from: http://www.jewsweek.com

The top ten

A former evangelical minister and now an observant Jew, Gavriel Sanders
tells us ten things Christian Zionists ask him about Jews and Israel.



by Gavriel Aryeh Sanders
February 22, 2005

As I've traveled the country this last year, I've had numerous
conversations with pro-Israel evangelicals, commonly known as Christian
Zionists. They have many questions about how the Jewish community
works, how Israel functions as a society, and how Jews around the world
see themselves in relation to God, the Torah, Jewish values, and Jewish
influence. Here is a distilled list of commonly heard questions. If
you'd like to offer an answer to any of these, please send your reply
to gavriel@gavrielsanders.com. We'll share your insights in an upcoming
edition.

1. How is it that the people that gave the world the Bible live more
like the world than the Bible?

2. I thought Israel was to be a light unto the nations. Why are they
trying so hard to be like and liked by the nations?

3. If, after 2000 years of dispersion and prayer for restoration, Jews
finally have a homeland: Why don't more Jews go home? Why are they
giving away the land?

4. It the title deed for the Temple Mount, Joseph's Tomb, and the Cave
of the Patriarchs is contained in the Jewish Bible, how can the Israeli
government give away these treasures of heritage to an enemy?

5. If pidyon shuvyim (ransom of a captive Jew) is a priority amongst
Jewish values, why isn't there a greater outcry to free Jonathan
Pollard? After his unfair sentencing and 20-year imprisonment, isn't he
as much a prisoner of Zion as was Natan Sharansky?

6. In a "land for peace" exchange, the Jews give up tangible turf that
can't be returned for an intangible pledge that can't be guaranteed.
Why?

7. If Jews are so committed to saving Jewish lives, why have more than
two million Jewish babies been aborted in Israel since 1948? How does
that square with replacing the 1.5 million children lost in the
Holocaust?

8. Why do liberal Jews insist on making peace with an enemy that has
not renounced its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state?
America would never do this. Is the "New Israel Fund" really a "No
Israel Fund"?

9. Why do so many Jews insist on bending the Torah to fit their
cultural preferences rather than adjust their lives to live by the
Torah? Isn't God's will more important than a Saturday golf game? Isn't
preserving faith and family more important than eating seafood?

10. Why does it seem that so many Jews hate their own religion or have
so little knowledge of their own Bible? Most evangelicals know the
Jewish scriptures better than most Jews.











Gavriel Aryeh Sanders is the senior religion columnist for Jewsweek
Magazine. He is a former evangelical minister who was a covert
missionary in Israel and Saudi Arabia. In the process of mastering
Hebrew, he began to see many serious flaws in the Christian Bible. His
studies of Tanakh persuaded him to convert to Judaism "al pi halakhah".
Now an observant Jew, Sanders resides in New York. Sanders spent two
and half years working in Saudi Arabia, including the period during the
Gulf War. A popular national speaker, he inspires Jewish audiences
across the spectrum to embrace the challenge and rewards of Jewish
learning and Jewish living.