Anniversaries to Remember

My favorite American traditional Jewish commentator, Jonathan S Tobin has written something very close to my heart this morning. I cried reading his editorial just now about the 25th year anniversary of the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001. Since writing this a couple of days ago, I have learned that the son of a well known Israeli Messianic figure was one of the first responders to arrive at the horrific blast scene. Terrorism creates hell-scapes.

Within a week of that bombing I would launch the first Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests from Israeli Ministries. A handful of us would meet every Thursday to pray for them who were in the midst of continual terror attacks all around the country.

My 50th birthday was 2 days before Islamist terrorists chose to bomb a pizzeria filled with women pushing baby strollers. The bomb killed “16 people, including eight children and a pregnant woman, and wounded another 130 persons.”

Our newly formed Israel Prayer group met each week to pray for God’s protection and for thwarting suicide bombing plots with the intel I was gathering directly from inside the Israeli Messianic ministries.

Then in around Oct-Nov 2003, in my first ever trip to Israel, the two ladies I traveled with and I purposed to go to as many of the bombing sites as we could on that 2 week visit. We did go to Sbarro Pizza which had been rebuilt to demonstrate the resilience and determination of Israelis not to brutally driven from the Promised Land. The picture above I took in 2003. My travel companion, Toni, is standing behind the two men in white shirts in front of the Sbarro pizza.

It was sobering for us to visit these bombing sites. We were not there just to visit ancient sites. We knew we were standing among those who are continuing the book of Acts beyond its 28 chapters in the Bible. This is the real Israel. Still biblical. Still contending for God and wrestling with enemies in finding their way back to Him spiritually.

In a picture that runs with Jonathan Tobin’s editorial, you see the aftermath of the bombing on August 9, 2001.

At one point we stayed in the neighborhood where “Dr. David Applebaum, head of the emergency room and trauma services at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, was killed alongside his 20-year-old daughter, Nava, in a suicide bombing at Café Hillel on September 9, 2003.”

As soon as we pulled into the neighborhood street where we were staying in the German Colony, we met a neighbor who lived across the street. We began to talk to him. He was a young man and my friend told him right away that we love Israelis. He was surprised and said most of the Christians he saw in Israel loved the Palestinians and not the Israelis. We assured him that was not the case with us. It is not that we don’t love our Palestinian brothers and sisters. We do! It is the terrorists and terror sympathizers we stand against. Many Christians do not even realize they are embracing terrorists. It is important to know what is really going on and not just believe false narratives that cover for hatred and murder.

We told the young man that we had gone to the bombing site of Dr. Applebaum, and he told us he was still greatly distressed and shaken by the bombing only a couple of blocks from his house.

For me, there is no forgetting what happened at the Sbarro or Cafe Hillel, or at the Dolphinarium Discotheque, or in all the bus bombings, or soldier kidnappings – or the promises of peace deals by international leaders. In many of those horrible attacks, Messianic believers were close by strolling down a sidewalk, getting off of a bus that detonated in the next block. Don’t ever dismiss what Israelis have been dealing with for the past 78 years of the State of Israel. Islamists hate their very existence.

I was 50 when I started my Israel prayer summaries and I’m 75 now. I never stopped and have never forgotten what the truth is about Israel. Many don’t know, but I have invested in knowing because Israel is important to God and to us.

Our connection to Israel is the Israeli Body of Messiah. We must never forget they are our family.

Read Jonathan S Tobin’s editorial at JNS.org: “After 25 years, the Sbarro bombing and its aftermath still matter | The Second Intifada massacre, like the slaughter on Oct. 7, stands as a grim reminder of the folly and hubris of the makers of peace plans and deals with terrorists.”