An Excerpt from Succat Hallet http://www.jerusalempraise.com/alerts/israel_update.htm

ISRAEL PRAYER UPDATE – June 27^th, 2005

2.  PERSECUTION OF JEWISH BELIEVERS BY ULTRA-ORTHODOX FORCES INCREASES.

As the identification of some streams of Orthodox Judaism with the Land of Israel awakens the admiration and prayerful support of many Believers,  and this beneath the banner that “Jews do not persecute or transfer other Jews”, an ironically different aspect of this religion is also rising—the persecution of fellow Jews who choose to believe that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah and the Son of God.  Last Friday evening a group of worshippers gathered in Jerusalem received an emergency call for prayer from a Messianic brother who lives near Beer Sheba.  A tiny group of Believing Jews in the desert city of Arad, while observing a traditional Sabbath gathering suddenly found themselves surrounded by a mob of several hundred Ultra-Orthodox Jews. They shouted obscenities, blasphemed the name of Yeshua, threatened and spat at the believers and demanded their departure from the city.  As believers about the country were praying, the mob eventually, in God’s grace, dispersed—but not before taking measures to insure a continuation of the harassment.  In the city of Afula to the north, there has also been persecution, with believers losing their jobs because of their faith.  In another situation, we have believing friends who have a farm on a moshav (rural cooperative) in the south.  Their equipment has been burned and destroyed.  Fences have been torn down, slogans have been painted on the walls of their buildings as the religious are trying to run them off from the moshav which the husband’s grandfather actually helped to found. 

We should not be surprised or discouraged by these things.  In John 16:2-4 Yeshua speaks of a day when Jews who persecute and even kill Jews who believe in Him as Messiah will think they are “offering service to God.”  And in Matt: 5:11, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me (Matt. 5:11); in fact, “Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.  For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets” (Luke 6:23). Which doesn’t mean that we don’t stand against these anti-Christ (anti-Messiah) powers and persevere with our brothers and sisters who are undergoing such violence.

PLEASE PRAY:

*That the Spirit of Messiah would strengthen and encourage Messianic Jews in Israel who are undergoing persecution for the name of Yeshua.

*That they would persevere and stand.  That they would also come to know and be able to use the weapons of the Holy Spirit which are at their disposal.

*That Messianic Jews (Jews who believe in Jesus as Lord and Messiah), would excel even in the face of persecution and be strong testimonies of the Holy One whom they serve.

*For the success of the business, agricultural endeavors of Messianic Jews as they permeate the agricultural, business and governmental strata of the society with the Spirit of Messiah.

*For the Ultra-Orthodox that the anti-Christ spirit which controls so many of them would be broken…that many, like Shaul (Paul) on the road to Damascus, would come to know the truth and the truth set them free.