Jewish Life Digital Edition April 2015 | Page 19

Luba Mayekiso International Christian Embassy Jerusalem/Africa for Israel Christian Coalition Luba Mayekiso’s involvement in advocacy is not something he chose deliberately, nor even something he now looks back on and says in honesty that it was something he wanted to do. He firmly believes it was “part of the plan that G-d had for me”. As national director and chairman of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem South Africa and co-founder of Africa for Israel Christian Coalition (AFICC), that’s some master kind of plan – and it all began with a quest to better understand the Hebraic foundation of his faith. “By some remarkable miracle, we met a vet who happened to be a very passionate, though soft-spoken, Orthodox Jew. He was willing to listen to and try and provide Jewish answers to our millions of questions; he invited us into his home to share Shabbat and Pesach. He then recommended that we join the Gitlin Library in Cape Town so that we could find additional resources to read. It is there that we were invited to a function and to hear Ishmael Khaldi, a Bedouin diplomat in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What we heard during this talk opened our eyes but left us troubled: why had we not heard this side of the story before?” This led the Mayekiso family to meet more people with whom to discuss and strategise how they could tackle the Christian world, to better enlighten people. “In summary, it began with one Jewish person who was willing to open up, talk and share, and the rest is history – and that is my lasting message. Jewish people must be proud of their identity and faith and be willing to share, and we can defeat the negative myths about Israel. It is easy to demonise Israel and for South Africans to believe those lies because we have no reference point.” The biggest challenge, he believes, is ignorance. If we can teach people a correct theological understanding of Israel, and couple that with the correct history, rather than wishful Palestinian narratives, then three-quarters of the battle is won. “Our emotional heartstrings are being manipulated by comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa, knowing that most people will thus condemn Israel without bothering to ascertain the true facts.” And Mayekiso carries out this faithful mission by talking, tea