Vision Statement for the Album

For Zion’s Sake, I will not be Silent” and “The Forgotten People”
Released May 1^st, 2007 on Galilee of the Nations/Provident-Integrity Distribution/Sony-Bmg
By Yochanan Ben Yehuda  

The Inspiration for this album “For Zion’s Sake, I will Not Be Silent” comes from Isaiah 62:1 in the Jewish Scriptures. This album includes 10 “Galilee” recording artists, 16 new songs, (19 tracks) and 78 minutes of Music With A Heart For Israel. It also comes from  three different geographic areas around the world, Israel, Germany and the United States, from May 2006 through March 2007.

First, in May of 2006 Galilee of the Nations recording artist Ted Pearce was invited to Tubingen Germany by TOS Ministries to share his music with the German Church. Upon entrance into the worship center at TOS, Ted hears hundreds of Germans singing his music in German and English. They were also singing other “Galilee of the Nations” songs.  Not really knowing anyone there before his arrival in Germany, Ted became captivated with the reality that hundreds of Germans had a burning Heart for Israel. After meeting the TOS ministries Pastor, Jobst Bittner, Ted learned some other amazing facts about TOS:

1) 70% of the Church’s members, had parents or grandparents that were Nazi’s in World War II. 

2) TOS Church members frequently visited the Holy Land and partnered with many Israeli Ministries to show their unwavering love and support for Israel. 

3)  Pastor Jobst Bittner literally built the TOS Church building over the train tracks that took the Jews to the Dachau death camp in World War II. You have to visibly and physically cross the tracks before you enter the front door of the Church, challenging all people before they enter to remember what happened in the Holocaust to the Jews at the hand of the Nazi’s.

Around the same time that Ted Pearce was experiencing a move of God At TOS Ministries in Germany, I began to sense a tremendous burden concerning the resurgence of world wide Anti-Semitism, currently at the highest point since the end of World War II. This rising tide of Anti-Semitism is running in parallel right alongside the rise of radical Islam and increased global terrorism.The Iranian President and other Middle-Eastern leaders  are calling for the destruction of Israel, and the removal of the “Israeli cancer and tumor” from the Middle East. Coupled with escalating hate crimes toward the Jewish People and the burning of Synagogues around the world, I became deeply burdened with the world’s indifference and silence on this horrific issue. Then, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who I personally believe will once again become Prime Minister) began alerting the United States through American news media, that for anyone who cared to listen, today is really 1938 and the Iranian President is really another Hitler. In addition, He shared  that it’s a fact that Radical Islam always refers to America as the Big Satan and Israel as the little Satan and that they are committed to the total destruction of both. It doesn’t just stop there. Radical Islam’s commitment is not just to the destruction of America and Israel, but also to the  total annihilation of all Jewish people, all Christians and all Infidels (anyone who isn’t willing to submit to their God Allah, and Islamic Law). That sounded like Hitler’s “Final Solution” to me. Things began to come into focus for me after studying Isaiah chapter 62. Verse one said it all, “For Zion’s Sake, I will Not be Silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns”. I knew what the title of the new album would be, and I knew that I could not stay silent, that I must speak out against this great injustice that I was so clearly seeing.

After Ted Pearce shared his experience in Germany with me, I began to share my burden with him and encourage him that we needed to get the mind of the Lord on exactly what we’re to do. In  July of  2006  I was introduced  by Ted Pearce to Pastor Jobst Bittner and his worship leader Walter Grund at the Messiah Conference in Grantham, Pennsylvania. At that same conference,  the song “The Forgotten People” was concieved,  co-written by Ted Pearce and myself, (completed on Tuesday December 5^th, 2006) This song which  was written in remembrance of the Holocaust, includes a powerful narration by Pastor Jobst Bittner entitled “Never Again!” indexed at the end of the song. The song is an indictment against the “Holocaust Denial Conference” recently put on by the President of Iran and all Holocaust deniers. In addition, the song also confirms the birth of the Nation of Israel in 1948 and offers a solution to the world, “You’ve got to rise like an Army in “The Name”(The Name of the God of Israel) and for the Nation that was born in a day”(Israel).

We have also produced a music video by the same title Directed by Stan Moore of MP Films. Both Ted Pearce and Pastor Jobst Bittner play vital roles in the production. Walter Grund wrote the title track, “For Zion’s Sake, I Will Not Be Silent and co-wrote the first song on the album with Ted Pearce entitled,” Shalom”. The “March of Life” event was birthed by  Pastor Jobst Bittner in the Fall of 2006 and has since  partnered with Galilee of the Nations  as the producers of the “Official Music” for  the event, “For Zion’s Sake, I Will Not Be Silent” and “The Forgotten People” which took place April 12-15 in Germany, www.marchoflife.org The “March of Life” is in remembrance of the Jewish Death March to Dachau during WW II and culminated on Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom Ha Shoah) April 15^th 2007.

Galilee of the Nations Music and our recording artist Ted Pearce are joined at the hip spiritually in more ways than one with TOS Ministries of Tubingen, Germany, as mentioned in this vision statement. We have witnessed the Lord do something very special with the “March of Life”, the album“For Zion’s Sake, I will Not Be Silent”, and the song & music video ” The Forgotten People”. Their’s no question that this strategic alliance has been orchestrated by the soverign hand of God, “For such a time as this”…Esther 4:14 www.galileeofthenations.com & www.heartforisrael.com