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December 26, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Antisemitism 2020: A Year in Review – Part I

There are many topics that could be covered to punctuate the year 2020. Most of them are unusually different from previous years. The race riots, the pandemic, or the elections are just three of them. It could also be argued that 2020 will be remembered as the year when we became the Divided States of America. Nobody in America ever saw such polarization between neo-liberals and conservatives, and the chasm will probably get wider as time progresses. There is also a way to look at Jewish life through the year 2020; Antisemitism! I have been monitoring antisemitism domestically and globally for over two decades, and once a year, I review what events have made each year unique from that perspective. 2020 is no different. Events varied from wake-up calls to challenges to crimes, and they were both domestic and global. Keep in mind that even a global act of antisemitism has many ripple effects that will reach the United States. So, let’s review the year a month at a time:

January 2020: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Every January 27, we are reminded to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As multiple heads of state and key representatives gather to pay tribute to the victims and the helpers (Righteous Among the Nations), the rest of the world is also invited to post a photo of themselves with the hashtag #WeRemember. But Hashtags will not defeat Holocaust deniers, historical revisionists and antisemites. Hashtags are the bumper stickers of the twenty-first century, they make a statement in passing as they move to their eternal abode in cyberspace. Instead, people can visit one of the numerous US-based (30 states) Holocaust memorial/museums, read on the topic, share with the next generation and/or attend conferences and peaceful protests.

February 2020: The Aalst Carnival in Belgium
The city of Aalst, Belgium has officially held its carnival since 1923. Parades of that sort actually go back to the Middle Ages. Aalst almost always makes the news for its 3-Day carnival. The organizers repeatedly claim that the satirical tone of the carnival is to be remembered when one considers any of its floats. They regularly ridicule the Jewish people.
The “Aalst Jews of 2020” were wearing oversized shtreimels (fur hats), dressed in black this year, but the bottom half of their bodies were that of insects or vermin; ants to be exact (don’t miss the extermination innuendo here). Joining the crowds were dozens of people wearing caricatural orthodox Jewish garb and large fake crooked noses, not to mention the many flyers with stereotypical renditions of Jews with side curls, crooked noses and curly hair, and the many people wearing Nazi uniforms…All of it in the name of innocent satire!

March 2020: The Covid-19 Vaccine versus BDS
As of March, 149 countries had been infected. The global number of cases exceeded 150,000 and deaths were over 5,600. We thought that it was bad, but we knew nothing yet. Several countries in the world were racing against the clock to research, discover, test and manufacture a vaccine for Covid-19. At the forefront of these modern countries was Israel.
And then, there were the usual BDS movement people across the globe, selling the false idea that Israel is an occupying, colonialist and human rights violating country. They convince a plethora of uneducated people to boycott Israel. Evidently, they boycott whatever is not going to be too inconvenient. So, here is the million-dollar question: “Would BDS people refuse the vaccine if it came from Israel?” They should if they were consistent and ethical.

April 2020: A New Bible Without Israel
The Danish Bible Society published a new Bible known as “The Bible 2020.” It should be called the RTV (Replacement Theology Version.) This Bible is no Bible at all, and it is a very dangerous document. It chose to inaccurately replace or just ignore the word “Israel” (73 times in the New Testament), calling it instead “the land” or “the people.”
It is just one more proof showing us how close we are from the final chapter in the “Real Bible”, where Messiah Yeshua returns to establish his kingdom after fighting all those who went against Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:10), and establishes His messianic kingdom with His people among which the Jews will be the head and not the tail. That is the biblical truth that includes Israel AND excludes the enemies of Israel.

May 2020: Trump, Ford and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion!
In May, President Trump made a very uncomfortable comment as he was visiting a Ford factory in Michigan. As he was addressing executives about the founder of Ford Motors, Henry Ford, he said, “The company was founded by a man named Henry Ford, good bloodlines, good bloodlines. If you believe in that stuff, you got good blood.”
Ford’s antisemitism is indelibly printed in the chronicles of history. It cannot be denied, it shouldn’t be minimized and will not be forgotten. I do not believe that President Trump was promoting Eugenics or racial superiority in the way that Henry Ford did when he published The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, but his statement can be used against him by his enemies and also by those who espouse such a view, linking President Trump to a group of fringe antisemites that already are believed by some to support him.

June 2020: Black Lives Matter but BLM doesn’t
2020 saw the tragic death of George Floyd and the rise of the BLM movement. But before we blindly join and support the BLM movement based on somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction, from a mix of compassion, rightful indignation and misplaced guilt, we should investigate who the BLM movement supports and promotes.
Black Lives Matter clearly supports BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions). BDS has been pushing for a total boycott (academic, cultural and economic) of Israel and those who support Israel and Israeli products and companies. It has made great strides towards convincing people across the globe that Israel was the perpetrator of crimes against humanity, oppression, invasion and persecution. BLM is also one of more than 150 organizations within the coalition known as Movement for Black Lives (M4BL.) Let’s support all black lives, but not through a manmade movement that has a shaky foundation at best. Rather, because of our Messiah who supported all lives, enough to die for them. We all should support black lives and it definitely matters how we do it!

Part II with the rest of 2020 will be published next week.

November 6, 2020 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Kristallnacht and the Temple Mount: What Can They Possibly Have in Common?

Sometimes when I look at the history of Israel and the Jewish people, I feel like I am watching the opening credits of a Star Wars movie. The main theme appears in text form from the bottom of the screen and slowly moves up as its size reduces towards the horizon and eventually disappears off the screen completely. As years go by, I continue to see the absolute necessity to tell people about critical markers on the timeline of Israel and the global Jewish community. This is why I continue to educate my audience about things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, BDS and other important events that plague the Jewish people.

If it happens today, it is part of the news, but as soon as tomorrow hits, it becomes part of history. The problem is that not all of history is worth recalling, but whose choice is it to pick what part of history to remember? We all have different interests, customs, traditions and even agendas. They all dictate what we choose to remember, commemorate or celebrate. This being said, there are events that transcend history and must be recalled by all, lest history becomes forgotten, erased or altered, putting us in a dangerous position where history could repeat itself.

One of these nefarious events took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938 and is remembered every November as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” But, before we can look at Kristallnacht, we must consider what just happened to the Temple mount that will help us to understand how the two are connected.

This is not the first attempt and probably not the last one either, but 138 countries of the United Nations approved a draft resolution naming the Temple Mount solely as an Islamic holy site, by the name of al-Haram al-Sharif. The title of the resolution itself is so politically charged that it shows the slant taken, “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem.” It is important to note the few countries that voted against the resolution. They were Israel, Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Hungary, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and the United States. The European countries who supported the resolution were Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK to name just a few who also claim to be friends with Israel?

The Temple Mount currently hosts several buildings that are all Muslim. The Dome of the Rock with its gorgeous golden roof–often mistaken for a mosque–is an islamic shrine containing the rock/location from where, according to Islam, Abraham ascended to heaven. The Dome of the Rock was built in the 7th Century AD and further renovated and restored throughout the centuries. The Temple Mount also includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque that was built in AD 705, just a few decades after the Dome of the Rock. Many archeological excavations and studies have been made on the Temple Mount. It was believed for a while that there were no Jewish connections to the area, or at least, as stated by British archeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, “no trace of the Temple remained.” She eventually changed her views to declare that much of the remains of Herod’s Temple (2nd Temple) could still be found. Additionally, remains of Solomon’s Temple (First Temple) were also discovered underground, proving without the shadow of a doubt that the geographical location known as the Temple Mount did indeed host both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. For an in-depth archeological, historical and biblical study of the Temple and its surroundings over the centuries, Dr. Randall Price wrote his authoritative volume, The Temple in Bible Prophecy: A Definitive Look at Its Past, Present and Future.

No serious scholar or archeologist would venture to say that the Temple Mount has no Jewish connections, unless they had an agenda and wanted to push a narrative to delegitimize Israel’s presence and right to self-determination. This is exactly what we are seeing at the present time. This resolution is yet another attempt at re-writing history and delegitimizing Israel. This allows Israel’s foes to paint the Jewish state as an oppressor, invader and colonizer, trying to claim Muslim land, when in fact the real estate where the Temple Mount is located precedes Muslim history by at almost 2,000 years, Solomon’s Temple era having started around 1000 BCE. Biblically speaking, the destruction of the second Temple that took place in AD 70, was prophesied by Yeshua Himself in Matthew 24:2, “And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” It is nothing short of a miracle that we can actually find even traces of the two Jewish building at that location.

So, when the United Nations declare that the Temple Mount has no Jewish connection, they de facto become co-conspirators in the crime of delegitimization of Israel. The danger here, is that if people believe that Israel has no right to the area, it further feeds the narrative of Israel’s occupation and crimes against humanity. Now, the question still remains, “How does the Temple Mount connect historically to Kristallnacht?” Well, it doesn’t connect historically, but it does connect politically, and this is how.

First, a little background on the events that transpired in Germany on the night of November 9-10, 1938. During that dreadful night, a critical event took place that would seal the fate of six million European Jews. That was 82 years ago. The event is known as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” The reason given by the Nazis was the assassination of German official Ernst vom Rath, shot two days prior by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish teenager reacting to his parents’ deportation. In reality, the boycott/pogrom of Jewish synagogues, schools, businesses and homes resulting in the death of almost 100 Jewish people and the destruction of 7,500 properties was well planned, and anything but a reaction to the death of a German official. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps. Historians agree that Kristallnacht was the onset of the Holocaust, shifting Nazi antisemitism from mere rhetoric to pure violence and murder. It set in motion the death factories aimed at accomplishing “the final solution.” They almost succeeded!

So, it is very important to remember Kristallnacht and tell our children about it, especially in light of current world events. We have seen an increase in acts of antisemitism worldwide, in several cases leading to the death of people in Europe and the United-States. Antisemitism has now become a reality almost on a daily basis. It can no longer be ignored, and yet in the eyes of many, it is not really that important of an issue. As a matter of fact, a recent survey showed that 32% to 50% of young Americans had very little to no knowledge or understanding of the Holocaust. Most couldn’t even name one concentration camp.

Alongside the ignorance of history, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is becoming mainstream. So mainstream that people don’t bother checking if any of its accusations are based on facts or fiction. People in Hollywood, in government and even in several Christian denominations are doing their best to cripple Israel and the Jewish people. They are not trying to bring justice to the Middle East as they would want us to believe but rather, they want to completely eradicate Israel from “Palestine”.

The Jewish people have also been accused by some, of creating propaganda with the events of Kristallnacht, the ghettos and the Holocaust, to build a case for themselves to move to “Palestine”, uproot the “native Palestinians” and settle down under the guise of Zionism. When people buy the false narrative of Jewish occupation on a “Muslim only” Temple mount area, they can easily be swayed into buying a revisionist position on Kristallnacht. After all, one of the best ways to completely eradicate a people group is to erase their history. If their history cannot be proven, maybe it never happened, and if it never happened, or was best grossly exaggerated, it also becomes easier to paint this people group as the problem. As it stands, most people are not history buffs. The era of the Internet and social networks has turned us all into consumers of information, and in and of itself, this is not a bad thing. The problem is that we used to be consumers of well prepared, nutritious meals as we took interest in the details of history. Today, most of us only have time for junk food as we barely digest the brief internet soundbites and headlines rarely checked for veracity. So, when people de-judaize the Temple Mount, nobody pays attention or if they do, they don’t question it. The generation that believes that the Temple Mount is a Muslim site only will have no problem believing that Kristallnacht was Jewish propaganda to claim the land of Israel. If and when history repeats itself, this current generation suffering from “self-imposed historical Alzheimer” might not see it coming before it is way too late. That is the very reason why we cannot remain silent!

February 11, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Could it be “Open Season” on the Jewish People?

The treatment of Jewish people around the world is now making the news almost daily. It is obvious that antisemitism is running rampant. The question has changed over the last two decades. First, it was, “What will we do IF it happens again?”, then it became, “What will we do WHEN it happens again?” Now we have to ask the question “What are we doing NOW that it is here?” Yet, the majority of the world is still in denial or willful ignorance about the crisis of antisemitism that is plaguing us all.

We can have a propensity to measure the danger of a conflict taking place in the world by its proximity to where we live. If a war raging across the planet is far enough, then we don’t have to worry about it and chances are, it won’t disturb our lives too much. This sounds very selfish, but deep down, most people don’t really feel affected. To some degree, antisemitism can be viewed through a similar set of filters. People who live in areas where there a very few Jewish people or in some cases none, do not feel that concerned. “Sure, it looks bad in Brooklyn, Paris or Israel…But that’s not my problem, I don’t live there…” some will think.

Antisemitism IS a war, but a non-conventional one. If it was somewhat geographically contained during the Second World War, it no longer is today. In December 2019, a series of attacks against orthodox Jews took place in Brooklyn. We still remember the terrorist attacks at the synagogues in San Diego and Pittsburgh. This is real, this is global and this happening almost on a daily basis. But the recent tragedy that we should pay attention to took place in Paris, and it could create a terrifying precedent.

On April 4, 2017, in Paris, Sarah Halimi, a 66-year-old Jewish woman, was thrown from her third-floor window. Her body landed on the pavement. It remains uncertain if she was thrown alive or already dead from being tortured. What the police found out was that the perpetrator was Kobili Traoré, her Muslim neighbor, who screamed “Allahu Akbar” and “I have killed Satan” as he recited verses from the Qur’an that according to him ordered him to kill Jews. That is such a tragedy, and yet it is only part of the story. How can it possibly get worse?

Kobili Traoré was found under the influence of marijuana and was placed in a mental institution. The whole incident took place during a presidential election year in France–not a good time to make public the murder of a Jew by a Muslim. It took months for the family of Mrs. Halimi to get the French authorities to admit that it was indeed a murder AND that it was an antisemitic hate crime. That is another tragedy because if it had been a person from any other ethnic group thrown out of a window after being tortured, nobody would have questioned the nature of the crime.

The court eventually declared that Traoré had indeed murdered Sarah Halimi willingly, but because he was under the influence of marijuana, he was irresponsible and couldn’t be prosecuted. The whole thing was thrown out of court and Mr. Traoré was ordered to go into rehab.

One of the lawyers for the Halimi family, Francis Szpiner, declared: “Sarah Halimi jurisprudence” has been created: “anyone who suffers from a delusional puff because of the use of illicit and dangerous substances will be exempt from criminal responsibility”, and that is the real danger. I am terrified at the idea that someone can smoke a joint or get drunk, go on a killing rampage to get a few Jews, and then plead intoxication, walk free, go to rehab for 30 days, and plan their next murder. In essence, this is exactly what precedent this case is making.

No punishment for killing Jews is truly making it open season on the Jewish people wherever they are not wanted–which is just about anywhere but Israel. Journalist Céline Pina of French paper Le Figaro wrote: “When one kills in the name of Allah, the excuse of mental imbalance does not hold. If there is one thing in common in all of this blood that keeps flowing, it is the implantation of Islamists on our soil, their network of mosques, their propaganda through books, satellite dishes, their speeches which permeate many districts and territories, their shows of strength…. the situation is not under control.”

She is right, and I believe that the situation is spinning further out of control. We are approaching–if we are not already there–the time when “Righteous Gentiles” will have to step up to the plate and help their Jewish friends. It is very serious. Christians are coming to an important crossroads. This is eerily reminiscent of what Yeshua said in Matthew 25:40: “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” While this is an event that is contextually taking place during the Great Tribulation and after the Rapture, the principle remains. The world is desperately in need of a new generation of “Righteous Among the Nations.”

January 2, 2020 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Antisemitism is now a Pandemic, but it must not become the New Normal!

Each new year brings the hope of a new start including new resolutions–some that we will keep and some that will quickly fade away into oblivion. One such resolution that is well worth keeping is that of standing strong against this new tidal wave of antisemitism in America and most of the world. This renewed and re-invented brand of antisemitism is indeed a fast-spreading disease s. So, why is it that in many cases, people treat it as the new normal? What would happen if typhus, cholera or malaria would have been treated as the new way of life when they started to plague our planet? I wouldn’t be here to speak of it and neither would you to read me. What will it take for people to care enough and react to this exponential eroding of our Judeo-Christian values? During the 1930s and 1940s, many people removed themselves from the crisis by justifying that they were not Jewish or had no Jewish relatives or friends. Six million Jews later, the world woke -up…or did it?

If all the acts of antisemitism that have occurred globally in the last few months were to be reported properly, it is almost certain that we could document the hatred of the Jews as a daily occurrence. The last week of December 2019 in New York was an example of the momentum the beast has gained. Almost every single day during the celebration of the Feats of Hanukkah, the Jewish community was hit. We are not talking about graffiti or insult– bad enough in-and-of-themselves–we are talking about physical injuries and death if the perpetrators had had their ways. Jewish people were threatened, slapped, hit, pushed and even stabbed with a machete, and that is just one week in New York. Europe had its share as well, not to mention all the under-reported or not reported incidents. While I feel that it is necessary to focus on the Jewish people, I am very aware and greatly concerned about what is taking place against Christians as well.

When looking at the history of classic antisemitism, we can see a trend developing from the closing of the biblical record to the Middle Ages and the Reformation, culminating in the Holocaust. I believe that a similar trend can also be seen with the advent of the New antisemitism and End-Times antisemitism. While the original trend was following a growing chasm between Christians and Jews, the renewed trend follows a chasm between people in general (including Christians) and Jews.

First, what developed can be called theological anti-Judaism. Early Christians felt that the Jews were different and didn’t really fit theologically. Differences of opinion started to drive a wedge in a community where theological lines had been blurred for the first few hundred years during the infancy of Christianity. These differences were mostly verbal or written in some early works but not intended to lead to ostracism, demonization, violence or death, and yet, the wheel was already turning. Many Church Fathers took an allegorical approach to parts of the Scriptures that led to them seeing a transfer of God’s blessings and promises to the Church and away from ethnic Isreal. It was the little crack in biblical theology that created the seismic fault known to this day as Replacement Theology. But it could have remained a theological difference, so what made it go further?

During Christianity’s early years, only the spiritual leaders were educated and had access to manuscripts. The printing press wouldn’t come until 1450. The masses, if interested in spiritual matters, would have to fully rely on what they heard from the pulpits of their respective communities. They couldn’t check the veracity of the messages, they could only take what their leaders told them at face value. When they were told that the Church had replaced Israel and the Jews were “Christ-killers”, “lustful”, “rapacious”, “greedy” or even “possessed by the devil”, they believed it. The next move was obvious, if the Jews were so bad, we must protect our Christian communities from them, and so the crack went a bit deeper. Laws started to be passed to separate Christians from Jews, and then to further ostracize and eventually demonize the Jews. By now, we are in the Middle Ages (500-1500) and people continued to believe lies about the Jews and even started to fabricate some. The unwanted Jew was expelled from one European country after the other. Things progressively got worse for the Jews, but nobody really cared to check the facts. What started as a theological difference became a European epidemic that decimated six million Jews during the Nazi regime.

A similar process has been taking place for the last few decades. It started in the Middle East with the rise of Yasir Arafat (Chairman of the PLO from 1969 to 2004), the great defender of the Palestinian right for self-determination. The Palestinian narrative about victimization, oppression and occupation started as propaganda to reverse the tide, and make the perpetrators into the victims and vice-versa. It took a while to take root, and at first, it was challenged by some, but today, it is believed by many around the globe and the Jews are painted as the new Nazis of the Middle East. Arafat has been dead for sixteen years but his legacy of lies and hatred lives on, and it is pushed forward by uneducated people, not interested in checking the facts. Back in the days, the people were illiterate, today they are uneducated about the truth of the Middle East crisis. So they listen to whoever comes up with the most likely scenario faulting the Jews. The result is equally lethal, and with the advent of the Internet and the social networks, it has become far worse. It has now become a pandemic, but many are treating it as the new normal.

Antisemitism like any other form of xenophobia, including racism against blacks, Arabs, Hispanics or any other ethnic community goes against everything the United States was founded upon. What happened to “Judeo/Christian” ethics? A few people pay lip service to the cause by denouncing the longest hatred, but they seem toothless. We need laws, they need to be enforced, and sentences need to be heavy. Antisemitism is akin to domestic terrorism, and terrorism affects all of us…Well at least it should.

If hitting Jews and trying to kill them almost daily has become the new normal, then we are not getting close to the atmosphere of the 1930s and 1940s…WE ARE THERE, and if we are not doing anything, we have become the new bystanders. Somebody, please prove me wrong and I will gladly and humbly stand corrected!

December 23, 2019 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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