I grew up in the United States in an upper middle-class Jewish family. Although we went to the synagogue on all the Jewish holidays, the real religion in our home was humanism. Intellectual achievement and education seemed to be celebrated above all else. I don’t think any of us, except maybe my mother, really believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. My father was an automotive engineer and my mother died of cancer many years ago. One of my two brothers died of an overdose on drugs when he was nineteen years old. My remaining brother is a jazz musician/psychiatrist in New York City.

Growing up, I was trained in classical music and later studied painting at an art school in Philadelphia. I then moved to New York to be part of “the art scene” there, where I continued to develop my musical ability through vocal training and song-writing workshops, while working as a shoe model for the high-fashion company, Charles Jourdan.

For years, I had been on a search for eternal truth. To my thinking, “God” was that “creative spirit” behind the beauty and harmony of music and art which so stirred my soul. In my longing to tap into “this force,” I plunged deeply into various New Age and occult practices. But after many years of trying one technique after another, I still felt an empty place in my heart. I had tried to fill that emptiness through romantic relationships with men, but instead I had suffered many disappointments.

Finally one day, realizing that I was worn out and had no answers left to make my life work, I knocked on the door of a friend who lived in my building, thinking maybe she would have some advice for me. Camille opened the door and I said, “Do you have a few minutes? I need someone to talk to.” She and I had been friends for two years, and she seemed to “have it all together.” She was an actress and comedienne who worked on the famous children’s TV series, “Sesame Street,” and created new characters for the “Muppet” movies. She had a peace and special joy about her that was different from my other friends who meditated, chanted and talked a lot about “inner peace.” Sometimes I would see her carrying a Bible and wonder how someone so sophisticated and intelligent as Camille would be interested in such an old-fashioned book. But the special joy she had (she didn’t even have a boyfriend!) truly provoked me to jealousy. (Read Rom. 11:11; Rom.10:19)

Occasionally Camille would give me tickets to a gospel concert and I would go. I was always deeply moved by the music and would weep all through the singing. “These people have the spirit!” I would think. Then there would be an invitation to receive Jesus and I would run out, saying to myself, “I’m Jewish. This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

As I sat in Camille’s apartment that day, I poured out my heart to my friend, who just listened. When I finished, I asked if she had any advice for me. She replied, “Would you like to pray?” I thought for a moment and answered, “I’ve never done that before. Why not? I’ve tried everything else. I’ll try it.” Camille then led me in a brief prayer in which I repeated the words after her. To my surprise, the prayer began with the one word “Jesus” – which for Jewish people is a hard name to say, as we have centuries of painful associations of Christian anti-Semitism and horrific massacres (Holocaust is only the most recent!). But in my desperation I said the words:

 “Jesus, I invite you into my heart!” I thought to myself, ok, maybe Jesus is another “Master or Guru!” I also asked Him to forgive my sins, although I really didn’t know what my sins were. I then asked Jesus to save me. When I finished the prayer, I turned to my friend and said, “But Camille, this couldn’t be the only way!” She simply looked at me and said, “It is.”

At that very moment the Spirit of Truth pierced my heart like a knife, cutting through all my preconceived ideas and the cherished philosophies I had lived by. Although I couldn’t explain it, I knew I had heard the truth. Truly “flesh and blood” had not revealed it to me. But the spirit of revelation had come upon me.

Suddenly I remembered a dream I had had the night before. In the dream, I was in a room with a bright light, but after some time the light grew dim. Then I saw another room with a bright light and went into it. After a while the same thing happened. I went from room to room, always with the same result, that the light I was looking for was not a true Light. Finally I came out onto an open field with brilliant sunlight. Then the scene switched to the poorest section of downtown New York City, where a group of children were on their knees begging for bread. The next thing I saw was a curtain ripped from top to bottom, and I woke up.

That morning the dream had made no sense to me so I had forgotten it. Now I understand that it was a picture of my journey until that day, of my long search for truth through the many counterfeits, my resultant spiritual poverty and finally to finding “the true Light which gives light to every man” (John 1:9).

Because I had never read the New Testament before, I didn’t know that Yeshua said, “I am the Light of the world,” or “I am the living Bread that comes down from heaven,” or that unless you come to Him as a little child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. I didn’t know that the veil in the temple in Jerusalem had been torn from top to bottom when Yeshua died on the cross during Passover, and that no one could go beyond the veil into the Holy of Holies except the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Now I understood that in His great love and mercy God had allowed me to suffer many severe disappointments and heartaches in order to bring me to the end of myself, to humble me, and to cause me to turn to Him. Through the atoning blood of the Lamb of God, Yeshua, the veil over my Jewish heart was removed. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13).

Before I left her that day, Camille gave me a New Testament, and assured me that as I read, God would begin to answer my many questions and confirm to me who this Jesus is. I returned to my apartment and began reading the Gospel of Matthew. I noticed that it was all so Jewish. Yeshua was a Jew and so were His first followers. I began devouring the Bible and in the weeks to come I saw how the Old Testament (“Tanach”) and the New Testament were one book—that the promise of the Messiah in the old covenant was fulfilled in the new covenant. For the first time in my life, I began to realize what it meant to be Jewish, that God had called out a people for Himself to know Him personally, to share Him with the rest of humanity and to be a “light to the Gentiles.”

As I continued to call upon the Messiah of Israel, Yeshua (Jesus in Hebrew), the love of God began to stream into my heart. Old hurts were fading away as a new joy and peace took over. I became like my friend Camille – a single woman who was filled with joy!! No longer could I sing romantic songs about men and women, about human love, selling a message of false hope to the world. Now my desire was to sing of the true Love of my life, of the One whose love had touched and healed the deepest places in my soul.

Alongside this new unspeakable joy that swept over my life, I began to feel as never before the deep pain and comfortless grief of so many of my own Jewish people who still stood outside the celebration, outside the door to the Father’s love and healing. When we begin to know the Lord, we know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). We can carry grief and joy in our hearts, just as Yeshua did. Paul says in Rom. 9:1-2: “ I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart” that his own brethren according to the flesh were separated from Christ.

When I looked around the wonderful congregation the Lord had placed me in in NYC  (it was a revival taking place among performing artists, actors, musicians, dancers, designers, models) which was multi-racial – blacks, whites, Asians. But my heart was breaking, as I realized there were almost no Jewish believers! Where were my Jewish brethren? Why don’t we know about Yeshua? Why don’t our rabbis know?

Tragically, centuries of Western Christian anti-Semitism, fueled by false church doctrines, and intense statements of hatred toward Jews by respected “church fathers” – both Roman Catholic and Protestant, including Martin Luther, have created mountains of misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the real Jesus, and what is actually written in the New Testament, a book written mainly by Jewish writers. The Crusaders burned the Jews in the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem and marched around the synagogue, singing “Christ We Adore You.” The pogroms, the massacres of Jewish villages in Russia (where my great grandparents fled from to US), were instigated by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Martin Luther, the Great Protestant Reformer, wrote these words about the Jewish people:

“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?”

“First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools … This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …”

“Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.”

“Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them.”

“Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb …”

“Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside …”

“Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …”

“Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country …”

How incredibly painful it is to read these words of Martin Luther, which were quoted by Hitler and used to justify the atrocities of the Holocaust! How grieved the heart of God must be that the Holy Name Jesus has been so misrepresented to His own brethren according to the flesh! Knowing these realities, it should be no surprise to us that Jewish people consider Christians and Jesus as their enemies! Why would a Jewish person even consider looking to Christianity or Jesus for answers to life’s questions? (Most Jewish-born seekers of truth end up involved in some way in New Age practices.)

The true calling on the Gentile church is found in Rom. 11:11, the calling to provoke us to jealousy! But the painful reality is that the complete opposite has taken place in almost 2,000 years of church history (since 300 AD). So there is much work to be done by this generation of the Gentile church in the nations. Praise God that the Asian church that the Lord is raising up has no history of this horrendous Christian anti-Semitism, which includes the false doctrine of replacement theology.

You are the generation that the Lord is calling to provoke us to jealousy NOW! Every time an Asian Christian visits Israel, and walks through the shops and streets of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Haifa, and smiles with love in his/her heart toward an Israeli, the true face of Jesus is being shown to them. It says in Rom. 11:31: “that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.” As you carry the mercy of God, His unconditional, everlasting love for the Jewish people, they will be provoked to jealousy! They will want to know where your joy and peace come from!

I thank the Lord for the churches in Asia that have embraced God’s heart for Israel, and are standing in fervent prayers for her salvation. Your love, friendship, intercession, and the glory of God that you are carrying, will begin to melt the “mountains” of unbelief in the hearts of Jewish people, that the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,” will shine into their hearts.