Appeasement

January 21, 2022 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Are We Learning Anything from Pittsburgh, Poway or Colleyville?

80 years ago this week, a handful of high-ranking Nazi officials gathered in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee for a conference during which they discussed the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. This was the Nazi euphemism used to privately describe the systematic and deliberate attempt at destroying all European Jews. The various officials represented all the government agencies that were called to work together towards the nefarious goal that almost succeeded.

The conference was not the start of the annihilation of the European Jews. Most of its participants were aware of Nazi Germany’s efforts to mass murder Jews. The Einsatzgruppen had been working for about a year, but they were not efficient enough. Shooting Jews into mass graves that they had dug themselves was too slow for Hitler even though about a third of all the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were killed by mass shootings. The conference only lasted 90 minutes and out of it, a list of 11 million European Jews was drafted. There are very few surviving copies of the protocol document documenting the Conference.

Today, very few people remember, let alone know about the Wannsee Conference and the official implementation of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Ignorance, apathy or pure disdain are no excuses. If we continue to ignore the dark markers of history, eventually, they will disappear, and the next generation will think that they were just myths or propaganda with no factual truth. We cannot afford that, especially at a time when the weed of antisemitism is starting to regrow and thus choke our historical accuracy and make Jews into monsters again. We are always only one anti-Semite away from another tragedy. This was made clear in Colleyville, Texas, even if the outcome was a good one for all four hostages.

On Saturday, January 15, 2022, a hostage situation unraveled in Colleyville, Texas near Fort Worth. Pakistani UK citizen, Malik Faisal Akram entered Congregation Beth Israel during a live-streamed Shabbat service and took the Rabbi and three congregants hostage. The man claimed to be the brother of extremely dangerous terrorist Aalia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence in a nearby Fort Worth prison. He repeatedly requested her immediate release. It turned out that they were not related after all. By the end of the day after one of the hostages was first released, the Rabbi who had received FBI training helped the other two hostages escape shortly before the FBI raided the facility and shot Malik Faisal Akram.

This is one hostage story that ended well for all, and we ought to praise God for how swiftly the SWAT team intervened. Unfortunately, these do not always end well. Many will remember the 2015 “I Am Charlie” terrorist attack on French soil, culminating in the death of four Jewish hostages at the Paris Kosher Supermarket. Closer to home, we remember the 2018 deadly Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting that killed eleven and wounded six (the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in America). Then there was the Poway Chabad Synagogue in Southern California in 2019. One person was killed and three were injured.

It is important to look back and learn from the past, but as we all look forward, the questions remain. Can these tragedies happen again, and if yes, can anything be done to prevent them from happening?

Let me reiterate that we are just one antisemitic person away from the next tragedy. So, yes, we will most likely experience more of the same in the future, but this should not deter us from being involved in the fight against antisemitism. Three aspects of this fight need to be discussed: education, prayer and involvement.

Most news outlets, commentators and even scholars, usually comment on antisemitism from a secular viewpoint. The Jewish hatred is approached from different vantage points that are too often crippled by political correctness. Why was it so hard for the FBI representative in Colleyville to admit that a hostage situation in a Synagogue on Shabbat, to free antisemitic terrorist Aalia Siddiqui, was indeed an act of antisemitism? He was quoted saying “the issue was not specifically related to the Jewish community”. Regarding the same act of antisemitism, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) was quick to whitewash the incident and refocus the public’s attention towards Aalia Siddiqui, painted as a martyr/victim. I can appreciate their desire to protect the Muslim community from backlash because of what one man –who happened to be a Muslim–did, but we must be careful not to overcompensate. Eventually, the FBI had to back-pedal and admit that this was a clear case of antisemitism. The FBI Director finally admitted that it was “an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community”.

Proper education is key here. Anytime we are swayed towards a biased narrative, our judgment becomes blurred, and our decisions are no longer based on facts, but on either the culture or a certain political agenda. That is dangerous. The fact that the Colleyville incident was not immediately labeled as an act of antisemitism, shows that, as a society, our values are shifting. For Christians, it should be clear that the culture should never dictate the Gospel, but rather the Gospel should punctuate the culture while being contextualized, but without compromise.

Jewish people, today more than ever, need to know that Christians have their backs. 2,000 years of antisemitism, many times by people whom the Jewish community believed to be Christians, is a lot of baggage for evangelicals today. Unfortunately, this is baggage that cannot be ignored or minimized, even though it might not be yours personally. If you are a Christian, it has been connected to you by the Jewish community. This baggage must be studied and understood if we want to be able to relate to our Jewish friends and earn the right to speak. Only then can we tell them what it means to be a Bible-believing follower of the Jewish Messiah.

Alongside education comes prayer. Truly, prayer needs to be at the foundation of all that we do as believers. Praying for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6) is important, but this ought not be the only prayer for Israel and the Jewish people. We need to remember to pray for the safety of our Jewish friends and families, but also for their salvation (Romans 10:1). Additionally, as believers, we are even challenged to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

We must also remember that the hatred for Israel and the Jewish people is not politically, geographically, culturally or even economically driven. It is a spiritual battle against Satan and those he chooses to use to hurt God by hurting the apple of His eye (Psalm 83:5; Zechariah 2:8b). Satan is the creator of antisemitism and we should never underestimate his drive to destroy the Jews.

So, we learn, we pray and then we speak up, and not necessarily always in that order. Learning is a continual thing; prayer is always necessary and speaking up occurs whenever there is a reason to voice our support. Speaking up will go a long way in rebuilding bridges between Christians and Jews that have been burned over the last 2,000 years.

A simple phone call or email to your local synagogue or Jewish community center to voice your support to the Jewish people will mean a lot in times of trouble. Christians might even consider volunteering to repair or clean up damages on Jewish property because of acts of antisemitic vandalism. The Jewish community might decline the offer, but the offer will never go unnoticed.

For churches that have an outside marquee, it is very easy and quite effective to show support for the Jewish community relating to a tragedy such as a hostage situation or even a killing.

Even outside of a reaction to a tragedy, churches can always display a “Happy New Year to our Jewish friends” or “Happy Passover” or “Happy Hanukkah” at the appropriate time. This too, as simple as you think it is, will go a long way. If the Jewish community organizes a rally in support of Israel or to fight antisemitism, now is the time for Christians to participate and show their support.

Education, prayer, and involvement are not that complicated, but they take time, the right attitude of the heart and a desire to make a difference for God’s kingdom. Once we earn the trust of our Jewish friends, we have also earned the right to speak and the Gospel can move forward.

Let’s not wait for the next Pittsburg, Poway or Colleyville to react. Rather, let’s be proactive and educate ourselves, pray and speak today! Antisemitism might never completely disappear on this side of eternity, but that should not discourage any of us from getting involved in fighting it. Because when it comes to loving Israel and the Jewish people, we are on God’s side!

January 13, 2022 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The United Nations Against My People!

In 1920, only a couple of years after World War One, the League of Nations, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was founded following the Paris Peace Conference. It operated for 26 years to keep the peace between nations and promote unity. As is delineated in its covenant: “The High Contracting parties, to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just and honorable relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another, agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.”

At its peak, the League of Nations had 58 members/countries. At the onset of World War Two, it was clear that the League had failed its purpose and remained inactive throughout the war and was completely dissolved in 1946, soon to be replaced by the United Nations headquartered in New York. Within a year of its inception, the United Nations voted for the partitioning of British Mandate Palestine on November 29, 1947. Within eleven minutes of Israel declaring its independence on May 14, 1948, President Truman was the first world leader to congratulate David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of the newly formed country. Even though not all countries voted in favor of the partitioning of British Mandate Palestine, those were the good years of the United Nations. How quickly did things change!

One factor that we shouldn’t ignore is that several of the current countries represented at the United Nations (193 today from 51 at its foundation) are antagonistic towards the Jewish State and the Jewish people – and those nations have become very influential in the drafting and passing of UN resolutions over the years. Looking at 2021 only, we inevitably notice an incredible bias against Israel with an unjustifiable imbalance in the number of resolutions passed against the Jewish State. Seriously, if aliens would land on earth and look at the records of the United Nations resolutions for the past several decades, those aliens, concluding Israel to be the worst country on the planet, would solely be basing that assumption on those resolutions passed to serve an agenda – the demonization of the State of Israel!

According to UNWatch, 14 resolutions were passed against Israel (population 9.5 MM) in 2021, while five were passed against the rest of the world (population 7.9B), which shows the bias against Israel! Israel represents only .012% of the world population. There was three times more resolution against a country the size of New Jersey than against the rest of the entire world. This happened during the 76th session of the UN General Assembly for 2021-2022.

The five countries against whom resolutions were passed for human rights violations were–and rightfully so–Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar, and Crimea. What about China, Russia, Sudan and so many more countries that abuse human rights, kill their own and rule with an iron fist? What about the Palestinian Hamas leadership, for that matter? They use their own civilians as human shields, and nobody says anything. It would be one thing if the resolutions against Israel were justified. We could argue that Israel’s foul play has led the UN to pass justified resolutions against the Jewish state, but that would be if Israel were guilty of foul play. Let’s consider some of these resolutions:

November 2021: Senegal and Yemen drafted a resolution titled “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine”. In it, paragraph after paragraph, under the umbrella of the General Assembly, Israel was demonized. It was requested that Israel’s borders be brought back to pre-1967, which has become known as the “Auschwitz borders”, leaving Israel indefensible with only a nine-mile width at its narrowest point. It also asked for “The realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the right to their independent State“. This demand for the self-determination of the Palestinian people in their independent state would be honorable if the Palestinians were a real people group, but they are not. There is no question that Palestinians are real people and that from 1948 on they have been dealt with unfairly, but not by Israel. The people called “Palestinians” today descend from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese and other neighboring countries that exist around Israel. Most of these people were not allowed back into their countries of origin after Israel became a state. They were forced – by their respective governments – to stay in Israel and become “refugees” so that the “Palestinian narrative” could have a leg to stand on. Seventy years later, not only the narrative has a leg to stand on, but it has kicked the truth out of the equation altogether. Israel has become the “unlawful occupier” of a country created out of thin air. Incidentally, there is only one short line on page two of the resolution as follows,“Condemning the firing of rockets against Israeli civilian area“. The rest of the five pages are all anti-Israel rhetoric.

December 2, 2021: UN erases all Jewish connections to the Jewish most holy site at the location of the Temple Mount/Western Wall. The UN declared: “the Council called, for the exercise of restraint, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric and upholding unchanged the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif – in word and in practice, as well as for full respect for international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as may be applicable in Jerusalem“. The Haram al-Sharif is the Muslim name for the Temple Mount, but it is historically, biblically and archeologically well documented that it has been the site of the first Temple and subsequent ones since King Solomon who reigned from 970-931 BCE in the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah.

These are just two of the fourteen resolutions against Israel for 2021. If we were to go back a few years, we would see that the UN bias is very consistent. In 2017, the UN passed 20 resolutions against Israel and only 3 against the rest of the world. In 2018 21/6, in 2019, 18/7 and in 2020, 17/7. They all ignore entirely the terrorist actions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah. So, this is wrong on at least two levels. First, the accusations made against Israel are based on lies and a fabricated antisemitic narrative. Second, much of the real issues are ignored or whitewashed. There has never been so much antagonism against one country in the entire history of mankind. One has to wonder what the driving force behind all this is. From a human perspective, it is impossible to comprehend such hatred against Israel and the Jewish people. It is not until we look at this through a biblical lens that we understand that this is not a political battle, a geographical disagreement or even economic strife. No, it is 100% a spiritual battle between Satan and Israel.

God’s program recognizes the existence and activities of Satan as well as the existence and covenantal relationship that Israel has with her God. Satan is jealous and power-hungry and he hates what God loves. The United Nations has long departed from their original noble cause of world peace. Many within the organization are being manipulated by Satan to believe that the victim has become the perpetrator, and in turn, they present these lies as facts to the masses. The United Nations’ charter implies they are to unite all people in peace. Certainly, they are united – but mostly against my Jewish people!

December 15, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Antisemitism 2021: My Top Ten List! – Part 1

As I do each year in December, here is my review of the most important moments I documented in the area of antisemitism in 2021.

January 2021: International Holocaust Remembrance Day!
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is different from Yom HaShoah (Day of the Catastrophe) which falls annually, a week after Passover in Israel (started in 1953). Each year, on January 27, the international community remembers the Holocaust in various ways from synagogue services to vigils to educational events that include Holocaust survivors or scholars. Survivors have dwindled down to a few thousand globally. Considering that anybody born at the onset of the war in 1939 would be eighty-three years old today, most survivors of the Holocaust are in their late early nineties or older. Soon, they will all be in our memories. Here are a few things we can do:

Listen to a Holocaust survivor: The powerful work of the staff at The Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation brings many testimonies from survivors on video, and by virtue of that medium, renders their unique stories eternal. Additionally, the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation has over 54,000 video testimonies of survivors that are there to stay. Every single one of them is poignant and memorable in its own way.
Visit a Death Camp: Walking alongside the one-way train tracks, through the eerily empty barracks and on the death-camp grounds will leave an indelible mark in your memory. The Death Camps are gruesome monuments from one of the darkest periods of mankind’s history. If at all possible, everybody, and most definitely every Christian should walk through one of them once in their lifetime.
Visit a Holocaust Memorial Museum: There are several Holocaust Memorials in the United States. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. or the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles are just two of the most impactful and fruitful in their respective communities and nationally. The list is much longer and warrants several different visits if possible.
Read an account of the Holocaust: From survivors’ accounts to biographies, historical accounts and even poems, the choices are many. Every human being should read the short but life-altering account of Elie Wiesel’s time at Auschwitz-Birkenau retold in Night, his story of resilience and survival against all odds. A detailed and accurate account of the Holocaust can be found in Lucy Dawidowicz The War Against the Jews or in The destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg. If you are not a reader, you can always watch Schindler’s List.

It is our duty as human beings to remember the Holocaust, retell its history to the current and future generations and resist antisemitism by speaking up against those who deny that it ever happened. Don’t rely on others to remember the uniqueness of the Holocaust! Don’t wait for someone else to come alongside or speak up in your place. speak up and remember because it is the right thing to do, and not only on January 27.

February 2021: Covid 19 and the Jews!
• 20% of all English people believe that Jews created Covid-19: As people were surveyed, according to The Oxford Coronavirus Explanations, Attitudes, and Narratives Survey (OCEANS), “Presented with the statement “Jews have created the virus to collapse the economy for financial gain,” 5.3% of the interviewees “agreed a little,” 6.8% “agreed moderately,” 4.6% “agreed a lot,” and 2.4% “agreed completely,” while some 80.8% did not agree with it at all.”
• People accuse the Jews of using the vaccine to control the world population: The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, is a Greek man of Jewish ancestry. This is enough for crazy conspiracy theorists to claim that the Jews created the vaccine and will use it to streamline the world population and control the world. This is in line with the same theories advanced in the 1904 hoax “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
• Ohio men accuse Jews of being the real plague: During a street protest in Columbus, Ohio against Covid-19 restrictions, two men displayed a sign of a rat looking like a Jew with an Israeli flag. The sign also said: “the real plague”. This is strongly reminiscent of the accusations against the Jewish community during the Black Plague of 1348-51 when Jews were accused of poisoning the wells of Europe simply because of the smaller number of Jewish casualties due to kosher laws and liturgical hygiene.
• Social networks abound with antisemitic memes about the Jews either being or controlling the virus: Vicious attacks on Jewish people and on Israel are everywhere on social networks and most of them are not being censored because of the First Amendment. I am all for claiming Freedom of Speech as long as we are consistent and do not allow for double standards. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case.
• Rashida Tlaib claims that Israel doesn’t vaccinate Palestinians: She tweeted, “It’s really important to understand that Israel is a racist state, in that they would deny Palestinians like my grandmother access to a vaccine, that they don’t believe she’s an equal human being who deserves to live.” The opposite is true. Israel has offered vaccines to Palestinians and many have accepted them. The Palestinian Authority also refused a recent planeload of vaccines from the United Arab Emirates, simply because it was coordinated with Israel for distribution.
• Saturday Night Live comedian claims Israel only vaccinates Jews: On February 20, SNL host Michael Che said: “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m gonna guess it’s the Jewish half.” It really looks like using the blood libel to demonize the Jewish people is still in fashion. Incidentally, Michael Che has repeatedly insulted Jewish people before, but he is very careful not to denigrate other minorities. Entertainers have been fired for less than this. SNL used to be a funny satirical comedy show, but that ship sailed a long time ago.

March 2021: How Christian is Christian Antisemitism?
There is a recurring accusation, especially within Jewish circles, that the New Testament is antisemitic. The justification for such an accusation is found in 2,000 years of Jewish history that have been punctuated by a myriad of antisemitic acts–many of them apparently rooted in Christianity and its teachings. So, the question bears asking, how Christian is Christian antisemitism? Furthermore, is the New Testament antisemitic?

• The New Testament is a very Jewish Book
From the very first words of the first book in the New Testament, everything is Jewish as it records the genealogy of the Jewish Messiah: ” The record of the genealogy of Yeshua the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.” (Matthew 1:1-2). The audience is Jewish, the writers are Jewish (Luke being the possible exception). The context is Jewish, the culture is Jewish and much of the geography is Jewish. As a matter of fact, it is nearly impossible to fully understand the richness of the New Testament without reading it in its Jewish context. Most believers spend their whole life reading the Bible in “Black and White” until they look at the Jewish perspective and all of a sudden, the same story appears in “color and HD”. Don’t quote me wrong, reading our Bible is vital, even when it is not done with an understanding of its Jewish backdrop, but it is greatly enhanced once we look at the Word through Jewish eyes.
• The New Testament Uses Strong Language
How do we reconcile words like “the synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9 3:9) or “your father the devil” (John 8:44) or even “you brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7)? They are indeed very strong words directed at Jewish people. Those accusatory words were definitely used in the New Testament to describe the hypocrisy and sin of some of the Jewish leaders contemporary of Yeshua. They were accurate words to be sure, but what has been missed and has led to so much damage is the fact that they were used to denounce people who happened to be disobedient sinners first and Jewish second. Their ethnicity didn’t play a role in their guilt. This is what we could call the “Great Christian Departure”. The Church started to attach the sins of early (Jewish) believers to their non-related Jewishness, and before long, being Jewish became a crime.
• The Old Testament Also Uses Strong Language
Why is it that when similar language is used to describe the disobedience of Israel in the Jewish Law and the Prophets, nobody–especially in the Jewish community–has a problem with it? In Deuteronomy 9:7, Moses calls the Jewish people “rebellious.” Is he antisemitic? In Deuteronomy 9:13, God calls the Jewish people “stubborn” and wants to kill them all. Is God antisemitic? Nonsense! Ezekiel calls Israel “stubborn and obstinate” (Ezekiel 3:7). The descriptions are perfectly in line with the actions of the children of Israel described all throughout the Tenach, and they are no different than those of the New Testament, except that they come from the Jewish Scriptures, prior to Yeshua’s first coming, and somehow, that makes them acceptable. Is there a double standard here?
• The Jews Didn’t Kill the Messiah
The most common accusation against the Jewish people that continues to this day, is that of deicide (the killing of God). Jews the world over continue to be called “Christ Killers” by Christians and non-Christians alike. There are two problems with that accusation. First, even if some Jewish people were guilty of the crucifixion of Yeshua (and they are not), it would never make sense to paint with broad strokes and render all Jews of all time guilty of the same crime. By the same logic, all Germans would be Nazis and all Muslims would-be terrorists. This is ludicrous! However, and more importantly, Yeshua gave His own life in obedience to the Father as we read in John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” So, in reality, we are all sharing the guilt without exception.
• Context is Everything
The very fact that many early Christians took the Scriptures out of context and allegorized much of them doesn’t make the New Testament antisemitic, it simply makes it misinterpreted and misapplied. Can Christians be antisemitic? I think that history speaks clearly on that matter, yes, they can! But are they antisemitic because they follow the teachings of Yeshua of Nazareth? Absolutely not! 2,000 years of Scripture twisting to accommodate and justify human behavior against the Jews have left a bloody stain on mankind in general and the Church in particular. But it is not based on anything taught in the Bible.

So, it is fair to say that Christian antisemitism is not Christian at all. If one takes the Bible literally, all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23 ). “All” means Jews and non-Jews alike with no exceptions. Christian antisemitism is simply antisemitism committed by Christians who read their Bible improperly and use it as an excuse to ostracize and demonize the Jewish people. The Christians who paint–with broad strokes– the Jewish people as a sub-human group are as guilty as the Jewish people who claim that all Christians are antisemitic and so is the New Testament. It is time to keep things in context and approach God’s word in context with humility and sincerity.

April 2021: A New US Assistant Secretary of State with Ties to Hamas…What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Even though the current US administration vows that they seek Israel’s safety, they have shown no interest in dealing with the Middle East as a priority and have made Hady Amr the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israel and Palestinian Affairs. He is the highest US ranking official for Middle East affairs, but the question is, “Does he have the credentials for such a task?”

• Hady Amr is a practicing Muslim: This isn’t an issue in and of itself, as freedom of religion is part of our constitution (rightfully so), but might not be the best choice for the person officially representing the US government in the Middle East.
• Hady Amr wrote that He was inspired by the Palestinian Intifada: The Intifada (meaning “uprising”), was organized unrest from Palestinians against Israel, based on the false premise that Israel is an occupier and colonizer and trying to push Palestinians out of their own ancestral land. There is no archeological, geographical or historical basis for such a claim.
• Hady Amr has repeatedly called for dealing with Hamas: Hamas is a terrorist organization with a charter calling for the complete destruction of Israel.
• Hady Amr has been instrumental in resuming US funding to the PA: One of the first items on his agenda has been to restore US funding to the Palestinian authority. US taxpayers are now forced to fund terrorism again.
• Hady Amr has strong ties to Qatar: He lived and worked there for years, establishing a branch of the Brookings Institute. Qatar is notorious for funding terrorism and supporting Hamas and having ties with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
• Hady Amr has accused Israel of murdering innocent children: He wrote: “Arabs will never, never forget what the Israeli people, the Israeli military and Israeli democracy have done to Palestinian children. And there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents.”
• Hady Amr has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing: He continues to promote the false narrative that Israel has taken over Palestinian land and committed ethnic cleansing, when in fact, there are more Arabs in Israel today than there were prior to 1948.

May 2021: Do Jewish Lives Matter Only in Theory?
On April 4, 2017, 65-year-old Sarah Halimi, a retired doctor, was tortured by her neighbor Kobili Traoré, and then thrown to her death from the window of her third-floor apartment. Traoré committed this murder while reciting verses from the Qur’an and calling Sarah Halimi a “dirty Jew”. Upon throwing her through the window, Traoré shouted in Arabic that he had succeeded in killing an evil spirit or “killed the Satan”.

When questioned, Traoré declared that he felt “persecuted”, and after realizing that he was high on marijuana, the French justice system decided that he would not stand trial. That decision basically sent the message that anyone’s voluntary drug consumption exonerates them from any responsibility. Traoré was officially acquitted in April 2021 and is literally getting away with murder, while the global media – for the most part – completely ignored this story. French President Emmanuel Macron said that the Jewish community has his full support. What did he mean by that? Were these empty words to save face? It is not the first time that Jewish people have been killed in France in recent years. What about the multiple stabbing of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll in 2018, left to die in her burning apartment? Of course, we all remember the kosher supermarket carnage of January 2015 when four Jewish shoppers were murdered. That was six years ago! The site of the tragedy–just a stone’s throw from the house I grew up in– continues to see flowers and photos brought in memory of the victims, that’s very thoughtful, but you cannot fight terrorism and antisemitism with flowers, photos and poems.

It would appear that the lives of Jewish people are not worth much. Incidentally, France is a country where people will get one year in prison if they throw their dog out the window. So, is the life of a dog worth more than the life of a Jewish person? It would appear so!

This can only encourage antisemites to perpetrate more crimes against Jews as they see that their actions if noticed AND if reported properly, might not even garner any punishment. Justice is usually served, but maybe not for Jews, after all. At least not for the foreseeable future in France. This is despicable and very scary for the Jewish community of France. That community already doesn’t report all antisemitic acts because very little if anything gets done when they do. Sometimes Jews even get accused of playing “the victim card” or calling any disagreement with the Jewish community “antisemitism.” There might have been some abuse in that area, but throwing a Jewish woman through her third-floor window screaming “Allahu Akbar” and “I have killed the Satan” is antisemitism without a doubt. So, do Jewish lives matter? Well, it certainly looks like they don’t in France.

In every situation, there are always going to be the perpetrators, the victims and the bystanders. In the case of Sarah Halimi (the victim) and Kolibi Traoré (the perpetrator), inevitably, there are some bystanders. People who are not Jewish, people who fear Islamic extremism’s repercussions and people guilty of “soft antisemitism” who wouldn’t kill Jewish people, but certainly don’t care if someone else does. If you don’t see the beginning wave of a repeat of history in Europe, you are not really paying attention. The last time a Jewish life was worth nothing, we let an evil man and his cohorts decimate six million Jews in the most horrific, systematic way possible.

Tune in next week for part 2 of my top ten list of Antisemitism 2021.

November 8, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The Lethal Downward Spiral of Antisemitism!

As antisemitism continues to grow worldwide, we need to clearly understand how it operates if we want to fight it successfully. The first thing that we must do is to look at a definition of antisemitism, and there are plenty of them from brief to lengthy, from detailed to too vague. For a while, I have favored the one definition penned by Edward Flannery in his seminal work, The Anguish of the Jews. In his extremely well-researched book, he defines it as follows: “Antisemitism is attitudes, words, or actions that embody hatred or contempt of the Jewish people as such.” Over the years, I have come to adjust his definition to come up with my own as follows, “Antisemitism is the irrational hatred of the Jewish people and Israel characterized by thoughts, words and/or deeds against them.”

They might appear to be almost identical, but a few details need to be made clear. First, we must understand that antisemitism is irrational. It doesn’t follow logic, never has and never will! What started simply as theological anti-Judaism without malice, slowly morphed into pure hatred over the centuries. The Jew was theologically different from the Christian and continues to be. The differences went from theological to cultural to racial, leading people to want to rid the planet of all Jewish people. I cover that progression in detail in End-Times Antisemitism, where I chronicle 2,000 years of antisemitism. Jewish history can definitely be studied by connecting the awful acts of antisemitism committed by Christians and non-Christians alike. I would venture to say that it is punctuated by these acts.

The irrationality of antisemitism makes it very unique on the despicable list of racism and xenophobia. Not that racism should ever be justified, but in many cases, it is based on cultural, social, historical and or geographical differences leading to unfortunate misunderstandings. In the case of antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people is never based on facts and in some cases, there are people around the globe who hate the Jewish people with a passion, and yet, have never met one Jewish person in their life. This qualifies as highly irrational. It doesn’t follow logic at all. Additionally, antisemitism rallies people on the absolute opposite side of the ideological spectrum. Where else can you find radical Islamists and liberal leftists making a concerted effort to hurt Israel and the Jewish people? Antisemitism exists all across the political spectrum, from Left to Right. The Jewish people are the only people group in history to have been equally accused of being communists and being capitalists.

Next in the definition, is the fact that antisemitism targets both the Jewish people as a people group as well as Israel as a country. No other form of racism or xenophobia includes people and country. If someone–God forbid–has a hatred of African people, they don’t usually call for the complete destruction of Africa or any other countries within that continent. Only anti-Semites seek to harm both the people and the land. This is often due to their acceptance of the “occupation” and “colonizing” narrative painting the “Palestinian” people as displaced people whose land was stolen by the “Zionist occupiers”. This is a narrative that is based on the false premise that the Palestinian people used to live in the Land of Palestine before Israel stole it. It cannot be validated historically, archaeologically or culturally.

The hatred spewed by antisemitism can be manifested in a variety of ways that go from thoughts and attitudes to words and finally to actions. There seems to be a progressive move from thoughts to words to deeds in many cases. People will often think negatively of Jewish people or Israel, but it seldom stops there. It usually moves to words at some point. A recent example took place in Texas in the city of Austin. On October 24, 2021, a few people claiming to belong to the neo-Nazi group “Goyim Defense League” displayed a banner from a freeway bridge reading “Vax the Jews”, (as in “kill the Jews” ) right around the corner from the West Austin Jewish Community Center, “Shalom Austin.” It is unclear if it was related to graffiti of a swastika found on the grounds of an Austin high school the day before. A week later, also in Austin, a fire was started outside a synagogue. It also remains unclear if it was a case of antisemitism and if the two were connected. The next day, a man in Brooklyn threw a Molotov cocktail inside a Jewish Deli. I could continue with a long list.

These are just a few acts of antisemitism. What is important to understand is that these acts don’t have to be committed by the same person or group to be dangerous. Each act of antisemitism emboldens other Jew-haters to commit their own crimes against Jewish people in their own communities, being in words or deeds or both. A nasty statement in one place or on the Internet will encourage other slurs somewhere else and might become the spark for the destruction of property or human lives. Remember that antisemitism is very irrational. The point is that antisemitism almost never remains a negative or nasty thought about the Jews. It will grow into words–easily spread across the globe in the age of the Internet–and the words run the risk of leading to actions. It is a downward spiral of hatred that should concern all of us.

The third phase of antisemitism is bad enough when it involves defacing or destruction of property such as synagogues, cemeteries or community centers, but it doesn’t stop there anymore. I have documented that since 2012, Jews are being killed again. Ilan Halimi, Mireille Knoll, Sarah Halimi (not related to Ilan), the Toulouse Jewish day school massacre of one rabbi and three students, the Paris kosher supermarket death of four shoppers, the Pittsburgh Synagogue, the San Diego attack. The last decade has seen the death of over twenty Jewish people around the world. Twenty lives may not seem like a large number. When we see murders in our large cities over a weekend number that and more almost every weekend, this hardly seems to garner attention. However, in the day in which we live when one life is taken by police and the national and international outcry that is heard is LOUD, where is the outcry for these lives? Antisemitism is going unreported and unnoticed. Who is going to stand up and be counted?

The lethal downward spiral of antisemitism is going to continue and possibly increase in numbers and intensity. Its irrational nature appears very rational to those who commit antisemitic crimes because they are led by Satan, the ultimate enemy of God – and therefore, the ultimate enemy of His chosen people, the Jewish people. If we hear a joke about the Jewish people or see something in print that can appear harmless at first, it is our duty to speak up and expose the lies. It starts with a joke, it becomes graffiti and before you know it, someone dies. That is a slippery slope that we all should keep people from at any cost!

October 21, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

What exactly is an “opposing” view to the Holocaust?

What would the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust say to the Texas educator who recently requested that if the Holocaust was to be taught in schools, an “opposing” view should also be presented? Why is it that one of the most horrific tragedies of the last 2,000 years has to be debated, minimized or even called a hoax? I have to be honest, sometimes I get tired of defending the Holocaust again and again, but what is the alternative? If we let our guard down or allow for different views on possibly the greatest evil of all human history, we are one generation away from its complete disappearance from the annals of world history. may it never be!

This all started recently in Texas, when a school administrator, worried about the danger of critical race theory, decided to include Holocaust studies in his attempt at bringing a more balanced educational experience. This was in response to House Bill 3979. The complete text of that bill isn’t very long and has some merit. Among other things, the bill explains, “Teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspective without giving deference to any one perspective.” Applying that part of the bill to the Holocaust led to this recent statement made by the school administrator, “Make sure that if, if you have a book on the Holocaust that you have one that has an opposing — that has other perspectives.” Does it apply to the Holocaust? I do not think so, for several reasons.

• The Holocaust is not a current event: Following the text of Bill 3979, the teaching of current events should always be done without bias or any agenda and with an explanation of the opposing view. So, is the Holocaust a “current event”? It took place during World War Two, which ended in 1945. Seventy-seven years have passed since the camps were liberated. For a while now and rightfully so, the Holocaust has been included in history books around the world because IT IS part of history. Current events are studied within the realm of social studies or political science, never history. The Holocaust is not a current event!

• The Holocaust shouldn’t be a widely debated issue: The Bill also states that “widely debated and currently controversial issues” should offer an opposing view. Frankly, the very fact that the Holocaust continues to be a hot topic should be very alarming. Holocaust denial continues to infect the historical accuracy of that era. It is debated because some have fought hard trying to debunk it. It was when the camps were liberated that General Dwight Eisenhower expressed his grave concern about what he discovered. As General Patton was vomiting at the scene, Eisenhower forced himself to look everywhere in the camp. He wrote to General George C. Marshall the following letter, “The things I saw beggar description. … The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick … . I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

Sadly, General Eisenhower was right and it didn’t take very long for some to deny that the Holocaust ever happened or that it was Jewish propaganda for stealing “Palestinian” land. After all, how many people looked the other way when trains passed through their villages, made of cattle cars packed with Jews? How many “Christians” sang louder in Church to cover the whistle of those trains passing through? Was it a bad case of cognitive dissonance or was it simply for selfish reasons of one’s survival? Probably both in many cases. We have those who didn’t want to believe it was happening, and that included many Jewish people at the onset of the Holocaust until it was too late to do anything, and then we have those who tried and continue to try erasing it from history. The Holocaust happened and that shouldn’t be debated.

• The Holocaust must be given deference: The Bill goes on to say that teachers, “shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspective without giving deference to any one perspective.” I can appreciate what the bill is trying to do, it is trying to be impartial in the teaching of facts, so it doesn’t want to give teachers a chance to even appear as if they are taking a position. It is true that the Holocaust was not the only genocide in history, but it was certainly the only organized, structured and methodical attempt at the complete destruction of a people group. Additionally, it was the only genocide of human history where the perpetrators went out of their way to go retrieve Jews who had escaped to other countries, at a great cost to Germany, often believed by historians as one of the main reasons for Nazi Germany’s defeat. For this reason, the Holocaust was unique and must be given deference.

• The Holocaust was pure evil: The horrors of the Holocaust against the Jews and other minorities for a total of over twelve million innocent victims, have never been surpassed. The Holocaust was pure evil committed by evil people, and it should never be taught with alternate views in mind. The alternative to the Holocaust being evil is that it wasn’t, and this shouldn’t be an option in a normal society.

I guess, what I am trying to say here, is that the Holocaust must remain in a league of its own for the rest of mankind’s history. There are way too many recorded testimonies, artifacts and written materials for anyone to honestly defy the veracity of the event unless there is a hidden agenda behind it all. That agenda comes from Satan and is meant to delegitimize and ostracize the global Jewish community as he continues his greater destructive agenda that started centuries ago.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by people used by Satan to eliminate the Jews. Somehow, it was allowed by an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving God, for reasons that we will never fully comprehend with our finite human minds. There is no alternative to telling it like it is unless one succumbs to the politically correct agenda, but that agenda is not based on factual truth and the Holocaust is a factual part of history that cannot be denied, altered or erased. Texas House Bill 3979 isn’t a bad bill, but it should never apply to the Holocaust, lest we want to help those who deny that it ever happened.

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