Joining the Lord’s Work in Israel

TWR hasn’t had a direct ministry to Israel in recent years, but the tides of ministry are shifting and TWR's ministry director in the Middle East is making waves. 

Picture a Russian-speaking Jewish man; we’ll call him Iosif. Let’s say his home is in the Israeli city of Haifa. It is sometime in 2025, it’s night, and he’s gathered with his wife and children in a bomb shelter because an alert has sounded. They’re waiting for the “all clear.”

It’s an unpleasant routine in the land his parents brought Iosif to from Russia when he was a little boy. But now the time passes quickly, because of the podcast he’s watching on his phone.

Iosif always has described himself as a non-religious Jew. But the interview he’s watching on YouTube reveals a man much like himself: Russian-speaking but conversant in Hebrew, a resident of Israel who previously called himself an agnostic. But the man has discovered Yeshua – the Christians’ Jesus – and realized he really was the promised Messiah. He has been saved by Yeshua, the man says. That has changed everything.

Iosif feels a tug in his heart. Did Yeshua come to save him as well?

The imaginary scene is one that Pavel Shifman* hopes will play out time and time again in real life over the coming years in the Promised Land.

Starting With Russian Speakers

Shifman, TWR ministry director in the Middle East region, is a Russian who came to faith in Christ in 1990 and later lived in Israel for a time. TWR hasn’t had a direct ministry to Israel in recent years, but that’s starting to change under Shifman’s guidance. Although the long-term plan is to reach all of Israel’s people, the starting point is Russian-speaking Jews.

Why? Because that’s the people group in Israel where the Lord already is at work.

“Fifty percent of all believers in Israel today are Russian-speaking,” Shifman said in an interview. “So, it proved to be the most open audience over the last decades. … We just want to support this and keep this going.”

It’s also a large group. Of Israel’s population of 9.7 million, 1.2 million are Russian-speaking Jews, largely a consequence of migration to Israel after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Having come out of an atheistic society, some were searching for spiritual truths and became Jesus followers, Shifman said.

That’s not to say the number of believers is large. Yes, half of the Christians in Israel are Russian speaking, but that’s only 8,000 people out of 16,000. Still, Shifman sees this as an opportune time to begin an outreach.

“Israel is under attack, and antisemitism is on the rise in the world,” he said. “This makes Jewish people, especially in Israel, more open to the gospel.”

Returning to Israel

Beginning in 2025, the outreach will have two main branches. TWR Women of Hope will launch an online program headed by two women hired for the project late this year.

The Women of Hope team still needs to meet with the women and will provide training, said Susie Pek, global director of the ministry. “We would start with our Women of Hope scripts, which can and should be contexualized in order to be relevant to the local culture,” she said. “We just want to make sure they keep its essence – life issues and soul issues.”

The second phase is an initiative Shifman developed called Nehemiah Project, named after the Old Testament figure who led the effort to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It will be introduced in four phases. First, a 24/7 digital stream is expected to be launched in the first quarter of 2025. It’s being designed to create a comfort zone, with no more than 20% Christian content.

The digital stream will lead people to a YouTube channel in which Russian-speaking Messianic Jews give their testimonies. The content will be entirely spiritual, and some of the testimonies also will be included on the digital stream.

“We believe that today it is really important that people come to faith less through apologetics but more [from] personal life-changing stories and experiencing God’s life in their daily walks,” Shifman said.

Third, a social media channel will be set up so that people who have questions after watching the testimonies can interact with believers. Finally, in-person meetings will be offered with volunteers from Messianic congregations for those who want to know more.

How to Help

The outreach to Russian-speaking Jews is just the starting point, Shifman said. “We would like to launch an outreach for secular Jews in Hebrew in 2025. The next step would be for the Arab-speaking community in Israel, both Palestinians and Arabs.”

Enough money has been raised to launch both Women of Hope for Russian-speaking Jews and the Nehemiah Project, Shifman said, but there’s not yet enough to sustain them through all of 2025. If you’d like to help, you can click here to get to the Nehemiah Project.

Shifman, who often visits Israel, has sensed more spiritual openness since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 254 taken hostage. He told of visiting friends in southern Israel who still spend each night in a bomb shelter.

“And this is how the country has been living since Oct. 7,” he said. “The people feel desperate. They feel like everybody’s against us.”

He told of finding himself in a discussion on a flight with an Israeli Jewish man who wanted to know why so much hatred was directed against his people. “And I just shared the gospel with him on the plane,” Shifman said.

“You know, when a nation is at war, I think that’s a very unique historical opportunity. This is where the heart for this ministry is.”

Speaking of the Russian-speaking Jewish women in Israel, Pek referenced Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Abram’s wife Sarai, who discovered “the God who sees” after fleeing from Sarai.

“I hope they see the God who sees them,” Pek said. “I pray they’ll find hope, peace and healing in Christ Jesus. I also hope, we’ll be able to reach Hebrew-speaking women in the future and that they’ll know the Messiah has come and that He wants to be in a relationship with them. It’s my heart’s desire that the whole world will know our loving king.”

* A pseudonym used for security purposes