God

March 14, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

When Israel Finds a Cure for the Covid-19, How will BDS Respond?

By now, there are very few countries in the world that have not heard about the coronavirus. As of this writing, 149 countries have been affected and infected. The global number of cases exceeds 150,000 and deaths are over 5,600. Italy is on lockdown. France not far behind and America restricted flight from Europe, as well as just declared a national emergency. I have never experienced anything like this in my sixty years on this planet. Countries are reacting differently to the crisis, although more and more are realizing the potential gravity of the unknown and are setting up emergency facilities and personnel. For all of us, this is unchartered territory!

At the same time, several countries in the world are racing against the clock to research, discover, test and manufacture a vaccine for Covid-19. At the forefront of these modern countries is Israel. The tiny Jewish state could be weeks or even just days from having a vaccine to treat Covid-19. A Canadian company also claims to have developed a vaccine. But developing one is not an easy task and once the vaccine is proven to work it must be tested. depending on the source, the length of the testing for this upcoming vaccine could be anywhere from 90 days to 18 months. Even 90 days could be a long time when we are seeing the exponential growth of the infection on a global scale, but doing nothing just because the potential deadline for a commercially viable vaccine could be months away, is irresponsible. So the race is on!

The likelihood of Israel finding the cure is pretty high. The Israel Institute for Biological Research is optimistic. As a matter of fact, Prime minister Netanyahu had given the institute the directives for such research as early as February 1, 2020. In the meantime, Israel has closed its borders and is requiring anybody stepping foot on Israeli soil to go into a 14-day quarantine, no exceptions. Drastic? I don’t think so, but time will tell. Additionally, the Israeli government is also recruiting IDF soldiers and teenagers to help sanitize public places. Israel is a small country with too many enemies. To Israel, securing borders is an existential necessity. Succumbing to the Coronavirus or being unprepared, could open the door for Israel’s enemies to attack several fronts at a time when hospitals are already beyond full capacity and the country crippled by the virus’ effect on the economy. Israel had no choice but to close its borders. Additionally, Israel has also developed a test kit that yields results in 25 minutes and will make it available worldwide within days.

The virus is not antisemitic nor is it anti-Palestinian, it doesn’t discriminate and it doesn’t stop at borders or checkpoints. That is why Israel is doing all they can to help those affected in Gaza and the West Bank, no questions asked. Why? Because Israel values life, any life…even the life of her enemies. Even though they probably cannot spare any of them right now, Israel donated several hundred Covid-19 test kits to the Palestinian Authority, and there will be more coming. They also delivered 20 tons of disinfectant to the Palestinian Authority to help them sanitize their area. Would the opposite have happened if Israel was in need? Sadly, I doubt it!

And then, there are the usual BDS movement people across the globe, selling the false idea that Israel is an occupying, colonialist and human rights violating country. They convince a plethora of uneducated people to boycott Israel. Evidently, they boycott whatever is not going to be too inconvenient. So here is the million-dollar question: “Are BDS people going to refuse the vaccine if it comes from Israel?” They should if they were consistent and ethical, but we all know that they won’t.

If BDS accepts the vaccine, they lose their right to oppose Israel on anything else, as long as it is based on a false premise. They should be grateful that the very country they are trying to see off the map of the Middle East is actually ethical and compassionate enough to see beyond all this and concentrate on the sanctity of life. God wouldn’t have it any other way!

As we fight the Coronavirus together, there is no time for disagreement between Democrats and Republicans or Israelis and Arabs. The virus is after all of us without discrimination and if we wish to eradicate Covid-19, we have no choice but to fight it together as humans. Incidentally, now is a very good time to believe in God and to trust Him, since nothing, not even the damaging Coronavirus, comes as a surprise to Him!

December 23, 2019 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Anti-Semitism in 2019: A Year in Review – Part 1

When my first book on the topic came out in 2007, I received a lot of feedback from skeptics telling me that things couldn’t possibly get “that bad” for the Jewish people. I will resist the temptation to say “I told you so”, simply because I would much rather stand corrected and be wrong, but as most of the world has now seen, it is not the case. In fact, it could be argued that things are even worse than I predicted when I started my research in 1999. Part of me is irate, part of me is concerned and part of me is not surprised.
I am irate because, after 2,000 years of antisemitism culminating in the Holocaust, I didn’t think that men could be so cruel and evil to other men. I am concerned by the lack of interest and reaction from people who know better, including evangelicals, but I am not really surprised because biblically speaking, I know that at some point in the history of mankind, the whole world will go against the Jews. We are getting there faster than I thought possible and 2019 was a sad example of that.

January 2019: The Pervasiveness of BDS in American Politics!
BDS proponents are very inconsistent with what Israeli products they boycott. If a product or technology comes from Israel but doesn’t really create a huge inconvenience, BDS people will denounce and boycott with a lot of fanfare. On the other hand, if the technology is a big part of their life, like cell phones, computers, thumb drives, etc, hypocritically, there’s no boycott. Case in point, Mahmoud Abbas recent case of severe pneumonia successfully treated by an Israeli doctor.
Additionally, the very people who choose to boycott Israel will then turn a blind eye on a myriad of countries and/or entities that are blatant human rights abusers and violators such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Gaza, and others. BDS proponents are not interested in facts. If they were, they would actually support Israel. This in no means is an attempt at exonerating Israel from any responsibilities in the Middle East crisis, but a genuine desire for balance and fairness and an unbiased approach to the issue. Instead, we see how pervasive the BDS movement has become in the last few years, and how widespread it has developed across all segments of the population, and particularly, how it has started to infuse the fabric of the US government. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the UN has looked at Israel through the biased lens of the Palestinian narrative, fueled by a postmodern approach to truth and social justice. More resolutions have been passed against Israel than any other country combined that are UN members, and this by a long shot.

February 2019: Not Exactly “A Pope for All Seasons!”
The Pope just co-signed a document with Al Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb (once named “the most influential Muslim in the world”), titled “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together“. Ecumenically speaking, the document is a dream come true for mankind, and many have described it as a “historical breakthrough“. I would venture to say that it might be a “biblical breakthrough,” but not necessarily for the same reasons. The document says of God “He is the Creator who has formed us with His divine wisdom and has granted us the gift of life to protect it. It is a gift that no one has the right to take away, threaten or manipulate to suit oneself. Indeed, everyone must safeguard this gift of life from its beginning up to its natural end. We, therefore, condemn all those practices that are a threat to life such as genocide, acts of terrorism, forced displacement, human trafficking, abortion, and euthanasia.” The Pope might be thinking that because God created all men equally (a biblical view that I share with him), Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb shares his views, but just because the Grand Imam signed the document doesn’t mean that he will uphold it. Here we see that the Pope is taking a pluralistic position demanding that all men respect one another regardless of their beliefs since “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race, and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. The proverbial roads that all lead to Rome are no longer sufficient, now they all need to also lead to God. The same god for Roman Catholics and Muslims, that is!

March 2019: The Greedy Jew is Alive and Well!
To understand the extent of the “Greedy Jew” canard, we must look at a recent incident that took place in Aalst, Belgium during a yearly street carnival dating back to the Middle Ages. It includes parading floats with music on various themes. This year’s float from the group Vismooi’ln was titled “Sabbath Year 2019”, which according to the builders of the float was decided based on the fact that they might have to take a break from the Carnival in 2020 because of its rising cost. What followed was outrageously anti-Semitic. The front of the float included two giant caricatures of orthodox Jews with streimels (Jewish fur hats) on their heads, side curls and long beards. The facial features included mean looks and large crooked noses (another anti-Semitic stereotype.) Adding insult to injury, the two giant puppets were standing, surrounded by bags of money at their feet and money coming out of their coat pockets (yet another anti-Semitic stereotype.) There were also over a dozen people dressed up as Orthodox Jews, gyrating on the second float with a very apparent lack of respect. Once again, and this time around the world, the bystanders are quickly becoming co-perpetrators in a myriad of anti-Semitic acts because, in 2019, anti-Semitism has become the new normal.

April 2019: The fire at Notre-Dame didn’t have to be a terrorist attack!
First, they came for the Jews… Then they came for the Christians!
Many French Catholic churches have been desecrated and even set on fire in the last year. In some cases, people even get in to defecate on the premises. Both Germany and France have reported that crimes against Christian churches have increased since Muslim migrants became part of the demographics. France alone saw over 1,300 attacks against Christian churches and facilities in 2018 (almost 900 of them being fires.) These attacks, outside of a few coming from deranged citizens of France, didn’t come from the French people, they didn’t come from the Jewish community (as anti-Jesus as a Jewish person might be), but they mostly came from people who ideologically hate Christianity, the indoctrinated radical Muslims. They are the first victims of the hate that has been injected in their DNA for decades. We might never really know the source of the Notre-Dame fire, but the situation is such in France and much of Western Europe, that at least, it makes it possible for one to speculate and leave the door open for a terrorist attack. The soil is fertile to allow more hatred to grow and choke Christianity and Western Civilization. As a matter of fact, ISIS, who didn’t claim responsibility for the fire, threatened to start another one to finish the job. They were not involved, but they were quick to rejoice and post photos of the burning structure on social media with the caption: “It’s time to say goodbye to your oratory polytheism.” Notre-Dame’s fire didn’t have to be a terrorist attack to draw the attention of those who promote Christianity and Western values. There is a track record of the destruction of Christianity in Europe that has existed for a while now. Lovers of freedom and democracy ought to be really concerned.

May 2019: Who Cares about the Holocaust Anymore?
This year more than ever we need to remember what took place in Nazi Germany almost 80 years ago:
• At a time when Israel is falsely accused of ethnic cleansing in their very own land, we must remember the days when Jews were almost eradicated from the face of the earth.
• At a time when it is becoming more and more dangerous to be Jewish anywhere in the world (except Israel), we must remember those who died simply because they were Jewish.
• At a time when worshipping in a synagogue could end in a lethal terror attack, we must remember the victims of Pittsburgh and San Diego and all other houses of worship around the globe.
• At a time when the world is pushing for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, we must remember that it already took place during the November 1938 Kristallnacht and that there is nothing new under the sun.
• At a time when the US Congress has been infiltrated with a new generation of anti-Semitic representatives, we must remember when Jewish people didn’t have a voice in government.
• At a time when a mainstream US newspaper publishes yet another virulently anti-Semitic cartoon, we must remember 2,000 years of anti-Jewish caricatures leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths.
• At a time when two-thirds of millennials do not know what Auschwitz is, we must remember the motto “NEVER AGAIN.”
• At a time when anti-Semitism is becoming the new normal around the world, we must remember that according to Edmund Burke, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing.”

June 2019: The US Senate Antisemitism Resolution: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
On June 13, 2019, a joint resolution was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, and on June 14, it passed unanimously! The resolution is a short document that unequivocally denounces antisemitism. It comes less than three months after the House brought another resolution of the sort, but changed the wording at the last minute to speak of “bigotry of all kinds” instead of clearly denouncing antisemitism. This is a bold and necessary move in the right direction at a time in our history when global antisemitism is increasing exponentially on a daily basis. That resolution is definitely a move in the right direction. It uses words that cannot be misconstrued. The opening statement says ” Antisemitism is a unique form of prejudice stretching back millennia that attacks the equal humanity of the Jewish people.” It is indeed very unique and history’s longest-lasting hatred against one specific group of people. We need to take a close look at that bi-partisan resolution that was just passed unanimously. Indeed, we need to look at the good, the bad and the ugly! Let’s start with the ugly. What I think is very ugly, is the fact that we even have to pen such a resolution in 2019. How long will the Jewish people have to suffer unmerited persecution before the world wakes up to the reality of antisemitism? It is so despicable to have to come up with a resolution condemning antisemitism in all its forms, just a few months after a similar attempt was made, but watered down in its verbiage. It is pathetic that Senator Cruz would even have to list some of the myths that have been believed about the Jewish people. To be sure, I do not criticize Senator Cruz’ initiative, but rather the fact that he would even have to delineate what antisemitism has done over the last two millennia.

Part II will be published in the first week of January 2020.

November 2, 2019 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

What unites the Left more than its disdain for Trump?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that America’s political landscape is suffering from the worst case of polarization in its history. The amount of hatred for President Trump currently displayed by his opponents is mind-boggling. Republicans and Democrats used to be somewhat cordial even when disagreeing. They even found ways to advance and promote the United States in a bi-partisan way. Everything seems to indicate that these days are gone. Yet, there is something else that unites the Left even more than their disdain for Trump, it is their hatred for Israel and the Jewish people. It doesn’t always appear to be that bad, but under a thin veneer of social justice and multiculturalism, antisemitism is quickly identified.

One of the most asked questions, when I speak around the United States, has to do with the American Jewish community’s apparent support of the Leftist agenda. With a puzzled look on their faces, people often ask me to explain why so many Jewish people vote Democrat. I must say that as a Jew, I don’t categorize myself as either a Democrat or a Republican. Yet, I would tend to be very conservative. This being said, I could have voted for a Democrat like JFK back in the days, but Democrats of yesteryear are a far cry from today’s Left.

So what makes Jewish people in America vote Democrat? First, the Republican party often appears to be the party of “Right-wing bigots” or “white supremacists.” It is often thought to be a party that aligns itself with the political agenda of Nazi Germany, and we all know how that played out for 6,000,000 Jews. Incidentally, the Nazi Party or “The National Socialist German Workers’ Party” had “Socialist” in its name. To this day, its adherence to a Socialist agenda is widely debated. Hitler might have used the word “Socialist” to attract people to a movement that would end-up becoming a totalitarian, genocidal party closer to Fascism than Socialism. Instead of looking at what we call a political spectrum with moderate in the center of Left and Right, we need to consider a full circle with Left and Right getting closer together the further they move away from the moderate center. Eventually, they meet on the other end of that circle. Let’s face it, extreme Right and extreme Left promote a lot of the same agendas.

Another reason why Jews vote Democrat is that the more liberal agenda of the Democrats appeals to the Jewish community at large–at the very least to the 85%+ who are not religious. The issue is that to the non-religious Jews, social justice is more important than Israel, Jewish identity or even Jewish survival. Jewish identity used to be connected to a feeling of belonging to Israel one way or another. Support for Israel was much stronger from American Jews a couple of decades ago. It appears that the non-religious Jewish community finds more solace in supporting any sort of social justice agenda rather than supporting Israel. In the process, they seem to ignore–willfully or not–that the Left is anti-Israel, period! Consider the following:

• Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren recently said she will “reverse President Trump’s policy decisions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to restore aid to the Palestinians, resuming support for the U.N. agency that assists Palestinian refugees and inviting a Palestinian envoy back to Washington.” She completely ignored the way that the Palestinian leadership goes about things ie: Rocket launching out of Gaza and other acts of terrorism.

• The liberal Jewish organization J Street met recently for its eighth annual conference where they clearly pushed the idea that the USA should withhold aid to Israel to promote peace in the Middle East. Many of the current Democratic candidates for 2020 were present and in support of that move. As JTA reported J Street president Ben-Ami said “assistance to Israel could be checked against, for instance, the Arms Export Control Act, which requires U.S. arms sales to be used strictly for self-defense.” Well, is there still any doubt–at least in the minds of people of goodwill– that Israel is always acting in self-defense, only retaliating because of acts of terrorism, but never initiating acts of terror?

• Bernie Sanders (a Jew) declared that he would rather have some of the money the USA gives to Israel be re-routed to Gaza. He said, “My solution is, to Israel, if you want military aid you’re going to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of Gaza,” he said. “I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza.” What for, Mr. Sanders? More rockets, more tunnels or more money to reward the families of homicide bombers? Incidentally, for reasons that totally escape me, Muslim feminist activist Linda Sarsour has become Sanders’ campaign surrogate. Somebody needs to explain to her that the words “Muslim” and “Feminist” are oxymoronic at best unless she is a trojan horse slowly making her way into the American political landscape. Consider the concept of taqiyya where it is OK for a Muslim to lie to “gain the upper-hand over an enemy.” This obviously does not mean that all Muslims are deceivers, but rather, that some in powerful positions have agendas that are unethical and as a result, make a bad name for the rest of the Muslim community.

A lot more could be said to make a case against the Left’s antisemitic agenda. Overwhelming growing support for BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel for “occupation” and “colonization” of “Palestine” is a recurring problem based on hearsay. Campus indoctrination of our youth against Israel, known as “Campus Intifada” is also going rampant. Are we becoming responsible for raising a new generation of Jew-haters?

At the end of the day, the Leftist antisemitic agenda–albeit not always physically violent–encourages those on the fringe of society to act against Jewish people in America and the rest of the world. Physical harm resulting in death is now a recurring very alarming theme for the Jewish global community. America has long been the friend of Israel, based on our Judeo/Christian common heritage. Biblically speaking, Israel remains in God’s program and will never be destroyed (Jeremiah 31:35-37), but too many on the Left have little regard for God or His Word. While it is not always a black and white proposition, I still think that it is time for American Jews to consider moving away from the party that wants them dead and join the party that understands Israel’s right to exist in her ancestral biblical land.

October 12, 2019 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

New Training Grounds for the Next Generation of Anti-Semites!

If you have been following my writing for the last two decades, you are already aware that “the oldest hatred” has been morphing from the taboo racial antisemitism of the 30s and 40s to a social justice struggle. Incidentally, another word for struggle is jihad! Antisemitism being the irrational hatred of the Jewish people characterized by thoughts, deeds or words against them, it now can come from any perspective, and it does!

When something is irrational, you can expect two things: First, it can materialize in any way under the sun, and second, it will be widely accepted by the masses even though it makes no sense at all. That is why we have been seeing people like liberals and progressives join forces with radical Islamists against Israel. They meet nowhere on the ideological spectrum on any topic except the annihilation of all Jews and the eradication of Israel from the map of the Middle East.

One place where antisemitism runs rampant and almost always completely unchecked is the Ameican university campus. This is the place where young people fresh out of high school come to learn and hopefully become equipped for life and career. These young minds are very malleable and usually very open to change their philosophical, social, political and/ or spiritual position. That is if they already had such a position before entering college. Many enter the campus with a belief in God and by the time they graduate, they have become atheists or agnostics at best. A university campus is a place of indoctrination like no other. This cannot be more evident than when it pertains to Jewish things.

The new antisemites have known that fact for quite a while now, and the educational platform has been used and abused to demonize, ostracize and even verbally and physically abuse the Jewish people. The American university campus has become the new training ground for the next generation of antisemites! Consider these staggering statistics from The AMCHA Initiative, which according to their own website is “a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about, and combating antisemitism at institutions of higher education in America.” These statistics are for the last year.

• Classical antisemitic incidents have decreased by 42%, but Israel-related incidents significantly increased by 70% in both number and intensity.
• Demonizing and delegitimizing Israel have increased by 32%.
• Expressions used to demonize Israel have increased from 22% to 147%.
• Promoting or condoning terrorism against Israel has increased by 67%.
• Promoting academic BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) has more than doubled.
• Academic BDS-compliant behavior was linked to 86% of Israel-related acts of antisemitic harassment.
• The promotion of BDS-related activity has more than quadrupled.
• The number of events sponsored by school faculty and encouraging the demonization or delegitimization of Israel increased by 85%.

As AMCHA concluded‘ “our results suggest that academic BDS is itself simply a tool, albeit the primary tool on college campuses today, for carrying out the eliminationist goals of anti-Zionism. They also highlight the fact that attempts to promote or carry out anti-Zionism’s eliminationist goals can’t help but inflict direct and substantive harm on Israel’s on-campus supporters, particularly Jewish and pro-Israel students.”

These resulted in various behaviors including discrimination, attacks on freedom of speech, bullying, genocidal behavior, destruction of property and even physical abuse. Students don’t even have to be Jewish anymore, they simply need to be perceived as pro-Israel and they are at risk.

The American university campus has become the new training ground for the next generation of antisemites because this new generation is vastly illiterate when it comes to world history or even American history for that matter. When you don’t know who Stalin was or what Hitler did, you are more prone to judge history and current events, based on your own set of preconceived notions about social justice. As a result, you end-up believing in any narrative that paints victims and perpetrators as in the case of the Middle East crisis.

American college campuses are quickly becoming the most dangerous places when it comes to raising a generation of Jew /Israel haters. The indoctrination comes from academic sources and school faculty, which is even scarier because they should know better. So, it is often a case of educated people indoctrinating unaware, gullible students. One group is guilty of antisemitism by commission and the other one out of ignorance. In the meantime, Israel and the Jews are caught in the middle and suffer greatly. I don’t dare project when this generation will enter the workforce, ill-equipped to handle life, yet passionate about destroying Israel!

September 5, 2019 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Is There Such a Thing as Christian Anti-Semitism?

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?

It is really unfortunate that our Bible (Old and New Testaments) would be divided into two parts. Things would be a lot simpler if we looked at the whole counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation but separated by what is known as “the 400 silent years”, we have the Jewish Scriptures (written in Hebrew) and the Greek Scriptures (written in Greek and Aramaic), thus started the chasm between the two. Words and concepts are not completely transferable from Hebrew to Greek, and the two different cultures added further challenges to God’s message through the ages.

Nobody can deny that the coming of Yeshua onto the scene changed everything. The Jewish leadership of His days felt threatened, intimidated and at times humiliated. The guardians of the Mosaic Law were being challenged by one who came to fulfill that Law, and yet never broke one of its commandments. Additionally, even though He first came for His own according to the flesh, He included Gentiles. It wasn’t long before the very Gentiles who had been excluded but were now grafted in started to take over and slowly forced the erosion of Jewish traditions within Christianity. By AD 325 at the council of Nicaea, much of the Jewishness of Christianity had disappeared or was being further diluted into a faith that couldn’t relate to its own roots any longer.

Early Church Fathers had started to deviate from a literal, historical/grammatical approach to the Bible. Their allegorical interpretations slowly led them to see Israel as a demonized people who had been replaced by the Church. The uneducated masses gladly followed suit and the Jews started to become a burden and a deadweight wherever they could be found. It would take until the Holocaust to have a people group attempt to radically and systematically eradicate European Jewry. Jews had become vermin or a sub-human race, and as such, total annihilation was the only solution. It was “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question” as Nazi Germany expressed euphemistically. All or most of it, when you ask Jewish people, was done by Christians. But was it? An honest approach to the issue would prove otherwise:

• 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 exception.) The context 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.”

• 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)? 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 used, 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 really play a role in their guilt. This is what we could call the “Great Christian Departure.” The Church started to attach the non-related Jewishness to the sins of the early [Jewish] believers and before long, being Jewish was 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, that 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 them “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 around 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 times guilty of the same crime. By the same logic, all Germans would be Nazis and all Muslims would-be terrorists. This is ludicrous! But 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 of 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 mistaken as the Jewish people who paint–with broad strokes– that all Christians are antisemitic. The New Testament is not antisemitic, but it does expose human nature and universal sin for all people Gentiles and Jews alike. It is time to keep things in context and approach God’s word with humility and sincerity.

Subscribe to our Daily Devotions

Archived Articles

Tags