Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for the Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover and Chris Katulka, our host and teacher is with me. Chris and I were in Israel a couple of weeks ago. Last weekend was significant because we remembered the one year anniversary of the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7th. In our program last week, we featured a number of organizations we partner with in Israel. Today we're going to hear from our friend who is also the executive director of an incredible organization called Operation Lifeshield. Before that Chris will share from Genesis 12 where we learn about what it means to bless Israel and how Israel blesses the world. But first in the news, The Jerusalem Post reports that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas chief has gone silent, fallen off the radar, and is no longer communicating with mediators in Qatar. According to officials involved in the hostage deal negotiations, the Qataris informed the hostages' families last week of this important information.

Chris Katulka: Well, here's my take. Sinwar may realize he's facing the final moments of his life on the run from the Israeli Defense Forces. As Qatari officials believe the Hamas leader has surrounded himself with Israeli hostages. Hamas has been demolished and their leadership dismantled. Sinwar remains in hiding, but his end will certainly signal the conclusion of the war in Gaza.

Chris Katulka: In a moment, you're going to hear from Rabbi Shmuel Bowman, the Executive Director of Operation Lifeshield, a nonprofit organization in Israel that places bomb shelters in sensitive areas in Israel along the Gaza border and Lebanese border in the north. I had the opportunity to interview Rabbi Bowman at the site of the Nova Music Festival in Israel a few weeks ago where several hundred innocent Israelis were massacred on October 7th. But before we get to Rabbi Bowman, I want to share a few thoughts about what's happening to Israel from a biblical perspective. God made a promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 verses one through three. God said to Abraham, “Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to a land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” 

God promised Abraham three things. First, he promised Abraham land, “go from your country to the land that I will show you.” God says, and that land is the land of Israel. Second, God promised Abraham descendants that though Abraham was old, he would have a son who would carry this promise forward and that through him he would make a great nation and that nation is Israel. That's the Jewish people. And finally, God promised a multifaceted blessing. That's right, multifaceted. Abraham's name would be associated with blessing. That's one. The other is that God would use Abraham and his descendants by protecting them, that he would bless them through protection. “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” That's another one, a very important one.

And finally, God's divine mission for Abraham and Israel. Through Abraham's family, all the families of the earth, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. That comes through Jesus, the son of Abraham who brought blessing to all the families of the earth. Land, descendants, blessing. Multifaceted. It's just absolutely amazing to see. This promise is an eternal, unconditional promise, which means it's alive and active today. The land still matters to God. The Jewish people still matter to God and the blessings are still significant to God. Look, today, Israel is surrounded by enemies. Hamas to the south, Hezbollah to the north, the Houthis to the East and Iran funding these proxies and launching direct attacks on the Jewish state. And let's not forget that Israel's desire to defend itself after October 7th only saw a rise of antisemitism around the world, an increase that has caused Jewish people living in the United States and all places in the West to be concerned.

Why is this happening to Israel and the Jewish people? It's because God still has a plan for Israel that's connected to the future and God's ultimate plan of redemption. If Israel still plays a role in God's plan, then you can count on the fact that Satan will do anything to destroy the Jewish people. When Israel is attacked and antisemitism is on the rise, you can be sure Satan is busy persecuting God's Chosen. I want to encourage you with the words of the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah Chapter 31, verses 35 and 36. The prophet says this, “This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the LORD Almighty is his name: “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the LORD, “will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.”

Listen, my friends, continue to pray for Israel and the Jewish people. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. But remember, God has tied creation to his people. As long as the sun comes up in the morning and the moon at night and the stars shine in the dark, you can be certain God has his hand on the Jewish people. Yes, even during the most difficult times in Israel's history. Now we're going to hear from Rabbi Shmuel Bowman of Operation Lifeshield. But before we get to him, I want to share about a unique opportunity for you to support Israel, especially as the Jewish people are remembering what happened a year ago on October 7th. This is through our Israel Relief Fund. Since 1938, the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry has been providing humanitarian aid to the Jewish people to help them in their darkest moment with the gospel at the center of it.

This is your opportunity through our Stand with Israel Fund to supply medical supplies, food distribution, clothing, bomb shelters, and even the hope of the gospel to the Jewish people throughout Israel. This is your opportunity to give and to share and be a light in the darkness in Israel and beyond. Through our Stand with Israel Fund, you'll be able to give to organizations like Operation Lifeshield, Magen David Adom, the Jewish Agency and more. You can give today by going to foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. This is your opportunity to bless Israel just as Genesis chapter 12 verse three said, again, that's foiradio.org.

Shmuel Bowman: My name is Shmuel Bowman. I'm the executive director of Lifeshield and we're an organization that since 2006, has been deploying bomb shelters and other security projects here in Israel. And we do that with the help of our partners, Friends of Israel. As a result, the impact has been the protecting and saving of many, many, many lives, providing a sense of security for people who are so traumatized and literally would not be able to go to school, would not be able to go to a health clinic, would not be able to go to synagogue, would not be able to go to anything unless there was a shelter nearby. So this is just, what can I say? This is Friends of Israel through our partnership has really been part of the fabric of the nation of Israel and being able to, especially since October the seventh, be able to continue and make a life for themselves in the shadow of this tragedy.

Chris Katulka: Can you talk really quick about where we're standing right now as we do this interview?

Shmuel Bowman: We're standing at the site of the Nova Festival. This is the place where hundreds of young people especially we're here to celebrate, dance and have a good time. Beautiful, beautiful space, beautiful people. When Hamas came and surrounded them very much like a turkey shoot and surrounded them and butchered hundreds of them and also took captives to Gaza and wounded many and this place has become, if we look around, I'm looking right now, now there's many different groups. I see a group of police officers who are here on a visit. I see tourists here, we're here. This place is a place of vigil. It's also a place of memorial. Families have set up different memorial spots for their loved ones. It's a place to really try to come to terms with what happened here, if that's at all possible. As I mentioned before, we try to do, there's an attempt to do some healing here. I think it's somewhat successful, but it's still a work in progress. It's a place of coming together and saying, standing with each other and saying,”we're here, we're witnesses.”

Chris Katulka: Can you talk about, to our group, you had said this is a memorial, but you're still living in the moment, so how do you have a memorial for something you're still in, we're just about one year away from October 7th. Can you describe this experience that you're going through right now as we're here?

Shmuel Bowman: Right. That's the big question. When you have a memorial for a place, I'm used to going to a memorial for something that took place like World War II Memorial or something like that, or some kind of a memorial that happened a long time ago, and now we have ways of remembering we're still not there yet. We're still in a place where we're still at war and the war is actually escalating. We're surrounded by enemies and we're alone in the world. There are people who are still in rehabilitation. There are people who are actually dying from wounds that they endured. So there are people mourning their families. We're not in a place of having a memorial per se. So the big question is, and I don't have the answer, is how do we do that? So we're standing at the site right now behind us.

You maybe heard the sound of a small tractor. It's paving a walkway that literally didn't exist here last week, and that's part of the question, how do we get people here? How do we move around? Soon it's going to be wintertime. The rains are going to be coming here. It's going to get very, very muddy, difficult to get to places. So there's a thought that is how do we continue to make this living experience important and relevant and at the same time dynamic. It's not carved in stone. This isn't something that we're going to come to and 10 years later it's going to be the same memorial. This place changes week by week.

Chris Katulka: You had mentioned earlier, and it came up and my wife even sent me this text of the fact that one of the many bomb shelters that Friends of Israel has purchased through Operation Lifeshield actually saved an Israeli's life in the North.

Shmuel Bowman: Whole family, actually. There's a region called Merom HaGalil, which is in the Galilee as the name implies. It's near the spot area. It's in northern Israel. It consists of about a dozen communities. Small, lovely, peaceful people just living on the land. We were asked a couple weeks ago if we could help out urgently with one particular community called Kadita. Why Kadita? Because Kadita happens to be situated right beside an IDF base, which is a target for Hezbollah. I don't think the people of Kadita are a threat or a target, but they happen to be living in the shadow of an army base and it was urgent. So we did, and we got a shelter there I think about two weeks ago, and we placed it kind of like in the public square so that anyone can access it. Well, this past Shabbat, the siren went off, a family ran out of their house to this brand new shelter that didn't exist two weeks earlier. They ran into the shelter and literally within a matter of seconds, a direct hit on their house where the family had been literally sitting around the kitchen table seconds earlier, the entire place was destroyed. We actually have video footage of the house still burning a day later. Okay, the firefighters are there and they actually have to let the house burn. There was nothing they could do and the family, the entire family's lives were saved thanks to an FOI Shelter placed two weeks ago.

Chris Katulka: I know that you're not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but what do you think is going to happen knowing now Israel's moving into the North? Gaza, Israeli's down here in the south and Gaza where we are, we're very close to the - we're in a Gaza envelope essentially. What do you see happening and then also how is Operation Lifeshield adjusting to these realities?

Shmuel Bowman: Okay, so what's going to - I'm not a prophet, I don’t know what's going on, but I can say that Israel is involved in escalating the war because there's no other way to bring this to a conclusion. Right now, we've had a situation where Hezbollah in the north is firing rockets since October the eighth has displaced almost a hundred thousand Israelis from their home, literally refugees in our own country, and this is happening on a daily basis, and so that is totally, totally unsustainable. Israel has now taken the proactive approach and as we have seen, has been very strategic and smart about taking out its enemies. We've been very precise in terms of taking out our enemies and trying to really minimize to the point of almost nothing of any collateral damage, which has been important to us. It's a value.  Here in the south, the Army has been very successful in its goal of dismantling Hamas.

There's still work to be done regarding the hostages. I think because of military pressure, we're able to get the first round out back in November and we still need to keep pressuring. But at this point in time, I can stand here with you right now at Nova and know that rockets are not going to be firing on us on a readily basis. I could not have said that back in November and December. I could not have said that prior to October the seventh. So Hamas is really, the bite has been taken out of Hamas, so we've been successful there. I think that we're going to be facing a war situation for years to come. I think that Israel needs to, has woken up since October the seventh and realized that we forgot to treat our enemies like our enemies and that we're surrounded by enemies and that we're alone in the world on this, In terms of other nations. We know who our friends are, obviously Friends of Israel and others who stand with us shoulder to shoulder. As far as other countries and nations are concerned, we're very much alone and our hands are being tied behind our backs in terms of getting the job done. We are facing, as far as I'm concerned, many years of either war or being on high alert. That's our new reality. I walk around with my gun with me at all times. My wife just recently got her license. My two boys have weapons. I think you're going to see a spike in that so that people understand that if a terrorist is coming for you, we don't know what'll happen, but you'll take your best shot. The military has also increased its awareness and all of our security forces are all on high alert. I don't mean to say that we're nervous about this.

It's not that we're a country that is anxious. I think in fact, I would say that when we're on high alert, we're actually most common relaxed because we know that first and foremost, we're taking care of security. Our eyes are open, and that's where I see us happening. Operation Lifeshield’s relationship, in terms of all this, is as follows. We built on three pillars. Pillar number one is the relationship that we have with our partners and that our partners like Friends of Israel, know that we are able to respond and do the kind of job that is necessary in order to keep people safe in Israel and that there's that trust and we take that relationship extremely - that's very precious to us. The second relationship is the relationship with the suppliers, the actual shelter manufacturers. The fact is, is that we've developed a relationship with several manufacturers so that today we actually are at the front of the line when it comes to ordering shelters and having them delivered.

We can actually get them delivered faster and quicker literally than anybody else, including the Ministry of Defense in Israel. And the third thing is our relationship with the security officers such as Rafi, who you met today. We are in touch with them because they have their finger on the pulse of what is needed. The decisions on where shelters go is not made in some boardroom thousands of miles away based on what will look best. Okay? That often is how decisions are made in terms of projects in Israel. It is done by the PR department. What projects will look the nicest? We don't make our decisions that way. We literally talk to the people who are working in the field. The security officers who are day to day 24/7 are involved with the security and wellbeing of their constituents, and those are the people we talk to. I'm not exaggerating, every single day, in order to understand how we can bring the donors together with the projects that mean the most.

Chris Katulka: Do you have time for one more? 

Shmuel Bowman: Yeah, sure.

Chris Katulka: Today we commemorated, inaugurated a safe space, a safe place, and a kibbutz here that Friends of Israel donated to, and you placed a mezuzah on it, and a mezuzah is a sign of a desire to have a relationship with God wherever you go. How is God impacting this? I want to know for you, when you see the relationships that are built and when you place that mezuzah on there, you said a prayer. Could you speak to that?

Shmuel Bowman: Yeah. So a mezuzah, first of all, it's a commandment in the Torah that says that we put a mezuzah and we put the Word of God on our doorposts. By doing that, we're also acknowledging God's sovereignty, right? We're saying basically, you're the King and we come before you, and that's the most important relationship that exists. And we also understand that even in times of tragedy, God is there. We talk about this idea that says [speaks in Hebrew]  in Hebrew, which means,  “We will sing your praises, sing your praises of acts of kindness in the day, and at night we will speak about faith.” It's a very interesting idea what's going on there. When it's daytime, when it's bright, when everything is good, when everybody is happy, that's the time when we can talk about all the good things that God does for us. But at nighttime, in the darkness, in the deepest of sorrow, in a place of tragedy, that's where we see our faith in God and God's faith in us. And I think that's a very, very powerful idea. [speaks in Hebrew]

And our faith in God and our god's faith in us, in that darkest, darkest place, God is with us at all times, and if we don't see that, then our eyes really aren't open. And I really, if I can, I'll say I really have sympathy for anybody who does not have that relationship with the Almighty, with God Almighty, because then the world is a very lonely place, and we understand that God in those times is carrying us and hugging us and embracing us. Then we understand that God is also weeping along with us as we're weeping and rejoicing when we're rejoicing.

Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. It's always good to hear from Shmuel Bowman. Chris, where are we headed next week?

Chris Katulka: Well, Steve, last week, the Jewish people just wrapped up celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. It was a time of great celebration, but now they enter the 10 days of awe where they turn to repentance, and that's why next week we're going to look at the biblical feasts of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

Steve Conover: Invite you to visit us at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. Our mailing address is FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey, 08099. Again, that's FOI Radio PO Box 914, Bellmawr, New Jersey 08099. Our listener line is 888-343-6940. Again, that's 888-343-6940. Our host and teacher is Chris Katulka. Today's program was produced by Tom Gallione. Edited by Jeremy Strong, who also composed and performs our theme music. And I'm Steve Conover, executive producer. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.