My Oma's (Granny) name was Herta Wolf.  She was half Jewish, but in her eyes the more important fact was, that she was several generations German. My Oma was a "Schauspielerin" - a Stage Actress, in Berlin, the Cultural Centre of Europe in the Twenties & Thirties of the last century. In 1923 my late father, Joseph, was born there too. My grandparents were Adam Lewite (like "Levite" in English) - a Jewish Doctor of Chemistry and an accomplished Pianist, and Herta Wolf - an actress. And yes, I am a Levite by birth. 

 

This is not the right venue to describe all the heartbreaks and sacrifices involved in my family's sudden, life-saving uprooting from Germany. Nor the unbearable pain resulting from the loss of the entire Wolf family. The end is that the Lewite family ended up in (then) British Palestine, in 1933. My father grew up here from the age of ten; I and my sister were born here, and so was my own daughter, Michal.

 

The properly defined objective of the tour was to Bless Munich and Germany in general, with Prayer, Praises and Worship coming specifically from Israel. The timing of the group's visit was meant to coincide with November the 9^th 2008, the 70^th Anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht - "The night of the Broken Glass", and for all intents and purposes - the beginning of the Shoah, the Holocaust.  

 

I accepted Arni & Yonit Klein's kind invitation to join them and the Israeli group on this mission. But having grown up in a family with split emotions, with near admiration to the German language and culture on one hand, and with terrible pain and betrayal of loss on the other - my declared intentions to "go and bless Germany" came from my focused mind, rather than from my heart. This is not the way God leads us: He wants EVERYTHING WE DO TO BE A RESULT OF A HEART ISSUE, not merely the outworking of a RATIONAL, mind-driven obligation! God is NOT interested in a mind-driven obligation to both BLESS & FORGIVE: He Himself did it for me from His heart, and with all of it!  Another reason for accepting the invitation was to try and in some way, as a believer, "to close a cycle" in my relationship with Germany.

 

I thank God, that in Munich, on top of a Bell Tower of a Lutheran Church there, when we as an Israeli group were blessing Munich - God, by His grace, "sent an elevator", and my motivation for blessing Germany was shifted down from my head, to my heart. Hallelujah !!

 

Our beautiful group from Israel comprised of 21 people. In my eyes this is the group of "Magnificent Seven Times Three"!  We had only three days in which to perform sixteen official activities, which together made up the Ministry to Germany:  it was very very intense - yet also incredibly rewarding!