharing a word as well

Memorial plaque honoring Christians who protected Jews during WWII quoting Ps 112:6

School photo including Jewish kids whose identities were protected by their school

Home of the pictured elderly woman who was a child when her parents hid Jews there

School that saved many Jewish children

Young girl's family saved Max, a Jewish kid

The young girl and Max today

Shabbat with believers in the south of France

The one and only synagogue in Valence

House of the Israelite Community

Inside the synagogue

Sign on the synagogue door which warns congregants not to touch suspicious people, objects or cars