Steve Conover: This is The Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover and with me is Chris Katulka. As the year comes to a close, we want to share with you an opportunity to impact lives through this radio broadcast. First we would ask that you tell others about the teaching you hear each week through The Friends of Israel Today. If it's been a blessing to you, share it with your friends and help multiply this ministry. Secondly, we'd ask that you prayerfully consider a gift so we can continue to bring these truths to you and others as well.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, Steve, we need to raise $10,000 to meet our financial goals before the end of the year. And really, our listeners, your gift would help us reach people all around the world with our message of truth to bless the Jewish people. Now if the Lord leads you and you believe Christians need to hear the truth about Israel and the Jewish people from the Scriptures, help us reach our goal of $10,000 before the end of 2019. Any amount would be a blessing to our program and really we thank you for supporting The Friends of Israel Today.

To give to The Friends of Israel Today, simply go to foiradio.org. That's F-O-I, as in Friends of Israel, foiradio.org. You can call our listener line at (888) 343-6940. Again, that's (888) 343-6940, or you can write us at FOI Radio, P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio, P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. I want to thank you so much for believing in the message of The Friends of Israel Today and supporting us.

Steve Conover: And today we invite Ty Perry and Rabbi Felipe Goodman to our program to talk about their experience remembering the Holocaust in Poland together at the International March of the Living. But first in the news, last month President Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. Troops from Syria, which could have ramifications for Israel's security. Secretary Pompeo promised that Israel retains operational freedom to defend itself. He said, "Israel has the fundamental right to engage in activity that ensures the security of its people. It's at the very core of what nation states not only have the right to do, but an obligation to do."

Chris Katulka: Yeah, Steve, if you remember last month, President Trump drew heavy criticism when he removed U.S. Troops from Syria, not only because of the situation with the Kurds, but also because this really opens a void now in Syria, a potential void to welcome radical Islamic terrorism like ISIS to rise again. And of course, right on the border of Syria is Israel. And so this could be a potential problem for Israel, but it's great that Secretary Pompeo spoke up and really offered a message of solidarity to Israel to let the world know Israel has the right to defend against any outside aggression.

I'm very excited to have on the line with me two great men and they're going to share with us a story that they experienced together. With me is Felipe Goodman, who has been the Rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom since 1998. And prior to serving at Temple Beth Sholom, Rabbi Goodman served as the Assistant Rabbi at one of the largest conservative synagogues in Latin America. That's amazing and also with him is a good friend of ours and a worker here at The Friends of Israel, Ty Perry. He's our Field Ministries Representative in the Las Vegas area where they're together. Gentlemen, great to have you on the program.

Felipe Goodman: Thank you.

Ty Perry: Thanks for having us, Chris.

Chris Katulka: So number one, I have to know how did a evangelical Bible-believing Christian, Ty and Rabbi Goodman, how did you two meet?

Felipe Goodman: You go first, Ty.

Ty Perry: Well, I met Felipe through a Bible study. It just gets crazier the more-

Felipe Goodman: By the way, how the Bible study got started, that's actually a very interesting story. I don't even know how many years ago, probably four or five years ago, I went on a trip to Israel with 30 evangelical pastors from Las Vegas. And there were two rabbis on the trip, I was one of them, the other one was Rabbi [Czechlovo Mivorkodich 00:04:43], who was still part of our Bible study too. And we enjoyed so much being in Israel with our colleagues that when we came back, we started these Bible study groups once a month, more or less, and Steve then, one of the original pastors in the group had other responsibilities and couldn't join us anymore. So Ty came into the group and it's the four of us and that's how we met Ty. And we're going to keep him because he's a nice person.

Chris Katulka: That's great. So we have Rabbi Goodman and Ty Perry, a Rabbi and a Christian together doing a Bible study, I can't think of anything greater. And Rabbi Goodman, I want to ask you, you asked Ty to join you on a special trip earlier this year. It's a trip to Poland and Israel for the March of the Living. First of all, what is March of the Living?

Felipe Goodman: Well, March of the Living is a special journey that we have within the Jewish community for not only teenagers, but also adults to get to experience a week in Poland trying to see and to take in everything that happens, what people are doing to show it in the Holocaust. And it's called the March of the Living because on Yom Hashoah itself, on the Day of Holocaust Remembrance itself, we March from Auschwitz to Birkenau, which was a march that the prisoners in the concentration camp used to take from Auschwitz when they were taken to the death camp of Birkenau and that of course was a march of death. Well we do it today and we call it the March of the Living because we go there for their memory and to show how much alive we are. And that's what the trip released and there's about 10,000 people from all over the world that come. There's Jews from all over the world.

Chris Katulka: So you guys marched this trek together then?

Felipe Goodman: Oh yes.

Chris Katulka: You walk in the footsteps of those who walked this death walk basically, but you do it as a sign to almost turn it on its head and say, "We're a March for the Living."

Felipe Goodman: That's exactly the idea.

Chris Katulka: Now tell me though, Rabbi Goodman and Ty, we're going to get to you, but what made you think, "You know what? I want to bring Ty along with me, a Christian, a young man to go with me on this special and unique trip?"

Felipe Goodman: Oh, I'll tell you, I was born in Mexico City and you have to understand that because this really gives you an idea of why this happened. And all my life, well in a Catholic society basically, I'm Jewish, my family's Jewish but every contact I had was with Christianity, was through Catholicism. So I really never had any true, meaningful pro-Israel interfaith dialogue, until I got to the United States and I met the evangelical community and I keep telling myself, "If my grandmother could see that I study Bible with Christians, she will die again, she will not believe me." So in that spirit, I thought it would be a good idea to bring Ty, a Christian, who cares about the Jewish people, who cares about Israel, who works so hard to see with his own eyes, how much alive we are and what he's working for.

Chris Katulka: Can I ask what kind of things did you two do together? And Ty I'll throw that to you.

Ty Perry: Well, the first part of the trip was a week in Poland. So we were touring different cities, different towns throughout Poland and we're visiting the sites of the Holocaust. So we're going to villages where Nazis rounded up the Jewish community and there was one in particular where they killed the entire Jewish population there. We went to Jewish cemeteries and we wanted to see the culture, the history of the Jewish community before and after the Holocaust in those places. But in addition to that, we did tour several concentration camps, Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Felipe Goodman: And of course after that, we went to Israel.

Ty Perry: Yes, And that's the high point.

Felipe Goodman: It's unbelievable.

Chris Katulka: I'm sure it ends on that amazing experience. It almost reminds me of the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem where you're going through the darkness of the Holocaust and you are walking up this path almost and it ends with the shining light of Jerusalem. So this beautiful picture of going through the mud and the dirt of the Holocaust, the atrocity of it, but then coming out on the other side is the Jewish people are in the land of Israel now, an amazing testimony. I'm interested, Rabbi Goodman, is it important to you? And I'm sure it is, but we're coming to an era now in human history where our last remaining Holocaust survivors are around. Why is it important that people go to the March for the Living? To me it's important because we have to continue to tell the story.

Felipe Goodman: Yes. Not only that but look, it's important that people go on this journey. Not only so they can see with their own eyes, but also right now, this is the last chance we'll have to do this with Holocaust Survivors walking besides us, right? And see how they react and to see, you're not going to believe what I'm going to say, but the joy, that seeing 10,000 Jewish people together at Auschwitz brings to them because they know that we won, that we did not let Hitler win. When you see that, it really validates who you are and it validates a lot of what you've learned and the little of what you believe.

Chris Katulka: Tyler, how about for you? What did it mean for you as a born-again believer, a Bible-believing Christian? What did it mean for you to go over to Poland and to Israel and to experience this?

Ty Perry: Well, I was hoping that when I went I would come back with a better understanding of the Holocaust and I really didn't. And what I mean by that is the Holocaust is incomprehensible. It was evil, so there's really no logic to it. But what I did come away with are two things. One, on a personal level, a closer friendship with Rabbi Goodman. I roomed with him for two weeks and we had some great conversations and we agree on virtually nothing, but that's what made the trip so great is that we could talk about our differences and actually learn from one another.

The other aspect of that was that on a larger scale, I came back looking at the Holocaust, looking really at the world through a more nuanced lens because I was with Jewish people. I was the only Gentile in the group and I think better understand where they're coming from.

Felipe Goodman: But also I must say we took a group of teenagers from Las Vegas and San Diego, there were about 20 kids all together, for them to see Ty there with us was tremendous. Because they learned that there are Christians that care about the Jewish people and care about Israel and that history doesn't need to repeat itself the way it was before because now we have a new generation that actually is there not watching us march but marching with us. And Ty's presence there was tremendously, tremendously impactful.

Chris Katulka: Guys, we are going to take a quick break, but I want to set up our listeners for this. We're going to talk a little bit more about March for the Living, we're going to continue this discussion about this amazing event that Rabbi Goodman and Ty Perry, one of our workers with the Friends of Israel, a Bible-believing Christian went on together to honor this moment of the Holocaust, to remember it, but also to celebrate the fact that Israel and the Jewish people didn't end there in Poland. It didn't stop with Hitler, it actually grew out of it and became something even more powerful and beautiful in the eyes of God and so we're thankful for that and we're excited to hear what Ty and Rabbi Goodman have to say about how this deepened their relationship with one another so be sure to stick around.

Steve Conover: In 1939, the Nazis took control of Poland. A young Polish woman named Halina was faced with the decision to fall in line with the Nazi agenda or stand against evil.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, and I know many of our listeners love the Apples of Gold stories of Zvi Kalisher, a Polish Holocaust survivor who came to faith in Jesus and ministered in Jerusalem. We have a story of another courageous Christian who ministered with Friends of Israel as a part of our family and our legacy. She stood up against the Nazi regime and fought back against such evil. Her name was Halina Ostik, and her story is one that you need to read. Dr. Elwood McQuaid writes of Halina's commitment to believing in the triumph of her cause, regardless of personal cost. The book "Halina" tells a story of an amazing individual who walked through the fires of Hitler's war machine and survived.

Steve Conover: To order your copy of "Halina: Faith in the Fire", visit foiradio.org that's foiradio.org or call our listener line at (888) 343-6940. Again, that's (888) 343-6940.

Chris Katulka: Welcome back everybody, we are talking with Rabbi Goodman of Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas and Ty Perry, one of our workers here at the Friends of Israel, one of our field workers in the Las Vegas area. And they experienced something, man, I wish I could have done. Which is to go over together as a Rabbi and a Christian, a Jewish man and a Christian man going over together in solidarity to stand with Israel and the Jewish people. They went over to Poland for the March for the Living and then also over into Israel to celebrate what God has done really for Israel and the Jewish people even in the midst of their pain and their suffering. And so gentlemen, thank you for coming back and joining me. Ty, I want to ask you, how did this experience that you had with Rabbi Goodman deepen your understanding of the Holocaust and really its longterm effects as well?

Ty Perry: Well, I think one of the best ways to answer that is to tell you a story. I was at Birkenau with Rabbi and we had a ceremony of all 10,000 attendants. And during the ceremony, it was a very long outdoor ceremony, I stood up to stretch and Rabbi called me over and we looked down into this little gully and there was the remains of one of the gas chambers. And we were talking about that and I just said how awful it was. But then he said, "But look behind you." And I turned and there was this sea of young Jewish people, 10,000 young Jewish people, many of them with Israeli flags around their shoulders. And when I saw that, I thought "this is ...", it really speaks to what God says in Jeremiah 31 that he would never allow the Jewish people to be destroyed.

So for me, it helps me to I guess contextualize the Holocaust and to understand where in or how the Holocaust devastated the Jewish community, but also how God brought them through. And in terms of the present, we have a lot of contacts here in Las Vegas with Holocaust survivors, we have a sizeable community and going on a trip like that and seeing the places these people lived, it gives you more of an empathy for the people. Not just for their experience, but also to better understand the culture they came out of and why they are the way they are today, why they are so passionate about Israel, it just really shaped my view even more on that.

Chris Katulka: And Ty this carries over to your ministry in Las Vegas itself, you minister to Holocaust survivors right in Las Vegas. Isn't that true?

Ty Perry: Right. We want to demonstrate that unlike the "Christians" that they knew in Europe, there are some Christians in the United States who value them and love them very much.

Chris Katulka: I think you nailed it with the Jeremiah passage. There you are standing in a death camp, there you are standing in an area that was intended to literally get rid of the Jewish people and you're looking out over a sea of Jewish people and that passage of Jeremiah 31:35 comes to mind, "The Lord made a promise to Israel, a promise it as the one who fixed the sun to give it light by day and the moon and stars to give light by night. He promises it as one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll. He promises as one who is known as the Lord who rules over all, the Lord affirms the descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight."

This promise that God made that he would never get rid of Israel and the Jewish people, what a testimony to God's faithfulness. And for you Rabbi Goodman, I'm interested to know this. What did it mean for you that Ty, an evangelical Christian is standing with you in Poland, loves you, supports you, and even travels with you and says, "Antisemitism cannot happen. This is wrong and we have to stand against it."?

Felipe Goodman: Well, first of all, if after spending two weeks with me in the same room, he still loves me, that means a lot, right? But I have to tell you, it's tremendously moving, right? Never in our history have we experienced the amount of calumny that we experience and face today. When it comes to Israel, for example, a state that thrives to be ethical even when it goes to war against the fiercest and most cruel of enemies. And to have friends like Ty who understand what's happening, to understand and actually knows how hard we try to live up to being a light unto the nations.

But it means the world to me, it means the world to me that he stands with me. We have never had friends in all of our history like we have now in the evangelical community. And it took me a while to understand, right? That you don't want to convert me and you don't want the world to end, right? Because that's a very common misconception within the Jewish community. It's really tremendous law and it's hard to understand how much you can be loved, I tell you these with trepidation. It's a tough thing because nobody has ever demonstrated this amount of love to us in our history.

Chris Katulka: For us at the Friends of Israel, you know our tagline is "Building bridges and bringing hope". And I have to say the two of you, Ty and Rabbi Goodman, you two are a picture of what our tagline is. It's building bridges, it's tearing down the walls that exist between the Christian community and the Jewish community as a result of misunderstanding, of course there's history there. But we live in an era now, which is an era I'm very excited about. It's the fact that these walls that once existed between our two communities are coming down and we're able to build the bridges there and bring hope. And really I think the two of you together in Poland and in Israel is a testimony to the work that God is doing both in the Christian community and the Jewish community. And that's why I just want to say thank you to both of you for taking the time to come on and to connect with our listeners, to let them know just how much this matters to the two of you and what it means to stand against antisemitism, the hatred of Jewish people, together.

Rabbi Goodman, I'm going to let you close out here. I'd like you to let our Christian audience know, what's something they can do to stand against the hatred of the Jewish people, antisemitism? And I'll let you have the final word on that.

Felipe Goodman: Look, I'm going to close with one of my favorite prayers, right? Which was altered by Rabbi Sidney Greenberg in Philadelphia many, many years ago. He said that we as human beings have to pray as if everything depends on God, but we ultimately have to act as if everything depends on us. And I think that's something that Ty has really demonstrated to me. That through his actions, not only through his words and his prayers, but also through his actions, by being there with me, by marching with me, by standing with me, he really has made me understand what this means to him. So my message and my blessing toward the Christian community who's listening to us right now would be, please never stop acting, never stop doing. It's important for us to see you with us, it means the world.

Chris Katulka: Amen. And Rabbi Goodman, thank you. You couldn't have done a better job explaining that. And that's why I want to encourage our listeners right now, Ty Perry is a worker in Las Vegas. He's doing the work of building the bridges and bringing hope and I'm so proud of what Ty is doing. And that's why I want to encourage you to go to foi.org/Perry and there you can see what Ty is doing and you can even contribute to the work that he's doing right there in Las Vegas. Ty, Rabbi Goodman, thank you so much for being a part of our program and joining us this weekend.

Felipe Goodman: Thank you so much.

Ty Perry: Thank you, Chris.

Steve Conover: We're glad you joined us today. Chris, it was wonderful to hear of Rabbi Goodman's relationship with our own Ty Perry.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, this is a special relationship and I really think one that models what we're all about here at the Friends of Israel. Our tagline, "Building bridges, bringing hope." And that's exactly what's happening. We're seeing Ty and Rabbi Goodman, a Christian man and a Jewish man come together for the cause of something good, to stand up against antisemitism. We couldn't be any more proud of Ty and the work that he's doing and next week we're going to come back and we're actually going to look at a very important doctrine, The Doctrine of Eternal Security. We can rest assured that no matter what, God has his hand on us, we've been sealed until the Day of Redemption.

Steve Conover: Amen. Be with us then. The Friends of Israel Gospel and Ministry has been sharing the love of the Messiah and supporting Israel and the Jewish people since 1938. If you feel led to support our work or you simply want to reach out to us, visit foiradio.org. That's F-O-I radio.org. In the United States, you can call our listener line at (888) 343-6940. Again, that's (888) 343-6940. You can write to us at FOI Radio, P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio P.O. Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Call our Canada office at (888) 664-2584, again in Canada that's (888) 664-2584 and please let us know where you're listening when you call or write. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka, today's program was produced by Tom Gallione. Co-written by Sarah Fern, our theme music was composed and performed by Jeremy Strong and I'm Steve Conover, executive producer. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. We are a worldwide Christian ministry, communicating biblical truth about Israel and the Messiah while fostering solidarity with the Jewish people.