Medical Outreaches to the Jewish people in Ethiopia brought a new and deeply impactful element to Jewish Voice Ministries. Meanwhile, other ministries continued.
2008
In 2008, television coverage continued to expand, reaching into Russia and republics of the former Soviet Union. Jewish Voice Ministries UK was registered as a charity in the United Kingdom.
JVMI sent three shipping containers of urgently needed rice to the Bnei Menashe Jewish people in Mizoram, India, during the worst famine endured by that region in more than 50 years. Following the shipments, JVMI conducted a Medical Outreach in Mizoram.
During this time, the Jewish Voice offices received a number of threats and experienced some acts of vandalism. They had petitioned the City of Phoenix for a variance to install a security fence around the studio and office property. In 2008, JVMI received that permission.
Jonathan Bernis kept a fast-paced schedule in 2008. In the spring, he conducted a Passover Seder in Hong Kong. In May, he and his wife led a teaching and prayer tour to Israel. He also taught for a week at the opening of the new Messianic Jewish Bible Institute in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that year. In September, his speaking schedule included engagements in Brazil, Missouri, Germany and Israel. Also that year, his book A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days was published.
2009
With Medical Outreaches fully established as annual events, JVMI resumed presenting Hear O Israel! Festivals of Jewish Music & Dance in major cities with large Jewish populations. In 2009, the festival traveled to Cordoba, Argentina, where more than 12,000 attended and 400 people accepted Yeshua. Another 1,070 in attendance submitted follow-up cards indicating they wanted to learn more. Local pastors invited the team to speak in their churches, and the congregants were moved to tears as they heard the Gospel from a Jewish perspective.
As the summer of 2009 approached, Dennis Phillips retired after 42 years with Jewish Voice. Though he joined the staff a few years after the ministry’s founding in 1967, Dennis had been working with Louis Kaplan and Jewish Voice since its very first broadcast.
Over the years, Dennis held several positions and performed many jobs. He produced, wrote and hosted the radio and TV programs. He was half of the two-man film crew documenting, writing and producing the film about JVB’s Israel Witnessing Tours. Dennis also managed the ministry for nearly a year after Brother Kaplan’s stroke. He wrote the “Headquarters Report” for the magazine and even worked in Partner Relations, communicating with JVMI supporters each day, a role he truly enjoyed.
After his retirement, Dennis also began producing and editing Jonathan Bernis’ “Insider’s Reports” sent to several thousand Jewish Voice partners quarterly. He also works on production and editing of the CDs that accompany Jonathan’s “Confessing the Hebrew Scriptures” workbooks. To this day, Dennis remains very connected to Jewish Voice and can sometimes be found at a TV taping manning a camera. He has a truly unique perspective on the ministry of Jewish Voice:
I remember the day back in 1967 when Evangelist Louis Kaplan came into the offices of KHEP, the Christian radio station in Phoenix where I was the program director. He identified himself as a “Christian Jew” and said the Lord had spoken to him to start a daily radio program to speak to the Church about God’s love for His chosen Jewish people.
I had never met a Jewish person who believed in Jesus and was intrigued by his message. God began to give me a love for the Jewish people. In 1968, I joined Jewish Voice Broadcasts as manager and radio producer.
It was our total dependence upon God that built our faith and gave Brother Kaplan the encouragement to continue to expand the radio program domestically and overseas. He would be ecstatic, if he were here today, to see that Jewish Voice’s television program is being broadcast in Israel.
I am grateful to have had a unique perspective as I assisted in the ministry’s birth and have watched it grow and expand to a worldwide outreach. Over the 50 years, I have been associated with Jewish Voice, I have proved that the promise in Genesis 12:3 – where God says He will bless those who bless the Jewish people – is true. He has blessed me abundantly beyond anything I could ask or think.
In 2009, Jonathan and outreach staff conducted the first exploratory trip to the Gefat Jewish people of Woliso, Ethiopia. Approximately 200 villagers warmly welcomed the JVMI team and claimed the visit was an answer to their prayers.
2010
In the early years, Jewish Voice television programs aired on the local TBN affiliate in Phoenix. Then, in 2010, “Jewish Voice with Jonathan Bernis” began airing internationally on TBN, the largest Christian television network.
In the fall of 2010, JVMI took the Hear O Israel! Festivals of Jewish Music & Dance to Montevideo, Uruguay, where nearly 9,000 people attended five concerts.
“The altars were overwhelmed with people hungry to know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” said Jonathan Gannon, director of global outreach at the time.
“Through Jonathan’s message, many hundreds of Jewish men, women and children understood for the first time that they were not being asked to convert to a new religion or abandon their Jewish roots. Rather, they were being invited to encounter the God of their forefathers!”
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Join us on the Jewish Voice Blog each month in 2017 as we unfold the Jewish Voice story and piece together for you how two ministries with the same heart merged and became the Jewish Voice Ministries International you know today.
Check out Flashback Fridays on our Facebook page, where you’ll see glimpses of our 50-year journey.
Discover the whole inspiring JVMI story with our beautiful, full-color coffee table book, Jewish Voice: A Look at 50 Years. Along with more than 200 photographs and a fascinating narrative chronicling 50 years of ministry, this special edition includes biographies, stories, and reflections from television guests, partners and staff.
Previous JVMI 50th Anniversary blog posts:
The Early Years – Jewish Voice Broadcasts
Meeting, Partnering, and Merging
Jewish Voice Ministries International
