AUDIO: On the air in Israel: hear it here!

July 12, 2007

My partner, Greg, has engineered a terrific audio introduction to the radio program we would love to start producing ASAP. Well, I think it's terrific.

But hey, listen for yourself and let us know what you think:

Click Play to hear the program demo: in Microsoft's browser, IE, click Play twice
(give it just a little time to load up from another site)

And here's an amazing thing. One week ago today I was visiting executives at Arutz Sheva: Baruch Gordon, Director of English Media for IsraelNationalNews.com and Yishai Fleisher, head of programming for IsraelNationalRadio.com, a division of IsraelNationalNews.com.

We talked about many ways our respective efforts can reinforce and help each other. One idea was the possibility of hitting a circuit of U.S. cities with "An Evening of Jewish-Christian Dialogue."

What fun, especially if we could wrap the discourse with mini-concerts featuring Jewish musicians on the front-end and the back.

Then, while visiting, Yishai invited me to join him on his show, Yishai Fleisher and friends, that same afternoon. How cool is that? Such an honor!

Here's the portion of Yishai's program on which I was his guest:

Click Play to hear Brian on-air with Yishai Fleisher: in Microsoft's IE click Play twice
(again, give it a few seconds to load up from another site)

There are two other ways you can access these mp3s. Click on the option you prefer:

1. Program Demo: Download or play inside your browser
   
2. Brian as a guest on Yishai Fleisher's program: Download or play inside your browser

Let us know what you think: post feedback! Send an email!

And if you're not aware of the unlikely path that has brought us to this point, take look at prior posts...

• Impossible: posted Monday, May 14, 2007
• Is Jesus G-d?: posted Thursday, May 31, 2007
• IJS: Israel-Jerusalem Syndrome: posted Monday, June 25, 2007
  
• Radical Islam hits home: posted Wednesday the 4th of July 2007
  

This Week In Jerusalem is a production of ZION PUBLIC RADIO,
an educational 501(c)(3) U.S. nonprofit organization
incorporated in the State of Texas

IJS: Israel-Jerusalem Syndrome

June 25, 2007

“There’s something in Jerusalem that makes some 150 tourists a year lose their minds. Some think they’re Messiah or the devil--or Samson trying to knock down walls near the Western Wall. [Some believe] they must destroy a mosque or church. Others know where the Ark of the Covenant is hiding.”

(From Crazy about Jerusalem, YNetNews.com, 18 June 2007)

Broaden this phenomena and call it
IJS: Israel-Jerusalem Syndrome.

Three days ago Michael, an Israeli, said to me, “Whatever baggage people have, they bring it with them when they come here. Once in Israel all their quirks and problems are magnified 10 times. And when they arrive in Jerusalem it’s multiplied by another factor of 10. For many the breaking point is about a month when they simply have to leave.”

I am half-way through a month-long visit to Jerusalem; it is my second one this year. I know what Michael’s talking about. I see it in people I meet, especially non-Jewish tourists. And I feel its malice hunting me: confusion, distorted thoughts, and an extra-forceful pull from black-holes in my soul.

At the same time I have discovered Positive IJS: a passion to know and please the heart of G-d no matter what the cost. And mostly I have found it in the faces, words and conduct of Jewish people in their Promised Land: in citizens and visitors alike.

My first encounter with Positive IJS happens within 48 hours of arrival. While walking through the Old City I ask directions from two teenage girls. Turns out they are students at a Yeshiva for women near the Western Wall. And whoa, are they excited. Not about boys or parties or Paris Hilton. They’re bubbling with enthusiasm about Torah.

“We just graduated from high school,” they announce with Aussie accents. “We hated homework. Now here we are, studying for a year where we never have to take a test. But every day we can hardly wait to study Torah and how to live it!”

Two days later a friend and I are in the West Bank at a city called Bethel. Ramallah, capital city of the PLO and Yasser Arafat's metropolitan tomb, stands on a neighboring hill. In Bethel executives of an Israeli news organization warmly welcome us to the production heart of their English-division studios. “Everything we do,” they say, “is to please the heart of Hashem. And you are welcome to use anything we produce on your radio program.”

The director, Baruch, asks me to make a sample recording. Handing me a script, he turns on a mic. I read the copy cold. Later in the week it will be used on an Internet TV report: my voice interpreting a man speaking Hebrew. What fun, and what a hoot--because I don’t speak Hebrew. (Pictured here with Yishai Fleisher, Program Director of IsraelNationalRadio.com)

Another example of Positive IJS. It also happens in West Bank territory; this time in Hebron. For religiously observant Jews Hebron is the second-holiest city in the world. Because Hebron’s where Abraham paid cold cash for title to a plot of land where he buried his wife, Sarah. Later Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah were also laid to rest in The Cave of the Patriarchs.

80% of Hebron is “governed” by the PLO. Recently, like Gaza, it has become a killing zone for competing factions: Hamas versus Fatah, with countless innocents trapped in murderous crossfire. Call it Negative IJS with Extreme Prejudice.

Meanwhile in the 20% of Hebron governed by Israel there is a tiny minority of Jewish settlers raising their children under the din of gunfire and Islamic calls to worship 5 times every day. Their determination and success in making this place home is breathtaking. Call it Positive IJS with Extreme Chutzpah.

Where in the West are we hearing positive reports like these about Israel? Aren’t almost all mainstream voices condemning the entire nation? Repeatedly portraying her as an oppressive, genocidal, land-grabbing State? Even accusing her of committing a “holocaust” against duly elected terrorists who have publicly sworn to “wipe Israel off the map.”

But the nauseating lie that Israeli’s are today’s Nazis is winning the PR propaganda war. 21st century Thought Police have been so successful in their portrayal of Israel-The-Bully it has become an Orwellian thoughtcrime to say it isn't so. Call it Globally Negative IJS.

Western entities are declaring boycotts. The latest is a British academic lecturer's union that voted to boycott all Israeli universities and faculty members. Days later Britain's largest labor union voted to sanction all business dealings with Israeli companies. And so the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, shakes hands with reality in 2007. Wherever his departed spirit lives George Orwell must be proud.

In a world where day is called night and dark is called light, will no one stand up in our public squares and tell the truth?

Greg and I would like to try with This Week In Jerusalem. We have the content and the skills. But we don’t yet have the structure or the means. Should we set up our own entity or work beneath an existing one? Is it best to be a non-profit or for-profit corporation?

These are huge issues; every path is peppered with land mines. Sitting in Jerusalem today there isn’t any visible way to get from here to there; the obstacles are simply insurmountable. IJS taunts me with despair.

But G-d is greater than every human insurmountable. And though it's worldwide, he also taunts every evil strain of deadly IJS. So be it.

Impossible

May 14, 2007:

Last night I was reading a novel enjoying the escape into make-believe. Then without warning the author used a character to thrust a sucker-quote. It cut my heart so fast at first I didn't feel it. Then all at once my mind protested, Ow! And, wow.

"There are three stages in every work of G-d: Impossible; Difficult; Done."
(attributed to J. Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905)

Impossible, ha! Along with a number of colorful expletives Impossible! has been the protest assaulting my brain and hammering my heart for two weeks and a day. That's how long it's been since my soul "heard" a burning-bush kind of order, a Level 10 command from God: "Go! Return to Israel!"

Trust me, I know how that sounds. On Sunday morning, May 6, while driving in my car it was an unmistakable mandate. But as days and weeks have passed jeering thoughts have mocked what seemed to be so clear. "A call from God? Yeah, right. Impossible."

I was just there, in Israel, last February. Our oldest son is a student in Jerusalem where he has lived 2 years. The main reason for that visit was spending time with him.

But there was another thing, a wild dream shared with an old college friend. His name is Greg Cromartie. For about 30 years he has engineered, produced and hosted countless radio programs. Our far-fetched aspiration, something only G-d could pull off? Develop and produce our own radio program: one that is...

• A regular broadcast aimed at English-speaking goyim listeners in N. America,
• A lively, you-are-there kind of production that brings our audience the voices and the sounds of Israel,
• A platform featuring patriotic and provocative Israelis,
• A format urging listeners to listen, and listen hard, to Israeli points of view,
• And so perhaps for all of us to hear the heart of G-d himself.

When I returned to the U.S. on February 26 Greg and I realized that we had secured:

1. A U.S. radio network willing to put our program on their satellite,
2. An Israeli news network willing to let us use any of their broadcast materials,
3. A well-connected Israeli citizen who can get us in front of almost anybody in that country's government,
4. An serendipitous new friendship with a man named Sam who has just started a job as the most recently appointed Director at Yad Vashem--aka, The Holocaust Museum: the very soul of Israel.

Basically Greg and I found ourselves with a wealth of material to produce a program.

Everything except for funding. Of course. And how much would it take to get our broadcast on the air by Yom Kippur this fall? Only about $300,000.00.

Impossible.

Which is why 15 days ago when I "heard" God's order, my first reaction was something like, "Impossible!" And to which I felt, in response, a deep, unhappy growl.

After clearing it with a few close friends, and especially my wife, that same day I booked another trip. While Debbie and our youngest son are at a boys' camp for four-and-a-half weeks, I will be in Israel. I leave on Wednesday, June 6, and am scheduled to return on Monday, July 9.

After charging the airline tickets to a credit card I drafted an overall budget for a month in Israel: $10,000.00. That's big--big--money for us. It is in fact impossible.

Within days of committing myself to the trip, $3,500.00 of the needed $10,000.00 came in. And since? Nada but a number of looks that seem to question my sanity. Not that I don't wonder too...

So, wanna sink some shekels into an impossible thing? Send money now.

And if the remaining balance doesn't show up before it's time to leave? I find this prospect terrifying. Only one thing scares me more; I've heard that growl and do not want to hear him roar.

Brian