Galilee of the Nations

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Few executives in the music industry have cut a broader path, or forged a deeper trail into the music of both ancient and modern times than Yochanan Ben Yehuda, Founder and President of Galilee of the Nations Music and Heart for Israel Ministries. In only a few years he has not only established the world's foremost record label of Messianic Praise & Worship Music, but he has also created a legitimate genre of music where it did not exist before. Simply put, Messianic Judaism consists largely of Jews who have come to accept Jesus' or Yeshua as He's known in Hebrew' as their Savior, and their music is an entrancing blend of east meeting west. As a boy raised in southern California, his current vocation is probably the last thing the young Yochanan would have predicted. Yochanan had literally grown up in the record industry, cutting his musical teeth on ' 70s rock, pop and R&B. His father, Jerry, was a very successful record producer at Motown Records throughout the ' 70s. As a young teen, Yochanan recalls being in the recording studio during sessions with Michael Jackson, and a host of Motown superstars. So, it was no surprise when Yochanan himself entered the music industry at age 18, initially running his father's music publishing company. Yochanan's career began to soar only two years later when he went to work as a professional manager for BNB' the nation's number one management firm at the time, with an artist roster including such diverse talents as Kansas, Crystal Gayle, Jose Feliciano, Rufus, and many others. A several-year stint in production and promotion for several major mainstream labels followed, and it was during that time period that Yochanan came to faith in Yeshua ( Jesus ). Yochanan's salvation and business savvy merged by the early-' 80s when he became director of national promotion for Joy Productions, the country's premier Christian music public relations firm at that time. His next landmark was forming FM Management, which focused exclusively on the careers of previously secular artists who had found salvation and were forging careers in contemporary Christian music, with Kerry Livgren' formerly of Kansas' and his band A.D. being one of their premier clients. Many of the acts under the FM Management umbrella found themselves recording on Yochanan's new found label, Kerygma Records, which was distributed worldwide by Sparrow Distribution. In 1988, Yochanan felt a calling from God that would soon change both the course of his business, and his life as a whole. I felt the Lord establishing a very strong connection between myself and Israel, says Yochanan, whose mother was a non-practicing Jew, and I began to get in touch with my own Jewish roots. The Lord showed me that Israel was a country I could call my own, and that began a new chapter in my life. Changing careers completely, Yochanan used the skills he had attained in the music industry in his new position as Marketing Director for a telecommunications company in Israel, relocating himself, his wife and five children in the process. But his heart was never far from music. After a few years in Israel, Yochanan began to feel another divine tugging at his heart to help believers in the land to nurture and develop their musical gifts into income producing vocations. The result was the birth of Galilee of the Nations, a record production and music publishing company founded in the Galilee region of Israel in 1997. My whole focus initially was to do a worship album to be released in May of 1998, the Year of Jubilee, the first Jubilee celebrated in the land of Israel in nearly 2, 000 years. My desire was to produce this album in Hebrew and in English, with all of the songs written and performed by musically gifted believers from the four corners of the nation' all from within the borders of the land of Israel, say Yochanan. It was called Adonai, and came out on Integrity Music in 1998. It was the first record ever released from Israel with worldwid