Israel

September 28, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 10 Comments

Yom Kippur, The Great Tribulation and the Antichrist…How Soon?

The Jewish civil new year 5783 has come and gone, and to many, it was a bit of a disappointment that the Rapture didn’t take place on Rosh Hashanah (Yom T’ruah or the Day of Trumpets) this year. I am of those who expect the Rapture imminently, but I also understand that we cannot know the day or the hour of that event when Yeshua will come in the sky and call the believers up before the Tribulation. But after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur, and we should continue to pay close attention. So, how does that relate to Yom Kippur, the Great Tribulation and the Antichrist?

As I have explained before, I see a connection between Rosh Hashanah and the Rapture, Yom Kippur and the Great Tribulation and Sukkot (Tabernacles) and the Millennial Kingdom. The Fall Feasts have a thematic connection to the end times not necessitating an exact day fulfillment. In fact, all the Levitical Feasts of the Lord found in Leviticus 23 have a prophetic significance as it pertains to the redemptive career of the Messiah. It is quite beautiful to behold when we connect all the dots. But again, Rosh Hashanah is behind us, and we are now in the ten days of awe in preparation for the most solemn day of Yom Kippur known as the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16).
Rabbis teach that the fate of all Jews is decided on Yom T’ruah (The Day of Trumpets), but it isn’t sealed until Yom Kippur. This is a time of introspection and repentance when Jewish people go out of their way to seek forgiveness from anyone they might have hurt throughout the year. The sabbath that falls within these ten days is known as Shabbat Shuvah (the Sabbath of repentance).

Leviticus 23:26-32 tells us that the Day of Atonement is all about repentance, humility and affliction: 26 “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord. 28 You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. 29 If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people. 30 As for any person who does any work on this same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no work at all. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. 32 It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.”
Yom Kippur is a very serious and solemn day on the Jewish calendar, possibly the most important of the year for Jewish people. It is never referred to as a feast but rather, as a fast. It is known by several names, including Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement, Shabbat Shabbaton: The Sabbath of Sabbaths (Leviticus 16:31), and Yom Hakippurim: The Day of Atonements (Leviticus 23:27). It is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar and is the only time that a day other than the Sabbath is also called a sabbath.

Biblically, Yom Kippur is never connected to a fast, but based on Leviticus 23:27-29, the rabbis decided that the “affliction” of the soul must refer to abstinence from food. According to Judaism on this day of judgment, all deeds–good or bad– are weighed in heaven and God inscribes one’s name in one of three books (Wicked, In-Between or Righteous), sealing their fate for the next year until the next Yom Kippur. The basic rabbinic principle of Yom Kippur is that man can atone for his own sins through works. It relies heavily on the affliction of the body. Yom Kippur is a time when Jewish people experience affliction of the body more than the traditional affliction of the soul. It includes no eating or drinking. No washing or bathing. No anointing (creams, ointments, perfume). No leather shoes (luxury items). No sexual relations with spouse.
Yom Kippur is a day of repentance and expiation of sins by God, also based on Ezekiel 33:19: But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them. The book of Jonah is also read to teach that you cannot run from God and that God will forgive whoever repents like the Ninevites. It is found in three passages of the Torah: Leviticus 16:1- 34; Leviticus 23:26-32 and Numbers 29:7-11. In the Torah, it served three purposes: To cleanse the people and the Tabernacle, to remind Israel of her national standing before God, and to call for individual repentance.

Leviticus 16:1-34 details the duties of the High Priest and serves as the foundation for 16:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”

Yom Kippur will be fulfilled by the Great Tribulation also known as The Time of Jacob’s Trouble and will culminate with Israel’s national Atonement in the Tribulation.

Ezekiel 20:33-38 sets the stage, “33 As I live,” declares the Lord God, “surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you. 34 I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out; 35 and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face. 36 As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” declares the Lord God. 37 “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; 38 and I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am the Lord.

God will purge rebels and regenerate willing unbelievers who seek the righteousness of God through Yeshua the Messiah. This will bring about Israel’s national regeneration. The key word biblically and rabbinically is “affliction,” both of the soul and the body. On Yom Kippur, atonement was made for the nation, not the individual through the sacrifice of the two goats. But national atonement was not achieved unless there was an affliction of the soul at the individual level. Two other key passages to be considered for Yom Kippur’s fulfillment are Hosea 5:15-6:3 and Zechariah 12:10-13:1.

During the seven-year Great Tribulation, “left behind Israel” will suffer the affliction of the body as two-thirds of all Jewish people alive at that time will perish (Zechariah 13:8-9; Hosea 5:15). Additionally, Zechariah 12:10 and Hosea 6:1-3, speak of the spiritual affliction of Israel that will lead to a corporate acceptance of Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel and will usher the physical Second Coming of Yeshua.

There is a beautiful prophetic connection between all the feasts of the Lord and the end times. Believers should really be excited about what is to come and how God has perfectly linked it to His “yearly convocations” but when it comes to Yom Kippur, we all need to reflect. What is so exciting about billions left behind to suffer and die, including half of the world population and within those numbers, two-thirds of the Jewish people alive at that time?

We look forward to the Rapture and rightfully so, and we look forward to the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom on earth when we will tabernacle with God in the flesh. Accordingly, none of us look forward to the Tribulation since we will be taken out before it starts. Yet, we need to think of all those left behind at the mercy of the Antichrist. Things will start with a promising peace treaty (Daniel 9:26-27), but soon the Antichrist will turn on people and demand to be worshipped as god. People will either take the Mark of the Beast and survive the Tribulation, only to be doomed to eternal torment in the Lake of Fire for rejecting Yeshua, or they will reject the Mark and become Tribulation martyrs.

The Tribulation is as certain to happen as the Rapture will. We are still here on earth, and people who don’t know Yeshua are also around us. Now is the time to be bold with the Gospel because the clock is really ticking. If any of the five red heifers turn out to be kosher, we could see the ashes of that animal come to Jerusalem within one year (a plot of land on the Mount of Olives has already been purchased for the sacrifice of the animal). Then, all we need is for the Temple to be rebuilt, and I believe that the Antichrist and his peace treaty with Israel will be instrumental in that part.

Be encouraged to know that any Jewish man you share the Gospel with now could potentially become one of the 144,000 Jewish men used by God to change the world during the Great Tribulation. Now is not the time to be quiet. We know the whole story; we know the players and we know the end. The victory is ours, so, let’s share the Gospel with those who need to become members of the blessed Body of Messiah!

September 19, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 50 Comments

Has the Red Heifer been found, and if so, what’s next?

To say that we are living in exciting times is an understatement. World events are converging at such a high rate of speed that it is hard to keep up. For Bible students like myself, it is both exhilarating and concerning to see the whole planet moving towards a one-world government so quickly. I have been a believer for 39 years and since then, I have firmly believed in what the Bible says about the end times, the one-world government and a cashless society, but I always thought that it wouldn’t be in my lifetime, and yet, here we are.

The next event on God’s timetable is the Rapture of the believers from planet earth. This is a “signless event”, meaning that it doesn’t require anything before it takes place. I also believe that after the Rapture, those left behind will go through increasingly perilous times known as “The Time of Jacob’s Trouble”, or as most of us know it, “The Great Tribulation”. This will be a period lasting seven years before the triumphal return of Yeshua the Messiah at the end of those seven years. This is when the Messianic or millennial kingdom will finally be inaugurated.

Incredibly, during the Great Tribulation, or more precisely at the midpoint, after 3.5 years, the Temple will be desecrated, but which Temple? Not counting the wilderness Tabernacle after the Exodus, there are four Temples described in the Bible. First, we read about Solomon’s Temple, which is the one that David wanted to build, in (1 Kings chapters 5-9) and 2 Chronicles (chapters 2-7). Then, after suffering some heavy damage at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, that Temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel between 520-515 BCE and became known as Herod’s Temple. Roman general Titus destroys the Herodian Temple in 70 CE.

Israel currently doesn’t have a Temple in Jerusalem. Are things about to change? The Bible speaks of a third and a fourth Temple or Millennial Temple (Ezekiel 40-46). The third Temple is a project that has been at the heart of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem for decades. A section of religious Jews is convinced that they will be rebuilding their Temple and once again resume the sacrificial system in Israel. Towards that end, they have painstakingly recreated all the implements necessary for the resumption of Temple life. Everything has been ready for a while now, even the priests from the tribe of Levi (remember that the tribe of Levi is the only one that can be identified since its identity was preserved in the name of its members such as Levy and Cohen and other derivatives). But the proverbial buck stops here because, to resume Temple duties, a red heifer is needed. It is important to note that the third Temple, while simply called the third Temple by its Jewish proponents, is also known by Yeshua’s followers as the Tribulation Temple.

The search for the red heifer has been going on for decades. The criteria for the selection of the ultimate red heifer are quite specific. The reason why a red heifer is needed is that Jewish people at the Temple must present themselves in a state of ritual purity before they perform their duties. We get this from the Passover celebration in the wilderness in Numbers 9:5-7, “They observed the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did. But there were some men who were unclean because of the dead person, so that they could not observe Passover on that day.”

According to Judaism, there isn’t one Jewish man alive who can claim that level of purity and since the Temple no longer exists and the ashes of the red heifer are gone, it cannot yet be attained. Ritual purification continues to be mandatory for anyone within Judaism who has had contact with a dead body. The 113th commandment of the 613 found in the Torah stipulates that “the ashes of a red heifer are to be used in the process of ritual purification.” Numbers 19:1-22 explains the process, “Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed. You shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned….Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin.

So, the only way to be cleansed from impurity is to be washed with water mixed with the ashes of a red heifer, but not any red heifer would do! The parah adumah or “red cow” must be a young (less than three-years-old) red heifer with no defect, on which no yoke was ever placed. Only nine red heifers were ever found in the entire history of Israel, so it goes without saying that they are extremely rare and valuable. Much mystery surrounds the reason for using the ashes of a red heifer. Why ashes? Why a cow of a specific color? Why a sacrifice outside the Temple compound? Why mixed with water? Jewish tradition records that even the very wise king Solomon didn’t understand it. The Red Heifer is also mentioned in the New Testament in Hebrews 9:13-14 as an example of Yeshua’s spotless, sinless sacrifice being greater than the ashes of the animal.

Recently, five spotless, young red heifers were flown to Israel from Texas. If they continue to grow spotless, without defect and without even one black or white hair, they will qualify for the special sacrifice and gathering of their ashes. Time will tell, but these five are bringing a lot of hope to the Temple people patiently awaiting the qualified candidate. So, what does this all mean to us?

If indeed a kosher Red Heifer has been located and selected, this represents the last piece of the puzzle for the next Temple. Since all the implements have been recreated and the priests selected and trained, the Temple can be rebuilt, and the Levitical team can be purified. This validates the veracity of the Bible even further as if we needed more validation to believe that it is the infallible, inerrant word of God!

Unfortunately, if this is all happening in front of our eyes, and as great news as it may be for us followers of Yeshua the Messiah, it also means that the third Temple is ready to be rebuilt. This is the Temple that believers know as the “Tribulation Temple”. It is the very edifice that the coming antichrist will desecrate as he calls himself god and forces people to worship him. This means that the Tribulation is near and that great casualties will be seen in the world.

Christians can rejoice about the Red Heifer from a biblical standpoint, but from the perspective of the eternal order, only those who have trusted Yeshua will be in God’s presence, and this is no reason to rejoice when we think of all those around us who have not believed yet that Yeshua is the Messiah.

The Red Heifer, if qualified, will bring us one step closer to the last moments of the end times, which means that the Rapture is even closer than we think and that the need to share the Good News is truly now more important than ever!

September 2, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 2 Comments

You say “ZIONISM” like it’s a bad word!

For most people, Zionism is either a word they can hardly explain or has become akin to a cuss word, but what is Zionism? In light of the recent 2022 125th anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, it is essential to understand the term and its implications. Depending on our understanding of the term Zionism, our understanding of Israel’s right to exist will vary. We can look at the definition from the Jewish Virtual Library for Zionism as: “The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. ” Yet, even with a definition, we must go back in history to track the progress made by Jewish people that lead to the birth of Zionism.

In the late 1700s, there was a movement in Europe known as the Haskalah (enlightenment) which ended in the 1880s. Its leaders promoted a movement based on liberalism and freedom of choice in the hope of seeing the beginning of the emancipation of European Jews as well as their equality wherever they lived…It failed! Then in the late 1800s, came the pogroms (government-sponsored riots) against Eastern European Jews. Leo Pinsker, one of the leaders of the haskalah, got very discouraged. In his 1882 book “Auto-Emancipation” he wrote, “Indeed, what a pitiful figure we cut! We are not counted among the nations, neither have we a voice in their councils, even when the affairs concern us. Our fatherland–the other man’s country; our unity-dispersion; our solidarity – the battle against us; our weapon – humility; our defense – flight; our individuality – adaptability; our future – the next day. What a miserable role for a nation which descends from the Maccabees! … Happily, matters stand somewhat differently now. The events of the last few years in enlightened Germany, in Romania, in Hungary, and especially in Russia have effected what the far bloodiest persecutions of the Middle Ages could not. The national consciousness which until then had lain dormant in sterile martyrdom awoke the masses of the Russian and Romanian Jews and took form in an irresistible movement toward Palestine.”

Within 15 years came the Dreyfus Affair of 1894. French Captain Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason, stripped of his rank, was imprisoned on Devil’s Island, but eventually vindicated and reinstated. The Jewish journalist from Austria, Theodor Herzl covered the trial in Paris and became rapidly convinced that Dreyfus had been framed and that Jews had no future in Europe. Two years later he published “Der Judenstaadt” (The Jewish State) in which he wrote, “The idea I have developed in this pamphlet is an ancient one: It is the restoration of the Jewish State. . . The decisive factor is our propelling force. And what is that force? The plight of the Jews. . . I am profoundly convinced that I am right, though I doubt whether I shall live to see myself proved so. Those who today inaugurate this movement are unlikely to live to see its glorious culmination. But the very inauguration is enough to inspire in them a high pride and the joy of an inner liberation of their existence.”

In 1897, the First Jewish Congress was convened in Basel, Switzerland. Theodore Herzl expressed something that some have called prophetic. He said, “At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.” Fifty years after the First Zionist Congress was November 29, 1947, when the UN General Assembly voted in favor of partitioning Palestine, putting in motion the re-birth of the modern state of Israel that took place on May 14, 1948. In the decade following Herzl’s death, the Zionist influx continued in the Holy Land, and about 100,000 pioneers lived there. Times were hard, workdays were long, and poverty was rampant, but the spirit of hope kept Zionism alive. On the eve of World War One, Zionism had become a reality, a fragile one, but a reality, nonetheless.

Then, in 1917, the Balfour declaration was another milestone in the process of the re-birth of Israel, followed by one of the best-kept secrets in the history of the Jewish people, the San Remo Conference of 1920, when a legal precedent was made and the rights to Palestine were given to the Jewish people. It also gave the rights to the rest of the Middle East to the Arabs. It established an international legal precedent that superseded any later declaration, even the United Nations didn’t have the right to change it in 1947 had they wanted to. Eventually, on May 14, 1948, Israel was reborn as a modern nation. Even with all this, there is a growing faction of people seeing Zionism as colonialism which according to the dictionary is, “domination of a people or area by a foreign state or nation: the practice of extending and maintaining a nation’s political and economic control over another people or area.” There are several reasons why Zionism is not colonialism or occupation historically speaking:

• The Land of Palestine is the land of Israel with a different name: It is time for people to accept the fact that the word Palestine was simply a name change forced on Israel by Roman emperor Hadrian to further humiliate them after the failed Bar Kochba revolt of A.D. 135. IT IS NOT STOLEN LAND! The stamps, coins, newspapers, passports and other things that said “Palestine” prior to 1948 all had the initials of the two Hebrew words “Eretz” (land) and “Yisrael” (Israel) stamped on them. Nobody argued about Palestine being another name for the geographical area of Israel until Yasir Arafat came onto the political scene and created displaced people with stolen land. Please people, do your homework!

• Israel is not committing ethnic cleansing: Ethnic cleansing or genocide is intentional organized mass murder to eradicate a people group. The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust qualify as ethnic cleansing. In 1947 there were about 1.2 MM Arabs in British Mandate Palestine. Today, there are more than 6 MM Arabs in the whole land, including about 2 MM in Israel alone. There are more Arabs in Israel today than before 1947. This is the opposite of ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, there are still fewer Jewish people in 2022 than there were prior to the Holocaust.

• Israel is not an apartheid state: Apartheid was South Africa’s way of keeping blacks and whites separated, and as such, it forbade blacks to eat in white restaurants or cafes, attend white schools or universities, be treated in white hospitals, live in white neighborhoods and serve in the white government. Israeli Arabs are full citizens who do not experience any of the restrictions that were known to South Africa. The only difference is with citizens of Gaza and the West Bank, but THEY do not want to be Israeli citizens.

There are also several reasons why Zionism is not colonialism or occupation biblically speaking:
• The land ultimately belongs to God: “The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. (LEVITICUS 25:23)

• God gave the land to the Jewish people with very specific boundaries not to be abused: “You have circled this mountain long enough. Now turn north, and command the people, saying, “You will pass through the territory of your brothers the sons of Esau who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful; do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” (Deuteronomy 2:3-5; 16-19).

• God Covenanted with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the land: “Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.” (Genesis 12:1-3; 15:18-21; 26:2-4; 28:13)

• God told Israel to conquer the land: “Know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you. “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 9:3-5)

Under Zionism, Arabs who live in Israel are treated equally and with respect, so to be a Zionist doesn’t require being anti-Palestinian, or anti-Arab to be more precise since the Palestinian people are all Arabs dressed in a false “Palestinian” cloak of oppressed victims. Israel welcomes Arabs in all sectors of society, from public servants to doctors to Knesset members. Why won’t Palestinians do likewise? Zionism is not a dirty word; it is the essence of Jewish resilience in light of centuries of persecution. As for me, I would rather be on God’s side and since God was the first Zionist, so will I be, so pick your side and accept the consequences!

August 18, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 5 Comments

So, The Jews Didn’t Kill Christ After All! Really?

One of the oldest lies used against the Jewish people is that of deicide. We have been collectively accused of killing Christ pretty much from His death forward. This accusation is probably the number one reason for Jewish persecution, expulsion and murder across the centuries. It can be traced back to early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (A.D. 103-165) and Melito of Sardis (Died A.D. 180). They were two of the pioneers of the accusation of deicide and they paved the way for many more Church Fathers, theologians, Christian apologists and others to reinforce the idea that not only the Jews were “Christ killers”, but that the accusation was universal, corporate and eternal. In other words, the stigma of deicide is apparently here to stay.

Many of these Church Fathers became members of the Roman Catholic Church theology and doctrine “Hall of Fame” and helped one of the oldest tropes get very deeply rooted in the Catholic faith. So much so, that it wasn’t until 1965 that Pope Paul VI declared in Nostra Aetaete that the Jews were no longer responsible for the killing of Christ. So, were we collectively responsible for His death until 1965? Did the Pope wake up one morning and decide that the accusation wasn’t valid anymore? Could it be that the Bible was completely taken out of context to arrive at such a gross accusation?

Yeshua (Jesus) gives us a very clear answer in the Gospel of John in the parable of the good shepherd. It appears that His death was planned as part of God’s plan from eternity past. Yeshua says in John 10:17-18: “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” So, the facts are in, Yeshua gave His own life as a sacrifice for all people; Jews and Gentiles. It was a voluntary sacrifice of the innocent for the guilty. We all killed Him, but the myth of deicide has been so persistent and pervasive that to this day, it is a hard one to fight, but there is hope against all odds.

I found hope in a recent turn of events that took place in Germany in the little town of Oberammergau in Bavaria, the southern part of Germany. But first, a little background history. That little town has been hosting a Passion play for almost 400 years now. It was first performed in 1634 after the villagers vowed to perform the play every ten years into perpetuity if God spared them from the bubonic plague. Legend has it that a man came to the village with the plague and died from it, but miraculously, all the villagers survived and never got the plague. The promise had to be kept, so every ten years, a massive Passion Play is organized that utilizes only villagers (up to 2,000 of them) for staging, lighting, decor, directing, music and performing. People come from all over the world to view the famous Oberammergau Passion Play which lasts for about six months.

Unfortunately, the play has been laced with antisemitism pretty much from its inception. It has continually portrayed the Jewish people very negatively, feeding the age-old canard of deicide without any apparent remorse. It went on pretty much uninterrupted. But, In 1966, a group of personalities from the entertainment industry along with some intellectuals and academics complained about the anti-Jewish sentiment displayed all throughout the play. One of the personalities, Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel stated, “The artist cannot be silent when the arts are used to exalt hatred. If the people of Oberammergau feel that they cannot faithfully represent their vision except through an explicitly anti-Semitic text, then others have no choice but to denounce that vision and urge that all who share our view join with us in condemning the performance.” The battle continued well into the twenty-first century. The latest performance year was supposed to be 2020, but because of the pandemic, it was pushed to 2022. This is where I become hopeful.

The current director of the Passion Play is Christian Stückl, and he has worked closely with Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee to eradicate the antisemitic overtones that the play has been pushing since the 17th century. As Christian Stückl took on the direction of the play, he said that his number one concern was ” to eliminate its anti-Judaism.” This is a very commendable task going against the flow of almost 400 years of antisemitism intertwined with biblical teaching about the death and resurrection of the Messiah.

Even before the play would start, Stückl organized a trip to Israel for the main characters in the play to help sensitize them to the truth of the Bible in its Jewish context and to the fact that Yeshua was not killed by Jews at all. He wanted his actors to try to put themselves in the shoes of a Jewish audience. He also invited Jewish people to help him in assessing his changes. I am not sure that the play would ever attract a substantial Jewish audience, but just the fact that they are becoming sensitive to the Jewish community speaks very highly of Christian Stückl’s desire to right a wrong of 400 years.

Will this end all antisemitism? Certainly not, but when we see the bully in the schoolyard, we should do all we can to stop him, even though we know he most likely will return soon after. Antisemitism comes from so many sources and has been the longest hatred. Considering that many people hate the Jews even though they have never met anybody Jewish in their lifetime says it all! Christian Stückl is a great example of one person making a difference. His decision has actually affected a lot of people in the 2020 play. Not only has he helped reshape the preconceived ideas that some of the inhabitants of Oberammergau had for decades if not centuries, but his new adaptation of the Passion Play will help much since the average attendance from around the world is about 500,000 over the whole season.

One voice can count. May God honor Oberammergau’s Passion Play director for his courage and desire to set the record straight against the flow of accepted Jew-hatred around the world.

July 28, 2022 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Satan’s Creativity: Antisemites Come in Different Shapes, Sizes and Colors! – Part 2

A few weeks ago, I started a list of all the different types of antisemites. I want to continue that list in part two of this article. Remember that antisemitism cannot be fully understood without the spiritual component that allowed it to persist through the centuries. It is a creation of Satan to eradicate Israel and all Jewish people. Satan is as creative as he is hateful. He has managed to summon Jew hatred from so many people around the world and over the ages.

It really helps to identify all the different types of antisemites that one can run into. Some of them might be harder to identify because of how devious Satan is at disguising the hatred and making it look like social justice. In a day and age when social justice is so attractive, many people will jump on the antisemitism bandwagon, thinking they are doing a great deed.

So, who are these various antisemites? Let us continue our list with a few more in no particular order, keeping in mind that some of the various characteristics might intersect and some people can display several of them all at once. Additionally, the list will keep growing because of Satan’s creative hatred and continued subcontracting of it to many people.

The Boycott antisemite: The Boycott of Israel and Israeli goods and personalities was revived in 2005 by Mahmoud Abbas and Omar Barghouti who repurposed the South African apartheid definition to fit the Palestinian narrative. Fighting real apartheid with a boycott made sense and the concept of a boycott isn’t bad in and of itself, but the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is built on an entirely false premise.

People around the globe have bought into BDS and are promoting it blindly without checking the facts. The boycott antisemite will almost always claim that he/she is anti-Israel or anti-Zionist but not antisemitic. This is another case of trying to hide Jew-hatred under a thin veneer of social justice.

The Neo-Nazi antisemite: The Nazi regime left a scar that will never disappear. So much so, that after WWII, most people believed that the new Jewish motto “NEVER AGAIN” really meant something. To this day, it is very unpopular to join the ranks of any Neo-Nazi group. They only exist on the fringe and do not constitute a very serious threat. This being said, they can still be found in several countries of Europe. They espouse a new brand of Hitlerian ideology and adhere to all the antisemitic tropes and blood libels in the book.

The Coward antisemite: For the better part of 2022, various antisemitic flyers have been found in multiple US states in residential neighborhoods. The flyers accuse the Jewish people of various ills such as controlling the world, the banks, Hollywood and even the Coronavirus. Even though the flyers seem to all be connected to the same internet site known as Goyimtv.tv, there is a certain amount of cowardice in the way they are placed on private residential properties at night.

The Leftist antisemite: In recent years, antisemitism has been heavily promoted by the left. While it is important to recognize that antisemitism currently comes from the left, the right and just about all other political and ideological factions out there, the left is particularly active in denigrating Israel. What is so ludicrous is that the liberal left–for which many Jews vote to this day–is promoting an anti-Israel agenda and a pro-Palestinian narrative.

Even Radical Islam and the liberal left agree on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, when ideologically they agree on nothing else, being on two opposite side of the spectrum. Yet, we all know the adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend!”

The Social Media antisemite: The advent of the Internet changed the way we communicate and consume information and data forever. There is nothing that cannot be shared almost instantly and globally. This too is an aspect of our civilization that is neutral in and of itself but again, fallen into the wrong hands; the Internet is can become a vile and even lethal weapon.

Beyond the Internet is the web of social media networks. These networks have been overwhelmingly used by Jew-haters. Sadly, when many people get penalized for speaking the truth and being perceived as divisive and racist, antisemites the world around seem to have an open platform with almost no censorship.

The Jewish antisemite: While “Jewish Antisemitism” should be an oxymoron, it does exist. It exists on an individual level with liberal Jews who boldly promote Holocaust denial and Israeli colonization and occupation of Palestine. There are also Jewish Religious groups like Neturei Karta meaning “Guardians of the City” who have opposed Zionism since the late 1890s. They even had a conference in Iran. Groups such as The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, while being fringe groups, still play a role in the denigration of Israel and the Jewish people. Their voice helps to embolden the more aggressive antisemites of the world.

The Isolated antisemite: Probably the most puzzling antisemite of them all is the isolated antisemite. It is the person who hates Jews openly and yet has never met one in their life. All the other racists base their dislikes of a particular people group or ethnic community on experience and interaction–not that it would ever justify such feelings. For the isolated antisemite, indoctrination against the Jews based on more than 2,000 years of libels and lies is all they need. How one can say they hate someone without having ever met them shows the irrationality of antisemitism.

So, what do all these types of people have in common in spite of their various approaches to the subject of antisemitism?

They are all ignoring facts to come to their conclusions.
• They are promoting lies knowingly.
• They do not accept correction easily if at all.
• They are willing to join arms with enemies for the sake of their common agenda.
• They are believing the most irrational stories.

From a biblical perspective, it is rather obvious that they have chosen their side. They take the side of the enemy of God, Satan, who hates what God loves and loves what God hates. I am not implying that antisemites are all demon-possessed (although some might be), but I am saying that they are allowing Satan to influence them. He is the only being crafty enough to make the irrational look and sound rational. He knows that Israel is the key player in the Second Coming of the Messiah, which also spells his final demise, so he has done everything to stop that or at least postpone it.

“Antisemitism is the irrational and satanic hatred of the Jewish people and Israel characterized by thoughts, words or deeds against them.” There is no room for Christians or people of goodwill in that definition. Period!

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