In Touch Quarter 3 - 2018

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Feature One of the ways we accomplish our aims of Encouraging a fuller understanding of Israel and Challenging anti-Semitism is through social media. But many will ask: “Is social media a good thing or a bad thing?” I’m sure there are as many answers to this question, on both sides, as there are people using social media. Perhaps that number would even skew negative if you also asked people who don’t use social media. But there is no doubt that social media and the internet as a whole have provided people with more access to information than they’ve ever had before. And not only more access, but quicker access - anyone with a mobile device can search for virtually any information they need at any time. However, where Israel is concerned there is a significantly greater number of people who oppose the state and the Jewish people than there is who support them. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions groups (BDS) have a field day with social media. Many pro-Palestinian activists turn to social media, and believe CFI’s use of Social Media By David Soakell (Matthew 5:14-15). facebook.com/cfiuk twitter.com/cfi_uk youtube.com/c/CFIUK And so we post five or six days a week, sometimes twice a day on the CFI Facebook page, with 3 to 4 posts on CFI’s Twitter page. Monitoring CFI’s Facebook page, Twitter feed and YouTube channel can be time consuming, and yet we have been surprised at the increase of traffic on all three. One single post on Facebook recently reached 6,302 people, with 379 reactions, comments and shares. Another post had a staggering 8,140 views, and a post in late March reached over 4,600 people, with 271 reactions, comments and shares. We have yet to work out why some posts get only a small amount of interest and interaction, while others produce a vast amount However we do try to publish a variety of posts from Hebraic roots, general issues (such as ‘Israel at 70’) to what’s happening socially, biblical issues, teaching issues, and links to the CFI website, hopefully encouraging traffic to that too. Generally, whatever is posted on Facebook is also posted on Twitter. it or not, even the terrorist group Hamas use it. So should Christians really be involved with what could appear to be an ‘evil tool’? Well think of it this way: if you believed in the Good News of Jesus Christ and lived your life seeking a close walk with the Lord, but never shared your faith with anyone, would that be honouring to God? The fact is, groups and organisations like Christian Friends of Israel need to be part of social media to get the truth out into what can sometimes appear a very dark world. That is what we are about, being a light in the darkness And then there is the CFI YouTube channel. If you have internet access you can view this really easily. So, if you love Israelirelated films and clips, do take a look. There you will find lots of very short videos of Israel; there’s also a variety of teaching videos from our conferences and more. We are slowly building the CFI YouTube channel. You can subscribe to it for free and click the ‘like’ button on our various videos that appeal to you. Simply go to http://www.youtube. com/c/CFIUK. Data Protection update As mentioned in the previous edition of In Touch, we have refined the ways in which people can request our various publications. With particular regard to email, we have enabled people to choose directly which of our four main publications they would like to receive. We have also included a link in the footer of those emails that enables subscribers to update their choices at any time. Our quarterly In Touch magazine and monthly Watchman’s prayer letter are the most popular items, followed by the fortnightly Watching over Zion news report and prayer notes. But few subscribers have chosen to receive Event notices. This means that we are not allowed to contact most of our email subscribers about any special events arranged for their part of the country (e.g. Lois Tverberg’s talks in Eastbourne, Brierley Hill and Middlesbrough), or national events like last year’s Balfour 100 Celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. So those of you who receive emails from us might like to consider clicking the ‘Update Choices’ link in the footer of one of our emails and ticking the ‘Events’ box in our subscriptions form, to make sure that you receive information about such events. We don’t arrange a large number of events each year, so you won’t be inundated with emails as a result! Our updated privacy policy can be viewed on the Christian Friends of Israel UK website. 6 IN TOUCH • 3 rd Quarter 2018 www.cfi.org.uk
Feature Jonathan Farrell Education is the Road to Peace Growing up in a Christian family in the UK I had no reason to believe that my faith had any meaningful connection to contemporary Israel. So when I began studying International Relations and Arabic at the University of Exeter I was shocked by what I would soon encounter. One academic said that the historical evidence of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem was Israel’s ‘state propagated lies’. We were encouraged to read books claiming the Jewish people had been ‘invented’, and that the Bible was a fake, unreliable document with no basis in history. The hatred directed against the Jewish people also sought to undermine the historical foundation of my Christian faith. The attack on Jewish heritage was an attack on my heritage and a distorted education was allowing these lies to be accepted as norms. So I joined with other students to set up the Exeter University Friends of Israel Society. But I needed help. It was Christian Friends of Israel who connected me with StandWithUs UK, an Israel education charity that welcomed me into a community of students who were facing the same challenges as I was. Jewish students bear the brunt of accusations such as ‘Zionism is racism’. They often find themselves side-lined in discussion and even the victims of verbal and, yes, physical assault. Yet StandWithUs was not exclusive to Jewish people and gave me knowledge to be an effective Israel advocate and as a result I made a difference. Yet as a Christian I needed more, and Christian Friends of Israel meetings organised by the Regional Link for the South West consolidated my knowledge with biblical truth and helped show me the deeper, spiritual foundations of the work I was fighting to accomplish. Jonathan Farrel at the SWU conference My years spent campaigning against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motions, standing up against antisemitism and advocating for Israel taught me that Christians can be Israel educators too, and indeed, they must be. Christian students especially need to be equipped with knowledge about Israel and the modern-day challenges she faces. But they also need to be shown with confidence that standing up for Israel is not in contradiction to their Christian faith, but deeply woven as a necessary part of it. And this is where Christian Friends of Israel spoke to me in a way no other organisation could or did. As a result, I am - to this day - propelled forward knowing that the work of combatting anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred on British campuses is of profound importance, spiritually and historically. And now as the Director for Student Affairs for StandWithUs UK, I am leading the first nationwide Israel Leadership program – The Emerson Fellowship which takes top students from across the country and trains them over a year to be leading Israel advocates on their campus. Yet how great might the impact be if only more Christian students would take heed of the biblical and historic call directed to them to stand with the Jewish people, equipped with the knowledge to combat the misinformation? This is my work and the work of every Christian who cares about Israel. More information about SWU at: www.standwithus.co.uk 3 rd Quarter 2018 • IN TOUCH 7
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In Touch Quarter 3 - 2018

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