June, 2009
Shalom
Friends and Family!
1. We are
still on house arrest. (In July, it will be 1 and ½ years)
2. We are
still in God’s good graces. Hallelujah!
3. We are
still counting our blessings – there are many!
4. Our
circumstances do not determine our happiness!
5. Praise the
Lord! He is in charge and it is a privilege to work for him. Y’shua
LIVES!
Because
you asked:
Details of
the city’s court case against us:
Basically the
charges against us are because of putting tables outside for the guys to play
chess. We did this for years (with the Mayor’s permission) and it was
fine until the Haredim came along and began harassing
the chess players, etc. The other people in the marketplace also put
tables outside, but we are the only ones being fined for doing so.
Now we have a
new government-appointed Mayor, who has been avoiding meeting with us.
The city has found a convenient solution to keep us inside the Chess &
Bible Shop. The problem is that so many people come and it is impossible
to fit them all in the shop. The men are nervous because the Haredim already threw Molotov cocktails at the shop and poured
gasoline around the doors and lit it. The men much prefer to play in the
open air for those reasons, plus the mild winters in
The Israeli court
system is a piece of work and that is not good. It turns out that they
had a trial and convicted us last year, when we were out of the country and
doubled the fines. We had no clue and neither did our lawyer. We were
amazed to find that out.
So
the trial on June 16 was more of the same. We ended up doing a
counter-offer. I offered to pay for three of the fines at the original
price out of 11. They agreed to dismiss the case in which we were
convicted last year when we were out of the country and to dismiss the other
fines, IF I signed a guarantee that if anyone put a table outside at the chess
club that I would pay 10,000 shekels to the court. I pointed out that
they could write more fines if that happened and also the fact that since we
are on house arrest, we are unable to oversee the club. No matter.
That was the deal, so I signed it. I paid 1290 shekels for the
fines. Our lawyer asked if the “Amuta” can be
held responsible instead of us & the Judge agreed. So there is no
conviction on our names, however our Amuta
(non-profit charitable organization) has been fined.
I was
exhausted after that -- we took the Russian Chess players with us to court and
that was another story. It was good they were there- good witness to the
court. The Judge was surprised that so many showed up to lend support.
The
This is
another example of blaming the victim for the crime. The Haredim have harassed and complained about the Chess Club
so much that the city felt pressured to do something about it. Instead of
telling the Haredim to stop their illegal actions,
they moved against the club and wound up hurting and oppressing the senior
citizens of
The police
openly tell us that it is our fault that we are being persecuted. “If we
were not Christians, we wouldn’t be persecuted.” That logic is flawed. Is
it true that Jews wouldn’t be targeted by the Nazis if they weren’t
Jewish? Does that make it right for the Nazis to do what they did? Of course not. But somehow, that rationality is
missing in
Please
continue to pray for salvation for the Jewish people.
Pray that we
may find a better place for the Chess and Bible Shop where the men can
sit outside safely – we have been looking for a place big enough for at least
50 people per day.
Pray for our housing
situation; we really don’t want to move again.
Pray for our
support to be maintained since we have changed our status from MHCF to
Jewish Outreach International.
Pray for our
next court dates – We are awaiting court dates for three more false
charges. Pray for the Lord to either put an end to these things or give
us the grace to go through them as a witness to the unsaved.
As always, we
thank you for standing with us and we thank God for you! We bless you in
the Name of Y’shua!
Lura and Eddie
Arad ,
Israel