Randy Katz Again!

Decided to re-air our 2007 interview together!  Randy has been playing piano for me as I lead worship for many years and is a dear brother in the Lord!

Originally from Middletown, NY, Rand (Randy to most people) attended the University of Rochester and decided to stay and make Rochester, NY his home.  He has been part of the Messianic movement in Rochester, NY since the 70s. He's an accomplished keyboardist and has played at Jewish functions all over the Rochester area and is on the worship team at Congregation Shema Yisrael in Rochester. We chat about his testimony and have fun during this interview!

Also enjoy great music from Joshua Aaron, Joel Chernoff, Sue Samuel, Marty Goetz and more!

Rabbi Joe Bell

Shalom!   I thought this was from 2012 but now I think it was from 2017.   In any event, I am happy to re-post this wonderful interview with Rabbi Joe!

Rabbi Joseph “Joe” Bell was raised in a Jewish home in the Boston area. He has a strong Orthodox Jewish pedigree, and attended synagogue with such luminaries as Sheldon Adelson, Robert Kraft (New England Patriots owner) and family, Barney Frank, etc. It was a very prominent synagogue and Bell was very comfortable being Jewish and practicing Judaism.

Boston is also where he began his search to know God at the age of 28. It was then that he began to read the Bible (his Bar Mitzvah Bible) looking for God, seeking His power to change the direction of his life. He prayed at that time and asked God to come into my life if He was real.

Bell says, “I wasn’t looking for Jesus. After I began reading the Tanakh, people began to pop into my life and tell me about Messianic prophecies. Finally somebody connected me to a Jews For Jesus missionary who I agreed to talk by phone with. Her name is Sharon. But before Sharon, one of my employees saw me reading the Bible and pointed me to Messianic prophecies. She challenged me to read Isaiah 53. After reading it, she asked me who it was talking about? I said it sounds like Jesus. She said it is Jesus. So after months of reading and talking with my employee and with Sharon by phone, I decided to go meet with my Rabbi.

“I told the rabbi that people were sharing prophecies with me and pointed out Isaiah 53. The rabbi became visibly irritated and barked ‘That’s not Jesus Christ!’ I said, ‘Fine, who is it?’  He had no answer… And I knew that he really didn’t know.  About ten months passed and a series of events led me to read the New Testament Gospels and within a month I invited Jesus into my heart as my Messiah and Lord. God immediately spoke to my heart and told me to go out to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles and tell them about Him. I received this message after going to Church for the first time with a Christian friend who saw me seeking. I had spent the day fasting and confessing my sins to God after Church. I went through some sort of deliverance that day alone in my home, then I believe God spoke those words to me in my house that night.

 

Lily Isaacs - Again!

It isn't every day that you hear country bluegrass music on Bagels and Blessings!   I first aired this interview about 2 years ago after hearing The Isaacs minister at the Messiah Conference.   Imagine my surprise and delight to learn of their Jewish roots!    So enjoy this unique music and also a few Passover tunes!

Today's show featured a pre-recorded interview with Lily Isaacs, the matriarch of The Isaacs, with a personal story as layered as the group's signature vocals. Born in Germany to two Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivors, Lilly moved to the U.S. when she was two-years-old. Her family settled in the Bronx where she studied theatre and performed off Broadway. In 1971.

The Isaacs, a multi-award winning family group who began singing 35 years ago are based out of Hendersonville, TN. The vocalists are mother Lily Isaacs and siblings Ben Isaacs, Sonya Isaacs Yeary and Rebecca Isaacs Bowman. Playing their own acoustic instruments and joined by other band members, The Isaacs have a unique style that blends tight family harmony with contemporary acoustic instrumentation that appeals to a variety of audiences. Their musical style has been influenced by many  genres of music including bluegrass, rhythm and blues, folk, and country, contemporary, acoustic and southern gospel.