Holocaust

July 5, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

6 Signs Reveal That We Are Back in the 1930s!

When I started the research in 2000 for my first book on antisemitism, I identified some troubling trends in the new antisemitism that were slowly becoming a reality. Most people looked at me funny when I claimed that what I was observing, appeared to be an ominous return to the 1930s and 1940s in Europe for the Jews. I was even called a conspiracy theorist, but it is only a conspiracy theory if it is not true, and as it turns out, my fears are now confirmed. We are in the 1930s and we haven’t seen the worst yet.

I have identified 6 signs revealing that we are in a 21st-century version of the 1930s. When we remember how that previous era ended for six million Jews, it should bring chills down our spine and it should really motivate people of goodwill in general and Bible-believing Christians in particular, to expose the lies and fight for the truth. The sad reality is that this time, not just the Jews are the target, but Christians as well. This being said, and as history has shown, the Jews are the first to be targeted and they are persecuted the most. There is a reason why antisemitism is often called the longest hatred.

1 – Demonization
Often, the first step in separating a people group from the rest of society is to make people believe that they are different in a negative and even dangerous way. This has been the stigma attached to my people for much of our history, from the Biblical record to the early Church Fathers to the medieval lords to the reformation to the Holocaust. Yet, it didn’t really stop because antisemitism never stops. Antisemitism is on a continuum that constantly reinvents itself to better attract more people towards hating the Jews. The demonization of the Jews is nothing new. We have been accused of crucifying Messiah from the day of the crucifixion to this day, a false accusation that can easily be debunked starting with the Bible in John 10:14-18, where Yeshua speaks of His death as a necessary part of God’s plan, and how He gave His own life for all and was able to take it back at His resurrection. Additionally, we have been called so many things from criminals to wild beasts to poisoners of wells to usurers to little devils to vermin and sub-human. The last two names were part of Nazi propaganda to dehumanize the Jews and facilitate their demonization. Vermin need to be exterminated for the safety of people, thus the Holocaust was thought of, justified, organized and six million times successful.
What about today? Are Jews still being demonized? You tell me. We are called the new Nazis of the Middle East, colonizers, occupiers, guilty of ethnic cleansing. The old antisemitism was going after the Jews in the Diaspora and the new antisemitism is going after them as well as Israelis and the Land of Israel as well. At the 2018 Convention of the Islamic Society of North America, American/Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour said, “if you’re on the side of the oppressor, or you’re defending the oppressor or you’re actually trying to humanize the oppressor, then that’s a problem sisters and brothers and we got to be able to say: that is not the position of the Muslim American community.” I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me that I am trying to humanize someone else, it must mean that they believe that someone else not to be human. If the Jews are not human, they become irrelevant to our society and demonization is ever so easier to commit. Linda Sarsour is closely connected to every member of “the Squad.”

2 – Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
The BDS movement has officially been going for 16 years now. It was started by two men, one of whom we all know well, Mahmoud Abbas (current leader of the Palestinian Authority), and Omar Barghouti from Qatar, who incidentally received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2017 for his efforts towards peace in the Middle East. Boycott, in and of itself, isn’t bad; it all depends on who or what one is boycotting, the reasons they do so and of course the integrity of the boycott. Abbas and Barghouti didn’t invent the boycott of Jewish people, products or inventions; they simply revived an age-old practice that was used in the 1930s. Not long after coming into power, the Nazi leadership started to boycott Jewish businesses and Jewish professionals. On April 1, 1933, they decided to station stormtroopers in front of Jewish stores and paint yellow stars of David on storefront windows. The boycott officially lasted only one day, and many Germans ignored it. Nevertheless, it was the start of a campaign of ostracization that would lead to more boycotts and confiscation of Jewish property.
The modern BDS movement relies on the ignorance of those it targets as recruits. Being in the entertainment industry, on the political scene, in academia or even in various Christian denominations, BDS influences people who have blindly bought the Palestinian victimhood narrative. The very fact that Omar Barghouti received the Gandhi Peace Award in 2017 for peace efforts, shows the hypocrisy and lack of understanding of the facts in the Middle East. It is so sad to see so many people infatuated with a false narrative cloaked in the attractive garment of social justice. The BDS movement continues to tighten its grip on Israel and Jewish products, inventions and people (with much hypocrisy as they only boycott what is convenient to them), and financed by liberals like George Soros.

3 – Pogroms
The first pogroms occurred in Eastern Europe in the mid to late 1800s. They mostly occurred within what was known as the Pale of Settlement. The Pale (1791-1913) included about 20 percent of European Russia and much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine and parts of western Russia, for a total of about 1,000,000 square miles. About 90 percent of Russian Jews lived inside the Pale, growing from 1.6 million in 1820 to 5.6 million in 1910. Life was very difficult, and additionally, the pogroms (Russian for “devastation”) of the 1870s through the 1910s created a very hostile environment that exacerbated the miserable conditions in which the Jews lived. The first pogrom might have been as early as 1821 in Odessa, Ukraine. The official reason given for the hundreds of subsequent pogroms was the assassination of Alexander II in 1880, for which some blamed the Jews. Pogroms became government-sponsored riots against the Jews, and they claimed the lives of many in the little Jewish shtetls (hamlets) of the Pale. They included looting, rape and murder.
While today’s pogroms might not be government-sponsored, they are mostly ignored by the authorities. To be sure, we are not seeing major destruction of Jewish property and lives like in the 19th-century pogroms, but today’s new antisemitism is expressed in ways that come very close. Consider the destructive attack on Jewish neighborhoods in conjunction with the murder of George Floyd. Jewish businesses were attacked and looted in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles where many Jews live. Graffiti such as “Free Palestine” and “F…Jews” were spray-painted on walls. What this has to do with George Floyd still escapes me.

4 – Blood libels and other accusations
While the world is still trying to recover from the pandemic that changed everything, to some people, the Jews are to blame for the virus. This is nothing new for the Jewish people, but more of a repeat of what took place in the 14th century. By the mid-1300s, with the advent of the “Black Death” or “Black Plague”, the legend of the poisoning of the wells of Europe had found fertile ground. It was the most devastating pandemic in the history of mankind, responsible for the death of about 75 million people worldwide (25 million in Europe alone) from 1347 to 1350. It was four years of horror for the Jewish communities of Europe. As the rest of the continent appeared to be on its way to total extinction, people started to look for a cause and it was not long before the Jews were once again used as the convenient “scapegoats of humanity”. Jewish people also died during the “Black Death”, but generally in lesser numbers. The Kosher laws Jewish people followed forced them to maintain stricter hygiene and thus resulted in fewer infections and fewer deaths than the communities around them. The Jews also lived in separate communities and the liturgical washing of hands before meals also kept them from being as sick or dying from the Black Death. However, even with these known facts and traditions, it didn’t stop the masses from destroying – slaughtering – over 200 Jewish communities.
So, today, and around the world, some are blaming the Jews for creating the virus to benefit from the sales of a vaccine; which is a combination of the poisoning of the wells of Europe and the myth of the greedy Jew. They come from the left, the right and religious groups worldwide. Some even claim that the Jews are more dangerous than Covid-19 and should be eliminated. Social media is the big culprit in allowing antisemitic rhetoric to go unchallenged and unpunished. More than 17,000 occurrences of the phrase “Hitler was right” have been found on various platforms and very little has been done to stop it. Recently, a Twitter post by ex-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) resurfaced where she claimed that Jews were behind 9-11

5 – Killings
Tragically, Jew-hatred rarely stops at the defacing of property or online threats. We have now entered a phase where Jews are being killed again. The Holocaust was the most devastating, organized genocide in the history of mankind. It was also the only of its kind where Jews were brought back to their death after they fled, making it incredibly unique. While the new antisemitism is not claiming the lives of Jews in the same manner and comparable numbers, just the idea that Jews would be massacred again should send chills down our spine. Perhaps France, more than any other civilized country, has seen the death of Jewish people in the last decade, and it is very alarming. This is why I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt that antisemitism has once again morphed into a more voracious beast: End-Times antisemitism.
The 2017 killing of Sarah Halimi in Paris, when she was thrown out the window of her apartment was one of the worst acts of antisemitic killing in recent years, and it is only one of several in 2012, 2015 and 2018. To add insult to injury, her killer was allowed to walk free without a trial because he had been found high on cannabis. This sets a precedent for the killing of Jews in France, and this should also be a wake-up call for French Jews. France is no longer a safe place for Jews. Let’s also not forget the Pittsburg Synagogue massacre and the one in San Diego. Jews worldwide now live in constant fear for their lives. It is not safe to walk outside with a yarmulke on your head or a star of David around your neck. They used to be potential targets for verbal abuse, but the abuse is now turning physical. It is not only on the streets that Jews are at risk. Just days ago, a bullet was fired at the window of a Brooklyn synagogue.

6- Apathy
As if all these signs weren’t enough to sound the alarm, there is one more aspect that must be brought up, and that is the apathy of the general public. For the most part, people don’t care about Jewish people being the victims of antisemitism. If they are not affected, they move on. This tragically is reminiscent of the Holocaust era when many looked the other way when trains overfilled with Jews passed through their towns. Even worse, as Erwin Lutzer documents in his book, When a Nation Forgets God, the story he heard from an eyewitness telling him how people would sing louder in church when they heard trains go through, packed with Jews in cattle cars: “I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it because what could we do to stop it. A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance, and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming, and when we heard the whistle blow, we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.”

The apathy of yesteryear is still contagious today. I am not surprised when people who do not believe in God act selfishly, but I am disgusted when people who call themselves Christians either denigrate the Jewish people or reenact the Holocaust era scenario and ignore the tragedy befalling my people today. The bystanders of the 1930s and 1940s are part of history, and please don’t go trying to cancel that! My disgust is with the bystanders of today; the apathy within and without the church is a clear sign that the Jews have very few friends who will come to their rescue in time of need. Incidentally, American Jews being oblivious to these signs is another mystery to me. How much do my people need to go through to accept the fact that we are back in the 1930s and 1940s?

May 29, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Time For Faith In Action: I Am Not A Bystander!

Only eighty years ago, the world was taken by surprise by the evil agenda of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. The intensity and frequency of the horrors inflicted upon European Jews was a shock to many and it was even hard to believe that such a country as Germany could descend so low in committing evil against fellow humans. The players in WWII can be identified as the perpetrators/collaborators (Nazis, French Vichy government, Fascist Italy), the victims (many minorities, handicapped, religious sects and of course, the Jews), the rescuers (many of whom became “Righteous Among the Nations”) and the bystanders (the many who looked the other way, and did NOTHING).

With resilience and by the grace of God, the Jewish people regrouped and grew again out of the ashes of Auschwitz, crying out to the world “NEVER AGAIN” as a testimony to the innocent victims and a commitment to never let it happen again. For a brief period of respite, the world believed that it would never happen again, but unfortunately, the global events of the last few decades have proven us wrong. Not only have we been proven wrong, but the morphing of racial antisemitism into anti-Zionism turned out to be the biggest lie that people are willing to buy. By renaming themselves anti-Israel or anti-Zionist, they believe that they are switching from anti-Semitism to social justice warriors or human rights advocates; thus, eliminating any sense of guilt they may have had in the past. The new narrative has grown very deep roots in the Western culture from the seed planted by Yasir Arafat and the PLO and watered by all the foes of Israel – including some within the evangelical world. The weed keeps growing as it continues being watered and even fertilized by the many. The victims are still the Jewish people and the perpetrators are all those who hate them in thoughts, words, or deeds.

There are still two groups left: the rescuers and the bystanders. As to the rescuers, I strongly believe that they will be what I call the “New Righteous Among the Nations”. Additionally, I believe that they should look at the prophecy of the goats and the sheep in Matthew 25:31-46 when Yeshua explains that during the Tribulation, those who will become believers will turn out to be rescuers of persecuted Jews. I do believe, however, that at the time of the Rapture, all believers will be taken prior to the Great Tribulation (also known as the Time of Jacob’s Trouble), there will be those who turn to Yeshua during the tribulation. Out of these believers, hearts will turn toward the Jewish people and they will aid in their rescue and protection. This is a very powerful model of love and service that we should ALL pay attention to today – Yesterday, for that matter!

You have always had those who turn in the innocent for their own benefit or what they are convinced is for their own good – all for selfish reasons. However, the bystanders scare me the most. Eighty years ago, Europe was plagued by Nazi antisemitism and collaborators like the French Vichy government. Those were the perpetrators that were transparent about their agenda; they were after the Jews at any cost. What about those who stayed in their apartments and peeked behind the blinders when the Gestapo came to take my grandfather away from his wife and daughter (my mother)? Were they scared? Did they feel powerless? Did they feel unconcerned because they were not Jewish – or they simply could not have cared less? Maybe it was a combination of some of these reasons or even all of them. However, the end result was a very large group of colleagues, neighbors and even friends who could have helped the Jewish people. Instead, they chose to look the other way and became co-perpetrators. I have said this for a long time: a bystander who does nothing only facilitates the crime of a perpetrator. In other words, doing nothing is still doing something.

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Fast forward to 2021, Israel was at war with Hamas for 11 days and much of the world watched in horror how the IDF was going after “innocent” Palestinians. The Palestinian narrative (read: propaganda) has been pushed through the media and various government agencies around the world with the advent of Arafat, it is now believed as truth. No fact-checking necessary. Those in media and government want Israel to feel alone and isolated. However, the Jewish people have the undeniable right to exist and to do it in their own ancestral, Biblical land that predates the Palestinian narrative by several millennia.

Evangelical Christians have had a history of support for Israel. After all, if you read your Bible correctly using a grammatical/historical method and paying attention to the context, it becomes extremely hard to deny the fact that God has a very special plan for Israel and the Jewish people whom He calls the “Apple of my eye” in Zechariah 2:8. Promises and covenants were made between God and Israel, and all of them but one, the Mosaic Covenant, were unconditional and eternal. This means that they are still in effect today and that God unconditionally promised certain things to the Jewish people. They are based on God’s character and not on Israel or the Jewish people’s performance. That history of support and love for Israel, which once was known as “Christian Zionism”, is eroding, especially with the newer generation of young evangelicals, as it drastically declined from 75% to 33% in just three years.

This still leaves us with a large group of Christians who genuinely love Israel and the Jewish people but allow me to be blunt: loving Israel doesn’t mean a trip to the Holy land, eating hummus and falafel and praying for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6.) Don’t quote me wrong, prayer ought to be at the foundation of all we do as modern-day followers of Yeshua, but it cannot stop there, especially today. Israel and Hamas are now experiencing a ceasefire, and I truly do not know how long it will hold. I would say at least until some tunnels in Gaza are rebuilt and the Hamas arsenal is somewhat replenished with rockets and missiles ready to be launched again on Israeli civilians. The ceasefire is in place in Israel, but there hasn’t been a complete ceasefire between Jews and their foes for the last 2000 years. Anti-Semitism is the conflict of all conflicts against the Jews. It is the longest and deadliest pandemic of all mankind, and right now it is picking up momentum like we’ve not seen or experienced since the Holocaust. It is global, it is vicious and it shows no signs of stopping.

I am somewhat encouraged by the various organizations getting involved to expose the lies, teach the truth and voice their outrage. They help educate people and hopefully call them to action. A call to action is exactly what I am praying I can do. I want to reach as many Christians as possible and challenge them to put their faith into action. Let’s see Genesis 12:3 come to life, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

I have designed a logo available on my Facebook page that reads: “I AM NOT A BYSTANDER, Genesis 12:3.” My hope is that people get ahold of it and post it everywhere on the net. Some people have already approached me to make signs, T-Shirts and hats…That’s great! What I really want you all to do beyond flooding the net with this image of support, is to call your Jewish Community Center, Synagogue or any other Jewish organization and tell them RIGHT NOW, when they need it the most: “Hello, my name is ________________ and I am not a bystander.” Let the Jewish community know that you are a Bible-believing Christian and that you have their back. Make yourselves available to help if Jewish property is defaced or destroyed. It is always the right time for prayer, but we all need to kick it up a notch because it is time for our faith to be in action. Some people even believe that the war against antisemitism has been lost. If it is true, and I certainly hope it is not, we have even more reasons to get involved in the lives of our Jewish friends and become the New Righteous Among the Nations. #iamnotabystander

April 29, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Where Was God During the Holocaust?

One of the most asked questions by Jewish people, when we discuss spiritual matters, is: “Where was God during the Holocaust”? This is a valid question that many have asked and very few if any have attempted to answer. In his seminal autobiographical work titled “Night”, Elie Wiesel addresses that question in his own way. After witnessing the hanging of a young child, he wrote: “I heard someone groan: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is He? This is where – hanging here from these gallows.'”

Furthermore, Wiesel wrote about his experience: “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never!”

In his foreword to the 1958 1st Edition of NIGHT, French novelist FRANÇOIS MAURIAC wrote: “And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block to his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaughterhouses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is they who have given it new life. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. THAT IS WHAT I SHOULD HAVE SAID TO THE JEWISH CHILD BUT ALL I COULD DO WAS EMBRACE HIM AND WEEP.”

Again, as far as Wiesel and Mauriac went in their understanding and explanation of the Holocaust–they as we all do-fell short of grasping the depth of that tragedy. It is not uncommon to speak of Jewish history before and after Auschwitz, as the Holocaust left a scar on the Jewish people and guilt on mankind that could never be eradicated or understood, and yet, God if He didn’t cause it–and He certainly didn’t–allowed it to take place. Some of the possible reasons men have developed for the Holocaust revolve around God’s character and are worth investigating. This is based on an acceptance of the Tanach as God’s inspired, inerrant Word.

• God’s Omnipotence
Does the Tanach teach that God is omnipotent (all-powerful)? If He is not, maybe He wanted to stop the Holocaust, but the forces of evil were greater and more powerful, and as a result, the Holocaust went on. Scripture helps us to understand the omnipotence of God:
Deuteronomy 10:17 For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.
1 Chronicles 29:11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.
Psalm 147:5 Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite.
Jeremiah 32:17 Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You,
Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth Does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.

As it would appear, God is indeed omnipotent. So, the Holocaust was not beyond His reach. As a matter of fact, it did come to an end and it is believed that had Hitler not committed suicide, Nazi Germany would have acquired the atomic bomb within six months. Just imagine the carnage that would have followed. God could and did stop it, but that still doesn’t bring solace to the families of the six million innocent victims.

• God’s Omniscience
Maybe God is all-powerful, but He is not all-knowing. So, there is nothing that He cannot do, as long as He is aware of the issue. If He is indeed not all-knowing, maybe the Holocaust caught Him by surprise and only after a few years of the most horrific carnage, He decided to put an end to it. What kind of God would we worship if He didn’t have all the knowledge of the universe since we believe that He created the universe? Again, the Tanach sheds some light on that topic:
1 Chronicles 28:9a As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts.
Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 23:24 “Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.
Psalm 147:4 He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.
Job 28:24 “For He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.

As it would appear, God is also omniscient. So, the Holocaust didn’t catch Him by surprise. He knew about it from before the beginning of time, but that still doesn’t bring solace to the families of the six million innocent victims.

• God’s Lovingkindness
Our loving God might not be so loving after all. Maybe He decided to punish Israel for rebellion and disobedience based on Deuteronomy 28. If God was to destroy all Israel for disobedience, He had numerous opportunities before the 1930s and 40s. Is His love unconditional? Let’s look at His Word for answers.
Psalm 86:15 But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.
Psalm 136:26 Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Zephaniah 3:17 “The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, But My lovingkindness will not be removed from you, And My covenant of peace will not be shaken,” Says the Lord who has compassion on you.
Jeremiah 31:35-37 “Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: “If this fixed order departs From before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever.” Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel For all that they have done,” declares the LORD.

Again, God’s Word confirms to us that He is all-loving and compassionate, and this, based on His promises and covenants with Israel, but that still doesn’t bring solace to the families of the six million innocent victims.

• God’s Perfection
Maybe God is flawed. Maybe He is not perfect. Who would want a relationship with a God who is not perfect? What does His Word tell us about His perfection and holiness?
Deuteronomy 32:4 “The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.
Psalm 18:30 As for God, His way is blameless; The word of the Lord is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.
Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is tested; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.

God is perfect and holy in every way possible, but that still doesn’t bring solace to the families of the six million innocent victims.

So, to the unanswered question “Where was God during the Holocaust?”. We who hold His Word to be inspired and without error, might not have a solid answer. Nevertheless, we proclaim that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and perfect. God might have not been a reality to those who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust, but he was not dead. We could call it an “eclipse of God”, like a real presence without any visibility or tangible proof. His Word tells of His suffering on behalf of His chosen people in Isaiah. This is a very encouraging verse that I often revisit:

Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; In His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

God suffered along with His people during the pogroms, in the ghettos and through the death camps’ ordeals. This is not the only time we witness God’s presence with the Jewish people during their suffering. We can also read about how jealous God was for Jerusalem in Zechariah 1:7-17.

Upon reflection on the topic of the Holocaust, should we ask the question “Where was God?” or “Where was man?” Our unchangeable, almighty creator was always there, but man somehow was allowed to make choices that led to the systematic death of the six million. We should never hold God responsible for what men did to other men! In the meantime, maybe all we can do to show the love of Messiah is follow the advice of François Mauriac and embrace those who have suffered a loss in the Holocaust.

April 9, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

What Everybody Is Missing in Their Definition of Antisemitism!

I have been studying, teaching against and writing about antisemitism for almost 22 years. It has become a fight that I cannot abandon, for the sake of my people. It didn’t come naturally to me. For the first forty years of my life, my frustrations and fears related to the longest hatred were somewhat suppressed. I particularly remember growing in France and hearing my parents rehash memories of the war, the Holocaust and how much the world hated us. My mother in particular, always told me that when I was making new friends at school, I should tell them that we are Jewish so that there wouldn’t be any late “surprises.” It always rubbed me the wrong way, but I was oblivious to the fact that my mother saw her dad taken by the Gestapo when she was 16 to only learn much later that he died in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I now understand this scarred her deeply, and it was a scar she bore until her very last day on this earth.

Then, in 1999, I started to gather data on the resurgence of antisemitism for a research paper while I was working on a degree. Twenty-one years later, I am still gathering data, and teaching in churches and conferences on that very topic more than ever. My research gave birth to three books on the topic, and, sad to say, antisemitism doesn’t show any sign of stopping. As a matter of fact, there isn’t one week when I do not have something to report or write about.

Early on, I felt it was necessary to define antisemitism. Not that it had never been done before, but since it has been morphing over the years, it really needs to be fine-tuned. I found many definitions that I felt were adequate, and for a while, I adopted the one from Edward H. Flannery from the classic volume The Anguish of the Jews. His definition is “Antisemitism is attitudes, words or actions that embody a hatred or contempt of the Jewish people as such.” Frankly, no definition is flawless, especially when it comes to explaining a hatred against the Jews that has lasted millennia.

Eventually, I developed my own, which was close to that of Edward Flannery. For close to a decade, I defined antisemitism as “Antisemitism is the hatred of the Jewish people, characterized by thoughts, words or deeds against them.” I felt that it was important that if someone simply had negative, denigrating, or destructive thoughts about the Jews, that it had to be labeled as antisemitism. Their thoughts might never evolve to words or deeds but could easily be the soil in which more active Jew-hatred could grow.

As I continued to study and gather data, I started to realize that my definition was missing something. I noticed that more and more antisemitic acts were committed by people joining forces against Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people globally. The odd aspect of this team effort was that some of these people working together to ostracize and demonize the Jews would never agree on anything ideologically if it were not for their common hatred of the Jewish people. The adage “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” was really coming to life. How could we possibly imagine Liberals agreeing with radical Islamists, except of course if it is about the need to stop the Jews from “taking over the banks or the world.”

So, I saw the need to add one word to my definition. The needed word was “irrational” as in the “irrational hatred” of the Jewish people. It is irrational on two levels. First, because it joins different groups of people who ideologically would never even think of teaming up, but also because what the world is believing about the Jews and Israel increasingly becomes more irrational each day that passes. Thus, I revised my definition to read “Antisemitism is the irrational hatred of the Jewish people, characterized by thoughts, words or deeds against them.”

How else could people in 2021 still believe the lies about Jewish people using blood to make Passover matzah? Who can still believe that Jewish people need to kill Christian babies during Holy week? Who can still read the now-debunked 1904 hoax The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and believe it to be a true plan to take over the world by a Jewish cabal? What about the medieval Black plague supposedly started by the Jews poisoning the wells of Europe, which logically (read “irrationally”) makes them instant prime suspects for the creating and spreading of COVID-19? More people than you think, across the globe, are still buying into those irrational lies. All these lies are vivid illustrations of the irrationality of the “New” antisemitism. It is not new as in “better”, rather it is new as in “morphed” into something more dangerous and more acceptable to the many who do not check facts.

A bit after I felt the need to adjust my definition, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance came up with their own definition of antisemitism in 2016. They posit that “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” In order to help people to understand and adopt that new definition, the IHRA added eleven bullet point items to further define what they meant, and they still call their definition a “non-legally binding working” definition. While I agree with that definition, I find it a bit vague, which explains the need for all the subpoints and examples. I strongly believe that it lacks the irrational component that became evident to me within the last decade.

Then, in the first quarter of 2020, a new group of scholars in antisemitism studies and related fields got together and penned the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA). They have over 200 signatories. Their definition goes like this, “Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).” I like the fact that they identify antisemitism as animosity against “Jews as Jews” which is similar to Edward Flannery’s definition of “contempt of the Jewish people as such.” It reinforces the idea that antisemitism makes no sense at all.

While I will not pretend to be familiar with all the signatories of the JDA, I cannot agree with some of their conclusions, especially point 14 of their guidelines (longer than those of the IHRA). It states that “Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case, they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic.” While I am not against the ethical use of boycott, divestment and sanctions, the BDS movement against Israel and the Jewish people is anything but ethical. It only targets Israel and Israeli products and corporations when there are many countries that commit crimes against humanity and are completely ignored. The sole targeting of Israel justified by fabricated stories shows the hypocrisy of such a movement. Not to mention all the Israeli products and inventions that BDS proponents use daily, turning a blind eye on the “Jewish Apartheid State” out of convenience. I cannot agree with a definition that doesn’t see BDS as antisemitic.

All these definitions, good and bad are lacking a key component that must be seen as the root of antisemitism, and that is the spiritual element. I don’t expect everyone to believe in God or even have any spiritual leanings, but I believe that without the spiritual component, antisemitism cannot be fully understood, and even less combated.

There is no doubt in my mind that Satan is at the core of antisemitism. For those who don’t believe that Satan exists, this will make my argument difficult to accept but bear with me.

From the moment he got involved with humanity Satan showed his true colors. He is THE deceiver who hates all that God loves and loves all that God hates. It might come as surprise to many, but Satan knows the Bible very well. He knows the past, tries to alter the present and is also aware of his future. He also understands how much God loves Israel, the unconditional eternal covenants He ratified with the Jewish people (Genesis 12:1-3) and the promises He made to never destroy or forsake Israel (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

Moreover, Satan is aware that the Second Coming of Yeshua depends upon Israel’s repentance and cry for Him to return as He promised in Matthew 23:37-39. He will come back when Israel cries out Baruch Haba Bashem Adonai, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” As prophesied in Zechariah 12:10. At that moment begins the end of Satan’s career of deception and lies on earth. His final abode is the Lake of Fire and Brimstone for eternity, not as its boss like Hollywood would like you to believe but as one of the first ones thrown in for eternal torment with no hope of relief.

Satan has been instrumental in rewriting history and promoting irrational antisemitism for as long as Jewish people have existed. He also knows that he cannot rewrite the future. His destiny is set in stone, but he will do anything he can to postpone it. If he could prevent the Jewish people from recognizing Yeshua of Nazareth as their Messiah, which he thinks would buy him some time; and that is exactly why he invented antisemitism. For centuries, antisemitism has been infiltrating the Christian Church on many levels.

To be sure, antisemitism is not only coming from the Church. It is coming from the extreme Left, the extreme Right, radical Islam, atheists, Hollywood, academia, the media, politics and more, which all reinforce the irrationality of antisemitism. Who else but the Jews has ever been accuse of both Communism and Capitalism?

Finally, when one sees the spiritual component of antisemitism, it should make it clear we need to pray for it to cease. We might never be able to completely erase the irrational hatred of my Jewish people, but once we recognize its source, it is critical for us to pray against it – while educating people about it. Scripture also tells me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me (Matthew 5:46), and I believe in the power of prayer. Somehow, this has been the focus of my past 22 years. I have a feeling that it will continue to be the focus for the next 22, if the Lord tarries.

Incidentally, on April 8, 2021, Israel commemorated Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) with a country-wide coming to a stop at 10:00 AM for two minutes of silence. Because my grandfather didn’t die in vain, I remember and speak up. May his memory and that of the six-million be a blessing!

February 19, 2021 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

PURIM: God Is Sovereign Even Behind-the-Scenes

Thursday, February 25, 2021, marks the celebration of the Jewish festival of Purim. Jewish people around the world will gather to recall God’s protection in days of old. This is a time when people eat special foods, dress up and read the Megillat Ester or scroll of Esther in the synagogue, where a lot of noise is made at the calling of the names of the three main protagonists: Mordechai, Esther and Haman. Gifts are often exchanged as well as donations made to charity.

• PURIM IN THE BIBLE: The first time we read about Purim, is at the end of the book of Esther–a book about God’s miraculous preservation of the Jewish people–even though this is the only book of the Bible where God is never mentioned by name. This doesn’t prevent God from orchestrating an incredible story of survival, redemption and blessing, albeit behind-the-scenes. The story of Purim is also a very strong post-Genesis example of God’s promise to Abraham to bless those who bless him and curse him who curses Abraham (Genesis 12:3). Haman, the archenemy of the Jews built gallows to hang Mordechai, and at the end, he and all of his sons were hanging on these very gallows…A curse for a curse! People ought to take the promise made by God to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 very seriously. In a sense, it is God’s foreign policy when it comes to Israel, and it has proven absolutely true all throughout history (biblical and post-biblical).

Haman’s approach to the “Jewish problem” is worth looking at from the perspective of Satan, the ultimate enemy of the Jews. Early in the scriptures, in Genesis 3, Satan came up with a master plan: Use people – even Eve – to destroy the Jews on a global scale – and antisemitism was born! The reason? Satan is very familiar with the message of the Bible and with God’s master plan for the world in general and for Israel and the Jewish people in particular.

Satan knows that the day that the Jewish people recognize Yeshua as their long-awaited Messiah as told in Zechariah 12:10, will usher in His return, but that will also mark the beginning of the end of Satan’s career of hatred and destruction. In an attempt at postponing it all–since he cannot prevent it, Satan is the mastermind behind the longest hatred. He is the creator of antisemitism and he continually subcontracts his hatred against the Jews to various groups through the ages, making the most irrational thoughts, words and deeds appear very rational to those who listen to him. The book of Esther tells us the story of how Satan used Haman to go after the Jews. He could have succeeded, but God is greater, even behind-the-scenes.

In Esther chapter 3, Haman puts his curse against the Jews in motion, and because of one Jew, namely Mordecai, Haman seeks to destroy all of them. We start seeing the irrational behaviors promoted by an antisemitic heart. Haman seeks to destroy ALL THE JEWS of the Persian Empire where many of them lived at the time.

In a sense, Haman tried to make antisemitism a government-sanctioned policy, something that will be picked up again much later in history by Nazi Germany. We read in Esther 3:1-2, 5-6 “After these events, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and established his authority over all the princes who were with him. And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman; for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage…. When Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage to him, Haman was filled with rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were; therefore, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Furthermore, in verse 8, Haman proceeds to give the reason why the Jews are not wanted in Ahasuerus’ kingdom, and that is simply because THEY ARE DIFFERENT. “Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people, and they do not observe the king’s laws, so it is not in the king’s interest to let them remain.
Because of his hatred for one man who happened to be Jewish, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews of the kingdom. This was a very extreme decision, driven by an irrational desire to hold all people of the same ethnic group responsible because of one of theirs who actually wasn’t guilty of anything but faithfulness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Haman was on a mission to destroy all the Jews.

However, he also realized that his endeavor would require some logistical finesse, so in Esther 3:9-13, we read that he asked the king to issue a decree for the destruction of the Jewish people, knowing that a royal decree cannot be canceled or ignored. Not only did he ask for the decree, but he also committed to financing the whole project out of his own wealth. “If it is pleasing to the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry on the king’s business,…And letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to seize their possessions as plunder.

While it might not be obvious at first glance, the process by which Haman sought to annihilate all the Jews within his reach and the one used by Hitler and the Nazi regime have many similarities. Consider the parallels between Haman and Hitler in these five points:
• One Man’s jealousy led to uncontrolled hatred (3:5)
• Targeted hatred became global hatred (3:6, 13)
• Hatred was apparently caused because of non-conformity (3:8)
• Attempted annihilation of the Jews was structured and organized (3:9-13)
• Funds were spent and financial wealth was provided for the perpetrators (3:9, 4:7)

Fast forward to the 1930s and 1940s, and we see how Hitler developed his well-organized “factory of death” against the Jewish people.

• PURIM in the 1940s: Soon after coming to power, Hitler quickly banned the celebration of Jewish festivals including Purim. In a speech delivered the day after Kristallnacht, in November 1938, Julius Streicher (1885-1946), Hitler’s“Director of the Central Committee for the Defense against Jewish Atrocity and Boycott Propaganda” declared that since the Jews killed 75,000 Persians in the days of Esther, the same fate could befall the German people and so the Jews had to be stopped. Streicher was also the publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. After the war, he was never accused of any actions or orders against the Jews but for thoughts and words published in his newspaper and as a result, he was convicted of “crimes against humanity” and sentenced to death. The Nuremberg military tribunal declared, “Streicher’s incitement of murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the East were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes as defined by the Charter, and constitutes a crime against humanity.”

Again, the “curse-for-a-curse” biblical principle was applied to Streicher, who, on October 16, 1946, was executed on the gallows at the end of the Nuremberg Trials. Streicher’s final words before he was let down into the gallows trap door was “Purim Fest 1946”, as his final claim that the Jews were out to get him. It would have required a certain knowledge of the Jewish lifestyle and festivals for Streicher to even make that parallel.

As to Hitler’s obsession with the destruction of all European Jews, history is our witness that all methods used by Haman–as irrational as they might have been– were also used by Hitler.

Hitler’s jealousy led to uncontrolled hatred. It is hard to pinpoint why Hitler was so against the Jews. There have been rumors that he had some distant Jewish ancestry, and also that he was mad at the Jewish doctor who unsuccessfully treated his mother who died of cancer in 1908. There is also the possibility that Hitler took his lead from the Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (1921-1937) Amin al-Husseini. All these are nearly impossible to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, but the fact that almost a whole country of Germans was ready to follow one man into his evil agenda of destruction says a lot about our sinful nature.

• Targeted hatred became global hatred. Whatever hatred Hitler had against one Jew or a few of them, it should have never led to his desire to kill all of us. Yet, the ghetto that separated and ostracized the Jews eventually led to the Einsatzgruppen (death squads responsible for mass shootings of Jews after they were forced to dig their own graves). When shooting people was deemed inefficient and psychologically damaging for the SS officers (you read it right!), large trucks and vans were outfitted with engines that pumped carbon monoxide into the sealed compartment filled with Jewish people. Even that method proved to be too slow for Hitler who developed the concentration camps that became the death camps. The rest is history. That is of course if you don’t buy into the ludicrous Holocaust Denial theory.

• Hatred was apparently caused because of non-conformity
The fact that the Jewish people had survived so much hardship and violence against them for centuries was probably a mystery to Hitler, but possibly a reason why he loathed the Jews so much.
The Jewish people have survived through the ages and continue to hold many of the ancient customs and traditions. To Jewish people, identity is often synonymous with survival, so Jewish rituals and customs are critical. This would appear as non-conformity, but while they might be strictly religious at home and in their own community, Jewish people have always been willing to contribute to society wherever God placed them in the diaspora. Jewish ingenuity has proven that beyond the shadow of a doubt over the years.

• Attempted annihilation of the Jews was structured and organized
Hitler’s “Final solution to the Jewish question” was further organized at the time of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in 1942 when Reinhard Heydrich took leadership of it to make sure that various government ministries all complied and worked together. The meeting itself only lasted 90 minutes, but it further sealed the fate of European Jewry

• Funds were spent, and financial wealth was provided for the perpetrators
Much money was needed for war and to maintain the infrastructure of the death camps into which Hitler fed the Jewish people. Forced Jewish labor, taxes on Jews and confiscated Jewish wealth were factors in how Hitler financed the war and the Holocaust. Eventually, even those resources ran dry. Hitler was not a very good military commander, but he was very stubborn with his destructive obsession with the Jews. Towards the end of the war, this might have cost him more than he wished, when resources used for the transport of Jews were not available to fight at the Russian front.

PURIM IN 2021: Satan knows that he cannot succeed, but he tries without ceasing. He has indoctrinated much of the world against the Jewish people, creating antisemitism and making it the oldest and most enduring form of hatred against a people group. While he keeps sub-contracting his hatred to different groups of people, the danger remains the same and the Jewish people continue to be the “scapegoats of humanity”. The same approach used in biblical days and during Hitler’s reign is used today by historical revisionists, BDS promoters, Christian Palestinianism proponents and all other enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. If they had their way, Israel would be erased from the map and the Jewish people completely eradicated from existence and from history. But in a very “Purimesque” ending, the Jewish people will continue to flourish as promised by God Himself in Jeremiah 31:35-37 and Israel will prevail because of God.

Be it during biblical times, during the 1930s and 1940s, or even today, through thick and thin, God has always had Israel in the palm of His hand. Even though He was absent by name in the book of Esther and it felt more like “the eclipse of God” during the Holocaust, He never reneged on His promises. So, we can celebrate Purim with confidence and with joy because the same God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Who was behind-the-scenes in the days of Esther, has our back and still keeps His word today.

Chag Purim Sameach! Happy Purim!

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