{"id":1233,"date":"2019-11-05T11:09:05","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T10:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2023-10-29T04:05:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T03:05:02","slug":"shalom-festival-2019-press-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/2019\/11\/05\/shalom-festival-2019-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Shalom Festival 2019 – Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The little miracle of the Middle East was\ndescribed by the different speakers at the 16th edition of the Shalom festival\nduring a dry, first winter afternoon, despite all the weather forecasts. <\/strong>Eco-shalom was the theme of this year,\nfocusing on the revival of the land and Israel’s contribution to the world in\nterms of ecology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jewish community leaders, the Evangelical-\nPentecostal pastor and the political presence formed a peculiar cocktail on the\npodium of Shalom. <\/strong>Alongside the vice-president of Koinonia,\na Jew of descent, and the promising young Christian artist presenting the\ngospel and Jewish singers, they set the tone for the whole event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boogie Boy, caused a small revival with\nhis Jewish songs and roots<\/strong>. In a uniform mood and tone with the\nfestival, the famous artist of Flanders joined hands with gospel artists to\nlead known Jewish songs and folk dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Evangelical Church has also talent!<\/strong> Michael Verschuren opened and closed\nthe festival with the Hativka in perfect Hebrew.  The once well-known\nFlemish miracle-child avails his service to the SHALOM after a decision to\nserve only Him with his talent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brazilian Assembl\u00e9ias de\nDeus <\/strong>practised with zeal to express their love for Israel and the\nJewish people with their dance performance.With clothing specially\nmade for the occasion, they painted the Groenplaats and filled the atmosphere\nwith the colours of peace. The colourful choir of Kingdom Life Center<\/strong> made\ntheir debut in a public performance as the first group of SHALOM while Bernice\nPamford and Gina Doefilled the air and hearts of Jews, Christians and visitors\nwith their gospel melodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facts and achievements, unknown to most\npeople<\/strong>,<\/strong> were\nlisted by the president of Beautiful Israel in a wealth of knowledge and\napplications originating from Israel.<\/strong> From intelligent drip irrigation,\ngeothermal power plants, clean and 3G energy, solar panels, solar ‘windows’ and\nphotovoltaic energy, low-cost energy through tulip wind turbines to small\ntomatoes and improved crops for agriculture, plastic recycling based on natural\ningredients and getting air from water\u2026; all this from the country with an\noverflows of motivated citizens who focus on the positive things in life and\nwho want to move forward. \u201cDid you know that India has asked Israel to\nclear their Ganges river? And this just because Israel is\nso specialised and well-known in this area” <\/strong>concluded\nPatricia Teitelbaum with a legitimate boasting.\u201dThis one of the many things\nthat are rarely brought to light by the regular media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Promised Land is a leader in\nso many environmental areas. More and more companies and people in countries\naround the world are using it.<\/strong>” Michael Freilich, Member of\nParliament, continued on nature and planting trees in Israel, “and that\nis not peanuts if you know that no less than 60% of the country is a desert\narea.<\/strong> Everyone knows Israeli irrigation technology, even Spanish\nfarmers and market gardeners use it. ” The story behind a series of\necological innovations was told by the practising Jewish speaker, “That\nwas born as an answer to an emergency situation when, before the establishment\nof the state of Israel, Arabs no longer wanted to sell seeds to Jews. No\nclimate march, no panic, no blame to others. The response was a hopeful action<\/strong>. Israel\nknows eco-realism from even before the term existed<\/strong>… The most important\nmessage is hope: people are capable of exceptional achievements to solve\nproblems. Israel is a light for the nations here too<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIsrael is flourishing today in\nfulfilment of what the prophet Isaiah predicted!<\/strong> (Isaiah 35:1-3)\u201d,\nsaid Nick Vandeputte, president of the Belgian Coalition for Israel, and made a\ncall to read Scripture with an open eye to what is happening around us. \u201cIsrael\nis a blessing for the world and Christians owe a lot to that nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “G-d created the earth and\nentrusted the responsibility to Adam and Eve and later to their descendants<\/strong>\u201d\nwas the statement of the president of the oldest Jewish organisation in Europe,\nB’nai B’rith (sons of the covenant), Willy Kahan, as he laid directly the\nBiblical foundation of the Israeli explosion in ecology. \u201cThe Bible in itself\ngives numerous of instructions on how to deal with nature.\u201d From the garden of\nEden to the ark of Noah and to the book of Exodus and the 7th year of rest in\nthe land, the bold community leader led his listeners, placing a solid bridge\nbetween Scripture and the contemporary practices in Israel, in dealing with\nanimals, water and technology, but also highlighting on the knowledge and\ntechnology passed to neighbouring countries and to all peoples of the\nearth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new ambassador of Israel, Emmanuel\nNahshon, sent his greetings to the organisation of the Shalom;\ngrateful for the advocacy on behalf of Israel<\/strong>. \u201cIt is not an easy task today,\u201d he said.\nHe encouraged SHALOM visitors to seek peace in their personal relationships\nwith their neighbours and expressed Israel’s desire to engage in a lasting and\nfair friendship with other nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A streightforward\nstatement in regard to antisemitism\u2019s top\npractices today <\/strong>was, on the other side, the speech of Andr\u00e9 Gantman. The\noldest town councilor of Antwerp turned the stones around while addressing the biased\nand unfair propaganda against Israel: “Saying \u2018no\u2019 to BDS fundamentalism\nis saying \u2018yes\u2019 to peace, economic development and social progress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The multicultural Evangelical community\npresent during the afternoon showed that this is quite possible. Yes, many are\nthe friends of Israel from all over the world <\/strong>and this can be seen in the turnover of\nannual visitors from all over the world to the Holy Land. A small miniature of\nthat was the SHALOM! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interesting conversations were held in the information tent, the VIP tent and all kinds of Christian and Jewish stands that surrounded the square one next to the other. With a falafel, a cake and a drink in hand, with lots of entertainment for the children, the event was a wonderful meeting place for the Jews people, Evangelical Christians and the citizens of Antwerp. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shalom Festival is an initiative of<\/strong> the Alliance for Peace in the Middle East,\nthe Belgian Coalition for Israel, B’nai B’rith Antwerp, Koinonia Ministries,\n‘Friends of Beautiful Israel’, Anet, ‘ORT Belgium’, Christians for Israel and\n‘Chr\u00e9tiens Amis d’Israel’;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to<\/strong>  the city of Antwerp, all artists,\nchurches and volunteers who joined hands to make the day a success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The little miracle of the Middle East was described by the different speakers at the 16th edition of the Shalom festival during a dry, first winter afternoon, despite all the weather forecasts. Eco-shalom was the theme of this year, focusing on the revival of the land and Israel’s contribution to the world in terms of ecology. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[25,8,103,107,105,85,34,106,22,7],"class_list":["post-1233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2019-press-releases","tag-antwerp","tag-8","tag-boogy-boy","tag-churches","tag-eco-shalom","tag-groenplaats","tag-israel","tag-jewish","tag-press-release","tag-shalom-festival"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["nl","en"],"languages":{"nl":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/koinonia.be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/shalom-flyer-2019-front-1-e1698548151106.jpg?fit=1239%2C742&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZ6Z7-jT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1233"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2724,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1233\/revisions\/2724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koinonia.be\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}