Holocaust

September 11, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The Danger of Antisemitism by Omission!

Too often, people have a propensity to ignore issues if they feel that they are not directly concerned or if the issues are far enough from them geographically or otherwise. People might think, ” the riots and protests are not my neighborhood, so I am ok!” or ” the fires are not putting my house in danger, they are too far, we are safe.” Unfortunately, apathy can be part of human nature to the point where we ignore the obvious if the obvious doesn’t affect us at a critical level. At least critical to us.

So, many people will reason with themselves and think, “I am NOT antisemitic, but I am also NOT Jewish!” People will quickly claim that they don’t hate the Jews, that they don’t wish them any harm at all. They will also agree that antisemitism is wrong, and yet they will not hesitate to look the other way when acts of antisemitism are committed. Hurting Jewish people directly, verbally, or physically is antisemitism by commission while ignoring their troubles is antisemitism by omission. They are both wrong!

In the early 1940s, Maurice Weinzveig, my Russian maternal grandfather was hiding in the cellar of our Paris residence. He knew that Paris had become very dangerous for a Jew without naturalization papers. He had to keep quiet and hidden for a while to protect his life and that of his wife and daughter (my mother.) Unbeknownst to Maurice, a gentile neighbor who worked for the French police and who was secretly in love with my grandmother, wanted to get rid of her husband, “the Jew.” He called the Gestapo and let them know that there was a Jew hiding in his building. They came, they took him, they sent him to Auschwitz, and he perished in the smokestacks of the Nazi factory of death.

When the Gestapo showed up at our residence, the guilty neighbor stayed home behind closed doors. Incidentally, he lived long enough so that I would meet him as a young kid. Nobody could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he had called the Gestapo, but the whole building knew that it was him, so he never paid for his crimes. He even had me sit on his lap a few times as a little boy. I get chills down my spine when I recall those moments. He was guilty of antisemitism by commission.

But what about the numerous neighbors in the same building who witnessed all the raucous movement up and down their building? They chose to remain silent, discreetly observing behind the privacy of their window blinders, as if they couldn’t do one thing to prevent the two Gestapo officers from apprehending my grandfather. Some feared for their lives and that of their own families; others felt powerless against the Nazi regime. How many were thinking, “I am not Jewish; this is none of my business?” Hard to say. The truth is that they became apathetic bystanders, and a bystander who does nothing only facilitates the crimes of the perpetrator. See something and say or do nothing… and that my friend, is antisemitism by omission.

So, how does that concept translate to 2020 and the current multifaceted crisis that we are all in? In other words, what does this have to do with the virus, the riots, the economy, or any other crises we are dealing with as a society? Once again, and very sadly, the thread is Israel and the Jews:

Covid-19: The Jewish people have been accused of creating, causing and even spreading the virus to the world for two reasons: To “take over the world’ and to “monetize” the vaccine/cure that they have developed. This hardly explains how Israel is currently suffering from a huge spike of new cases of Covid-19. One response from antisemites has been to encourage people to infect Jewish people by coughing on them. As early as last Spring, coining the new word “Holocough” made of the two words “Holocaust” and “cough,” antisemites flooded the social networks with the idea. People might say: “But I am not Jewish, so how does that concern me?”

The Protests/Riots: The tragic death of George Floyd precipitated America into regional protests that quickly became uncontrollable riots like those seen in Portland, Oregon for the last three months. Some people found it interesting to spread the rumor that American police officers were being trained by IDF officers in using methods that include the way George Floyd was chocked to death. The group known as US Campaign for Palestinian Rights came up with that unfounded accusation. Additionally, the DOJ is investigating the possibility of ties between the BLM movement and terrorist organizations. Terminology like “intifada” or “from Minneapolis to Palestine, Racism is a crime” are showing up on street signs, graffiti and social networks. Once again, the Jews and Israel are being blamed for the racial unrest, either directly or indirectly. People might say: “Black lives matter, and I am not Jewish, so how does the other stuff concern me?”

QAnon: The strange attraction that people have for the mysterious group known as QAnon is also leading people to blame the Jews. QAnon is some sort of conspiracy theory from an alt-right ideology. It is supposed to ANONymously expose the international Jewish cabal to destroy Donald Trump and take over the world. The fact that it is based on a hoax from 1904–The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion- that has been debunked over and over, doesn’t seem to stop QAnon adherents. They claim that the Rothschilds are behind the whole agenda of controlling the USA behind the scenes. Sadly, they haven’t been denounced more forcefully by the current administration. People might say: “QAnon is just a conspiracy theory and I am not Jewish, so how does that concern me?”

The easiest scapegoat for humanity has been the Jews for the last 2,000 years. Irrational behavior against the chosen people of God has gone uninterrupted for a very long time. The enemy of God and the Jewish people, Satan himself, is turning the irrational into the rational, acceptable and even the expected. But we do not have to accept the irrational blindly. Rabbi, philosopher and activist Abraham Joshua Heschel who marched with Martin Luther King during the Civil Rights Movement said: “Few are guilty, but all are responsible.” I would like to add to that that we can become guilty because of apathy. Jews and Blacks marching together against racism…Those days are gone!

Antisemitism by omission is still antisemitism. It might be watered down because people do not carry the guilt of being the main players in the longest hatred, but it is still dangerous, nonetheless. We cannot afford to remain silent about any form of injustice, period! For some reason, people will fight for various causes when they can be convinced that their voices and actions count for something. When people don’t feel concerned or in danger for their safety or even just for their comfort, they become apathetic. They feel like it is not their fight. But sitting on the fence of Jew-hatred is not an option. Indifference becomes our guilt.

Everything seems to indicate that the biblical predictions about the world going against Israel and the Jews are coming to fruition in our lifetime and rapidly (Zechariah 12:1-8; Daniel 9:27; Revelation 12.) Soon, we will all answer to a higher authority, and the God of Israel who calls the Jewish people the “Apple of my Eye” will not say to us, “don’t worry, you were not Jewish, so, this didn’t concern you!” While salvation cannot be lost, heavenly rewards can. We have a choice!

“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.” Albert Einstein

September 4, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Let’s Set the Record Straight About Zionism – Part II

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we defined Zionism and looked at its early development all the way up to the First World War. Key events occurred in the first two decades of the twentieth century that would further define and help establish Zionism as we know it today. They are worth mentioning. For this, we need to go back to the summer of 1914.

June 28, 1914 saw the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. As a result, WWI was declared, and the face of Europe changed forever. At the beginning of WWI, eighty percent of the ten million Jews of Europe lived in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires. The Jewish communities of Europe had grown accustomed to hardship and had endured many forms of antisemitism. Unfortunately, the advent of WWI worsened their condition as their lives became once again punctuated by lootings, pogroms, and expulsions.

As the war progressed, allied nations ratified various treaties and worked on agreements to share the spoils. It was soon agreed that the Ottoman Empire would have to be divided. One treaty superseded the previous; and by the end of the war, the British had conquered the area known as “Palestine” since the first century. In the midst of all negotiations, Britain officially endorsed the Zionist program; and almost overnight, Zionism started to take root in the Holy Land. This was a major step in the right direction for the Jewish people, yet the surprise of a British endorsement would eventually be overtaken by the shock of a British about-face.

The British government being favorable to a Jewish homeland started to meet with Zionist leaders towards the end of the WWI. One important figure of that time who would also become Israel’s first President, was Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952). Diplomacy continued to play a part in the furtherance of the Zionist agenda, and Weizmann was good at it.

In 1906, Weizmann had just helped the British by sharing his formula to better produce acetone (related to the production of TNT), an invention that helped greatly with the war effort. Consequently, he became pretty close to Lord David Lloyd George, who would later become prime minister of England. But it was not until Weizmann had a meeting with Lord Arthur James Balfour that things began to crystallize. Balfour, who had tried to convince Weizmann that the Uganda proposal as the new Jewish homeland was a good deal, somehow ended up convinced by Weizmann that only the land of “Palestine” would be acceptable. From that point on, Balfour became a Zionist. Weizmann met Balfour again when Lloyd George was prime minister, and Balfour told him: “You know, I was thinking of that conversation of ours in 1906 and I believe that when the guns stop firing, you may get your Jerusalem.”

In 1917, after having become a British citizen, Weizmann became the first President of the British Federation and worked feverishly with Lord Balfour to develop what would be known as the “Balfour Declaration.” This milestone for Zionism vindicated the works of Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, and other key Zionist leaders. Things appeared to be looking up for the Jewish people and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in “Palestine.” The Declaration stated: His Majesty’s government view[s] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

In 1919, Balfour reiterated Britain’s favor of the establishment of a Jewish homeland in “Palestine”, and included a commitment from France, Italy, and the United State: “The Four Great Powers [Britain, France, Italy and the United States] are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, and future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion that is right.”

Just as historian Abba Eban said: “The Balfour Declaration is the decisive victory of the Jewish people in modern history.” In 1922, following the historic concept found in the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations (an organization charged with using diplomacy to maintain peace, and a precursor of the United Nations) had a say. It approved the British Mandate for “Palestine”, giving Britain jurisdiction over the Holy Land and thereby authority to help with the securing of a Jewish Homeland.

A disagreement arose as a direct result of two conflicting promises being extended during World War I (WWI) by the British government regarding the Holy Land. One promise was made to the Arabs as a reward for help against the Ottoman Empire, and a conflicting one to the Jewish people through the Balfour Declaration. These two conflicting promises would create a serious hindrance to the advancement of Zionism. By the delay in enacting a Jewish homeland, the annihilation of millions of Jewish people during the Holocaust of WWII was facilitated.
While Zionist pioneers continued to settle in “Palestine”, the world was again about to enter into conflict. Once again, the Jewish people would become the scapegoats of humanity, this time in proportions that had never been reached before.

Additionally, the large influx of Jewish people fleeing a pre-WWII Europe for “Palestine” led to the Arab revolt of 1936-39. This nationalistic uprising for independence from the British wasn’t successful for the Arabs, but it led the British forces to pay attention to some of the Jewish groups present in the area such as the pioneer group known as the Haganah which later became the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).
After witnessing the failed revolt and very concerned, Britain responded by appointing a Royal Commission, known as the Peel Commission, which recommended that “Palestine” be partitioned into Arab and Jewish lands. The Peel Commission led to the publishing of the “1939 White Paper” by Britain that would change the promises made by Lord Balfour and seriously limit Jewish immigration into “Palestine” at a time when Jewish people were being led in droves to the gas chambers. Closing the door to a safe place for Jews to settle was poor timing, to say the least!

“The war against the Jews” as author Lucy Dawidowicz called WWII, eventually ended in 1945 with the capitulation of Germany. Three years later in 1948, another milestone of prophetic proportions was about to take place. Israel was about to be reborn as a modern nation. Was it the result of the Holocaust or the persistent toiling of the early Zionist fathers? Or both? It is impossible to determine clearly, but it had to happen for future unfulfilled Bible prophecies to eventually take place. The fact remains that much of the groundwork laid out by visionaries such as Herzl, Weizmann, Ha’am, and Ben Yehuda was about to pay off, yet not without a further sacrifice that is still being felt today in the twenty-first century.

Many followers of Yeshua look at the Bible and clearly see that God is NOT done with Israel. They see a glorious future for the people and the Land. They understand that the promises of Genesis 12:3 still stand, and they want to be in the center of God’s will by blessing the people that He calls “the apple of [His] eye” (Zechariah 2:8). Believers in Yeshua who recognize Israel’s biblical and historical right to the Land and the Jewish people’s right to return to the Land are often called Christian Zionists. God Himself declared this plan in His Word; thus, Christian Zionism is a noble cause and is part of what every Bible-believing Christian should promote.

It is a fact that there is a lot of Scriptural evidence validating the claims of Zionism, not to mention the fact that God Himself said that only HE owned the Land in Leviticus 25:23: “The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me.”

Zionism continues to weave like an uninterrupted thread through the tapestry of Jewish history. If Zionism has existed for a long time, we also cannot deny that God has used people like Herzl, Ha’am, Ben Yehuda, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and many others to further promote the right of the Jewish people to their ancestral Land of Israel. What God established, no man can destroy (Jeremiah 31:35-37). In the words of Abba Eban, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, a diplomat and politician: “Zionism is nothing more – but also nothing less – than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name.”

By the way, let me finish with this thought, as Israel is often accused of Ethnic Cleansing. Ethnic cleansing or genocide is intentional organized mass murder to eradicate a people group. The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust qualify as ethnic cleansings. In 1947 there were about 1.2 MM Arabs in British Mandate Palestine. Today, there are about 6 MM Arabs in the whole land, including 1.8 MM in Israel alone. There are more Arabs in Israel today than before 1947. This is the opposite of ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, there are still less Jewish people in 2019 than there were prior to the Holocaust. It does pay to check facts!

The foundation for Zionism was established by the very first Zionist – God Himself – in the book of Genesis. Incidentally, being a Zionist doesn’t require one to be anti-Palestinian, but sadly, and for some irrational reason, being pro-Palestinian seems to require being anti-Zionist and thus antisemitic!

August 29, 2020 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Let’s Set the Record Straight About Zionism – Part I

The terms “Zionism” and “Zionist” were coined in 1890 by Jewish activist Nathan Birnbaum (1864-1937), who also played an important part in the first Zionist Congress held in 1897, (and renamed the World Zionist Organization in 1960) alongside its first president, Theodore Herzl. The word Zion comes from the Hebrew tzion, a reference to Jerusalem and often, by extension, to the Land of Israel itself (first mentioned in II Samuel 5:7.)“Nevertheless, David captured the stronghold of Zion, that is the city of David.”According to scholar Mitchell Bard, Zionism is: “The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.”One doesn’t need to peruse the news for too long before reading or hearing about Zionism. So, it becomes necessary to go back in history to understand how Zionism came about.

European Jews had suffered at the hands of many popes, kings, and the masses since the Early Church Fathers. Anti-Semitism, in many shapes, from theological to social to ethnic, had punctuated Jewish life throughout the centuries, limiting if not eliminating any semblance of normalcy within the Jewish communities of Europe. The Crusades, the crushing hatred unleashed by false claims of blood libel against the Jewish people, the 1492 Spanish Inquisition and the creation of the first Ghetto in Italy in 1516, to name a few, were ominous milestones of terror against the Jewish people on the timeline of Jewish history. It would eventually get much worse, with the Russian pogroms (massacres occurring during fomented riots against the Jews in the Ghettos and the shtetls) and the Holocaust (1933-1945), a systematic extermination in which six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

After all this persecution and devastation, something had to change. Jewish people felt they had to “leave the Ghetto” not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well. In the midst of their misery, the Jewish people saw a ray of hope with the advent of the Haskalah. The Haskalah, also known as the Jewish Enlightenment, was a movement among European Jews of the 17th and 18th centuries advocating a more secularized way of life, hopefully leading to their emancipation and thus better integration into a non-Jewish society. Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and the father of the Haskalah. The result of the Haskalah was a new emphasis on Jewish culture and history, much of it apart from religion. It was adapted to various Jewish communities across Western and Eastern Europe. For a short while, there seemed to be a period of respite for the Jewish people. Emancipation was working, or was it?

In 1894 France, at a time when Jewish people thought that their emancipation had prevailed, an event occurred that interrupted that hope. French Alsatian Jew, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was accused of treason against the French Government. In a vitriolic explosion of hatred, anti-Semitism appeared once again in the treatment of Captain Dreyfus and the spillover to the French Jewish people in general. Mobs took to the streets of Paris, screaming, “Death to the Jews!” Even though Captain Dreyfus was later cleared and even fully reinstated in 1906, the climate had changed in France. In a sense, what is today still known as the Dreyfus Affair, was the catalyst for conceiving of and pursuing Zionism.

A Vienna newspaper sent their Paris correspondent, Hungarian journalist, Theodor Herzl, to cover the Dreyfus Affair. To be sure, Herzl’s obsession with Jewish existence in a land of their own predated the Dreyfus Affair. But it is the very treatment of Captain Dreyfus and, by association, the Jews of France, that prompted Theodor Herzl to compile his work of several years into the historic pamphlet Der Judenstaat or “The Jewish State,” published in Vienna in 1896 in which he stated: “Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland.…Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.” Herzl was convinced that the only viable solution was a mass exodus of the Jews of Europe back to Israel, the land of their ancestors, as he further stated: “Political principle will provide the basis, technology the means and the driving force will be the Jewish tragedy.” Theodor Herzl, if not the originator of the concept of Zionism, was definitely the visionary, catalyst and leader of political Zionism. Let me just remind all of us that the word Palestine is used in this article ONLY as the name for the geographical area known as Israel, prior to 1948.)

So, Herzl started lobbying for the Jewish people’s return to a safe land of their own. He first met with German Kaiser Wilhelm II in Istanbul in 1898 in an effort to convince him to help secure land in Israel. But Herzl wasn’t taken very seriously; and the Kaiser, influenced by his own anti-Semitic tendencies, flatly rejected Herzl’s appeals for a Jewish homeland. Disappointed and frustrated but not discouraged, Herzl met with British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain who, as a compromise, offered the Jews the country of Uganda in Eastern Africa. Eventually, in 1903, during the sixth Zionist Congress, and by now rather discouraged, Herzl proposed the move of the Jewish people to Uganda, as a temporary solution until Palestine could be secured. The Jewish people who followed his leadership reacted immediately and, at the sight of a possible split within the Zionist movement, Herzl decided against the compromise Herzl died a year later in Vienna at age 44, having spent most of his adult life fighting for a Jewish homeland.

In Vienna in 1897, he had said, almost prophetically: “At Basle I created the Jewish State. In five years, perhaps, and certainly in fifty, everyone will see it.” It is exactly 50 years later in November 1947, that the United Nations officially voted for the partition of British Mandate Palestine, later to become Eretz Yisrael on May 14, 1948. One could argue that during Herzl’s life, Zionism was mainly a political movement relying on diplomacy for any sustainable existence. But even Herzl saw that “political Zionism” and “practical Zionism,” while having the same goal, had different methods. The chasm would divide further as the Jewish homeland became more of a reality. Herzl had worked hard at gathering funds, yet they hadn’t been disbursed significantly, and a move from the theoretical to the practical was necessary. Additionally, there was a serious push for a Hebrew renaissance. The idea of a “cultural Zionism,” mostly introduced by Russian Jews, appealed to a wider spectrum within the Jewish community; while “political Zionism” left many of the more religious leaders unsatisfied and unable to relate to the cause.

A key player who had not always seen eye-to-eye with Herzl was Russian Jewish essayist, Asher Ginsberg (1856-1927), who went by the pen name of Ahad Ha’am, Hebrew for “one of the people.” Ha’am is known as the father of “cultural Zionism,” and his vision was “a Jewish State and not merely a State of Jews.” He felt that Jewish people should return gradually to Palestine while Diaspora Jews should be given a vision of the new homeland making them jealous and thus drawing them to a move. Another important figure in the fight for a cultural rebirth was Hebrew Lexicographer, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who immigrated to Israel during the first Aliyah of 1881, and dedicated the rest of his life, not without tremendous hardship, to the rebirth of Hebrew as a modern tongue.

Robert St. John, Ben Yehuda’s biographer, wrote of him in Tongue of the Prophets: “In twenty years he had fathered ten children. Five had died but five still lived. Two of them spoke fluently the language he had spent so much of these twenty years trying to bring back to life. More important, the streets of Jerusalem, the market places, the villages scattered over the desert were thronged with other Jews who spoke this same revived language.”

In the decade following Herzl’s death, Zionist influx continued in the Holy Land, and about 100,000 pioneers lived there. Times were hard, workdays were long, and poverty was rampant; but the spirit of hope kept Zionism alive. On the eve of World War One, Zionism had become a reality; a fragile one, but a reality, nonetheless.

August 1, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

There is a precedent for blind conformism, and you won’t like it!

The dictionary defines a conformist as:“A person who uncritically or habitually conforms to the customs, rules, or styles of a group”, and conformism as:” the tendency to adopt the attitudes, behavior, dress, etc, of the group to which one belongs.” In and of itself, conformism is neutral, it is just an action by someone in an effort to fit within a certain community, movement or group. When conformism becomes very dangerous, is when people conform to ideals or rules that are anti-constitutional or totalitarian.

People will conform for many reasons. Some will conform to fit in and be accepted by their community and peers. That is when conformity meets compromise. Others will conform simply by personal choice because they desire to make a change in their lifestyle that they deem necessary. There is yet another group of conformists; those who conform in fear for their lives as they are being forced by some sort of authority to do so. Fear is a powerful deterrent. When people conform out of fear, they usually do not realize that they are being conditioned for something bigger or for a later crisis. Are we being conditioned and if yes, for what? I understand that some people will think that I am over-reacting or seeing things that are not real. But please, bear with me!

There is a saying that goes like this:” Everybody called Noah a conspiracy theorist…until it started to rain!” Let me explain conditioning and conformism in a way that should clarify why I am very concerned about the current situation.

During the early stages of WW2, most of the world wouldn’t even believe that the Nazi war machine would be capable of such a carnage as the Holocaust. European Jews were slowly asked to comply with local authorities. “It is for your own safety!” They were told. So, as my paternal grandfather (who fought the great war of 1914-1918) did in Paris, Jews started to comply with the local authorities and slowly brought their radio sets to their police stations, not fully realizing that they were willingly disconnecting themselves from the world and the news.

Soon after that, my grandfather followed his people and brought his bicycle to the nearest police station, conforming to what was expected of him and the Jewish community “for their own safety”, again not fully realizing that their movement were being crippled as they all became forced pedestrians. The radios and bicycles were two of the many thin slices cut off the long salami of freedom. You cut enough thin slices one at a time and people don’t really notice until the salami is all gone. Pardon the analogy!

Then came the bolder moves. Jews had to have their ID cards stamped in red with the added name of “Sarah” for women and “Israel” for Men, as an easier way to identify them on the streets of Europe. But eventually, this was not enough. The authorities needed a way to identify Jews at a glance, so the 12th century French yellow circle known as “la rouelle”, previously used to identify Jews during the Middle Ages, was re-introduced. This time the color was the same, but the shape shifted. Enter the yellow star with the word “JEW” on it. But not to worry, it was for their own safety! My mother remembered having to take the last car on the subway as she was forced to display the infamous yellow patch that she had sewn on all her garments. I remember her telling me that at the risk of getting caught and possibly killed, she always worked hard at covering it up with a scarf.

Yet again, keeping Jews in their homes crippled and uninformed wasn’t enough, so we started to see the organizing of large, forced Jewish communities, contained behind walls. The Ghetto was reborn (it originally was created in Venice, Italy in 1516.) Jews became segregated in large numbers in various Eastern European ghettos in cities like Lodz and Warsaw. But it was for their own safety! Yeah right! Ghetto life was unhealthy, dangerous and infested with diseases. Death was running rampant.

But the answer to “the Jewish question” wouldn’t come until the Wannsee Conference when Hitler and his people decided to implement the Camps. First internment, then forced labor and eventually, the gas chambers and crematoriums. Was it still for our own safety? “Just bring in your radio sets”, they said. How did we get to the gas chambers from there? Conformism, compliance and blind obedience! But what does it have to do with 2020?
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I am convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that as the world is confining and conforming, we are being conditioned and prepared for the coming of the Antichrist and the New World Order. I have believed that this was coming since my early days as a believer in the mid-80s, but I didn’t think that I would live through its birth pangs.

I feel that it is important at this point to re-iterate the fact that as a Bible believing follower of Yeshua, I also am convinced that the event known as the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:15-16; 1 Cor. 15:52), will take place before the event known as the seven-year Great Tribulation and the 1,000-year long Millennial Kingdom (also known as the Messianic Kingdom.) This being said, there is no indication in the Bible that things will not become increasingly difficult and even violent before the events of the Great Tribulation. Current world events seem to indicate that.

What I see happening around the world in general, and in America in particular, is a conditioning of the people through fear. Covid-19 showed up and we were all told to stay put for 14 days. Don’t quote me wrong, I do believe in the real danger posed by the virus, but how it has been handled is cause for great concern The first shelter-in-place order was in California on March 16, 2020. The 14 days of confinement and social distancing have turned into 123 days SO FAR, with no sight of return to normal in sight. Each state has its own regulations, but for the most part, people are being forced to conform “for their own safety and the safety of others.”

First they asked us to stay home for two weeks for our own safety. Then we were asked to social distance for our own safety. Then we were told to wear masks in public places “for our own safety” to the point where some stores will refuse service if you do not wear a mask, not to mention the stink eye you get from people for not wearing one. Over 90% of people are wearing masks that offer zero protection from any kind of virus, let alone Covid-19. It is akin to throwing sand at a chain-link fence, most of it will go through. I see the masks as pure conditioning of the people.

So, when a vaccine is finally available, will you take it? what if the vaccine becomes the way you receive service from businesses, stores and restaurants? Remember, “it is for your own safety!” They closed the country, shut down the schools, churches, public gathering, and all this while instilling the fear of death and the fear of law-breaking in all good citizens. There is no sign of this changing at the very least until November 4th, but that’s a topic for another post.

We need to use common sense and be prudent. Social distancing is a good idea and washing hands has been a good thing since germs were discovered a very long time ago. Nothing new here! I am not certain that we can truly express our opinions and our freedom of choice anymore, but we must not be swayed in to thinking that this whole thing is for our own safety. It is much bigger than that. Not to mention the witch hunt against our current administration.

The Rapture and the Tribulation are real events. They will introduce a new player on the scene who is also spoken of in the Bible, that is the Antichrist. He too is very real and extremely dangerous, especially to the Jews but also to anyone who hasn’t placed their trust in Yeshua as their Messiah (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, John 3:16.) For believers today, we need to be reminded of Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

I only want to be conformed by the Holy Spirit to become more like Yeshua until I receive my eternal glorified body. In the meantime, my prayers for you and I is that we would use common sense and be bold about who we serve, who we bend the knee to and where we want to spend eternity.

June 25, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

If You Don’t Like History, Don’t Erase it, Teach it!

History has always been written with blood, sweat and tears, but never with disappearing ink. Unless you are H. G. Wells, armed with a pen, you cannot erase, ignore or alter the past. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be stopping a wave of people across our nation, advancing a politically motivated cultural revolution. This American cultural tsunami has taken our country by surprise, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. While I recognize that the protests are justified and that our system needs reform, I cannot understand or condone the riots, violence, looting or the accusation of “systemic racism.” Additionally, the bringing down of statues, paintings and other artifacts seems very far removed from the tragic murder of George Floyd.

There is a great danger in rewriting history, because it eradicates key events that future generations would end-up knowing nothing about. A powerful and sad example of that is what has happened with the Holocaust. A survey was taken in 2018 yielding terrifying results. Two-thirds of millennials in America do not know what Auschwitz was, and 25% do not know that six-million Jews died in the Holocaust. So, when historical revisionists creep in with their altered narrative, much of our young population doesn’t have the know-how or even the motivation to check the stories’ accuracy. Add to that the dwindling down of Holocaust survivors and pretty soon nobody will remember the Jewish catastrophe.

In a letter to General Dwight Eisenhower dated April 15, 1945, General George Marshall reported what he saw when he visited the concentration camp at Ohrdruf: “But the most interesting – although horrible – sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as ·to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. 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.”

General George Marshall’s discernment was very sobering. It is mind boggling that after witnessing such horrors in the camps, anybody would entertain the idea that one day, people would deny it or change the narrative to serve their own agenda. But almost prophetically, General Marshall saw the horrors of the Holocaust as potentially being denied, minimized and forgotten. It has only been seventy years, and a large percentage of our current youth doesn’t know what took place during the years of Nazi Germany. This is a chilling reality!

I do not like this part of history any more than an African American likes the horrible US legacy of slavery or a Native American likes the carnage that his ancestors endured when the first pioneers set foot on what became the USA. Likewise, I do not like the Holocaust years because of their bloody legacy in general, and because of the loss I experienced in my own family in particular. My maternal grandfather Maurice Weinzveig was taken during a round-up in Paris in the summer of 1942, sent to Auschwitz. He perished in the smokestacks, one of the six million Jewish Holocaust victims. I wish this never happened, but I cannot erase it from either my memory, my family’s collective memory or history. You do not see me destroying German property, loathing anybody German or even boycotting companies that were instrumental in the development of the systematic attempt at the destruction of all European Jews. Allow me to elaborate.

What about IBM and the Holocaust? Most people are completely unaware of the fact that IBM, with the help of German inventor Herman Hollerith, was instrumental in tallying and identifying Jews all over Europe. In 1933, computers didn’t exist, but the IBM punch card system was developed and used by Nazis for “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This all happened with the full knowledge of the IBM New York headquarters. It is terrifying to think that the Nazis were that organized, but the fact remains that many concentration camps inmates were registered upon entry with punch cards compatible with the IBM system. It is another part of history that is despicable and that I wish I could erase, but I cannot. You also don’t see me boycotting or destroying IBM property. By the current logic, I should go around and destroy any IBM computer I can get my hands on, just because IBM was instrumental in the killing of six million Jews and six million additional victims. This is absolutely ridiculous! Shame on IBM for their involvement in the Holocaust, but please, do not campaign for the destruction of all things IBM.

What about the Ford Motor Company, founded by Henri Ford, a proven antisemite who was admired by Adolph Hitler? In a previous article, I already made the point that the Ford Motors Company of 2020 is not that of 1920, but the founder’s name “Ford” remains in the name of the corporation. By the current standards, should we ask that the company be renamed because of the ugly, xenophobic past of its founder? And if we were to be consistent, we should also tear down the statue of Henri Ford located in River Rouge Michigan. Then you have the case of Father Charles Coughlin, the antisemitic Catholic Priest of the 1930s who used his very popular weekly radio broadcast to spew his venom on the air waves. Should we ban Catholicism and destroy all Catholic Churches and statues? What about Charles Lindbergh involvement with Hitler, Göring and even his consulting for the Luftwaffe (German Air-force)? Should we take down his statues in Minnesota, California, Georgia and other locations? Do you see where this is going?

It is much more important to tell it like it is and warn people about the ugliness and danger of racism and antisemitism than to topple any statue. Bringing a statue down will not stop people from being racist. Educating people on how to fight racism will go a lot further. Granted it is painful to relive parts of history for the purpose of teaching it to the next generation, it is crucial to do so. Following the logic–if you can call it logic–used by protesters and rioters today, all that they deem offensive must be destroyed. But where does it end? It simply doesn’t because various people will keep getting offended by all sorts of things that have taken place in history. Rewriting history is ignoring the problem and ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away. Teach history, teach the good the bad and the ugly history so that it can be identified, condemned and alleviated in the future. The alternative is an Orwellian universe that even those pushing statues off their pedestals today, do not wish for tomorrow. There is still time to stop the suicide of Western Civilization, but the clock is ticking!

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