Messiah

July 22, 2021 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

It is Time to Boycott the Boycotters!

I often write about the danger of the BDS movement. It has officially been going on for 16 years. It was started by Mahmoud Abbas (current leader of the Palestinian Authority), and Omar Barghouti. 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 Europe in the 1930s. In my research and writing about BDS, I usually present a few ideas on how to fight that antisemitic concept. I have told people repeatedly that one of the best ways to fight BDS is to go to their website and buy and support the very products and companies they list as who should be boycotted. They did all the leg work for us, so let’s use their list.

Another way to fight BDS, and a very powerful one at that, is to educate those who are being fooled by its “social justice” agenda. We need to be informed about the real issues plaguing the Middle East and we need to be able to debunk the Palestinian narrative built on a false premise. Israel is not an apartheid state. It is the safest most productive place for Arabs to live in and work from. Israel is not committing ethnic cleansing since there a much more Arabs within the land today than there were prior to 1948 when it was reborn as a modern nation. Israel is not killing Palestinians indiscriminately, but carefully warning Gaza civilians about upcoming attacks on sites that Hamas specifically selected for their civilian population such as schools and hospitals.

Now, allow me to introduce you to one more way to fight BDS. Instead of just buying what BDS proponents say we should boycott–which is definitely a great start to counter BDS–we should seriously consider boycotting the boycotters. The principle is rather simple. Whichever company, organization, or personality supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement against Israel and the Jewish people, should in turn be boycotted by those who support Israel’s right to exist. It is simple in theory but requires three things: Sacrifice, commitment and integrity. Keep in mind that we should always pass everything through the very helpful “3D test” established by Russian refusenik and now in charge of Immigration to Israel, Nathan Sharansky. He posits that antisemitism can be defined by any combination of the three Ds: Demonization, Double-Standard and Delegitimization. He explains, “we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test – I call it the “3D” test – to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. The first “D” is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz – this is anti-Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel. The second “D” is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel’s Magen David Adom, alone among the world’s ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross – this is anti-Semitism. The third “D” is the test of delegitimization: when Israel’s fundamental right to exist is denied – alone among all peoples in the world – this too is anti-Semitism.”
Now, let’s look at the need for sacrifice, commitment and integrity:

• Sacrifice
We all have a long list of products, companies and personalities that we support and enjoy. Imagine finding out that your favorite actor or musician supports BDS and shows some serious signs of being anti-Semitic. Maybe your favorite product that you have bought for years is making wrong choices about boycotting Israel. Now you have to decide, should you look the other way, or should you stop sending them your money? This is not a trick question, because I constantly ask myself the same question, and unfortunately, more and more recently.
Take for instance the recent decision by Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to stop selling their ice cream to the Israeli settlements in Judea/Samaria (improperly labelled the West Bank), or all of Israel if they could. It is entirely within their rights to do so, but it is also entirely within ours to stop buying Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. Is it possible to say that it is also our duty as bible believing followers of Yeshua and supporters of Israel to “defund Ben & Jerry”, to use a term that everybody can relate to? Now, apply that principle to other areas in your own life where BDS is infringing, and we can start making an impact by using the boycott principle where justified. I personally stopped eating their products last year when that went crazy against the police, and I kept it private, but I feel that now is the time to start spending our money more wisely. I could give you more examples of who to boycott, but I do not wish to unnecessarily be accused of character assassination by those who might miss my point. Instead, I will invite any of you to Google a specific brand, organization or personality with the word “boycott” or “BDS” and see the results. It is not complicated for anyone to find out who is against Israel. When in doubt, contact me privately. All this will require commitment on our part.

• Commitment
So, now that you have decided to boycott a product or a personality, you have to remain committed to that boycott, at least until they show that they have revised their position. We cannot boycott a TV channel on Monday through Friday, but look the other way on weekends because our favorite show is running at that time. We cannot boycott an actor or actress on some movies, but not others because they are part of our favorite movie list. We cannot boycott Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream except for one flavor because we cannot live without it. I get it, it would be a lot easier to boycott a brand of water and switch to another than to sacrifice and stop eating our favorite ice cream. We either boycott or we don’t, but there isn’t such a thing as a partial boycott. Once we commit, we commit. I have boycotted every single movie of one of my all-time favorite directors since 1988 when he directed a very blasphemous and offensive movie graphically portraying Yeshua in terrible sexual relationships. He has since come up with many movies that I would have loved to watch, but I am committed. Think before you commit or don’t commit because you will need to proceed with integrity.

• Integrity
A good definition of integrity from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is, “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values” or “an unimpaired condition” or “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.”
Integrity has to do with being consistent according to a set of set values. Taking it to an extreme, we could argue that Hitler had integrity because he was very consistent in following his code of ethics or values which happened to be the destruction of all Jews. To be fair, this is not the way we think of integrity today. It is more related to morality and character. The point of integrity is that once we make a decision based on what we think is the best course of action, we have to be consistent. When I look at those who support and promote BDS, I see a lot of hypocrisy. They are willing to sacrifice for what doesn’t really hurt them, but they absolutely will not boycott what they cannot live without. Let us not be too quick to judge, because we might be partially guilty of the same at times. The idea is that if you accuse Israel of being an occupier, colonizer and apartheid state, and that you call for its complete boycott, then it should be a complete boycott. It’s easy for anyone to stop buying Jaffa oranges or Sabra® hummus, but it is a different story to refrain from using technology that was invented or co-invented by Israelis like cell-phone technology, thumb drives or even the Intel® chip for computers.

Looking at sacrifice, commitment and integrity, we all come to the realization that boycotting is easier said than done. Let the BDS promoters be inconsistent, hypocritical and without integrity, but for those of us who claim to love Israel and the Jewish people, the time has come to sacrifice and boycott the boycotters. If you decide to do so, why don’t you let your Jewish community leaders and synagogues know that you are boycotting the boycotters? That is, of course, after you have taken a minute to email the organization or product that you are boycotting to let them know that they are losing customers and why.

Time to speak up, time to act and time to stop eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!

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 21, 2021 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Is the stage being set for the prophecy of Zechariah 12:3 ?

Having been a follower of Yeshua for 37 years, I have often heard or even said that we are in the last days. To be sure, even 1st-century believers thought they were in the last days, and each day that passes puts us closer to the end of God’s program for mankind on this side of eternity. So, when people hear that we are in the last days, many of them, suffering from some sort of eschatological fatigue, roll their eyes and move on. Are those of us claiming that it is 11:59 at the eleventh hour just sensationalists? Are we overreacting and redirecting our focus on the less important at the expense of what matters in life? Frankly, it all depends on what our focus is being redirected to.

I have always been a very literal, context-driven student of God’s Word. If God left us the Bible as His message to us on how to live and what to look forward to, we can look at it from different cultural vantage points, but we must agree that it contains the same truth for all mankind. We might not like some of the statements that the Bible makes, but that doesn’t give us the authority to declare that they are not the truth. When we survey God’s counsel, we are bound to find many prophecies fulfilled and more yet to be fulfilled. We must resist “newspaper exegesis”, but we need to honestly look at the news through a Biblical lens if we want to know where we are on God’s timeline of human history.

Much of that timeline revolves around Israel as God has promised to never forsake Israel or allow for its destruction (Jeremiah 31:35-37). At a time when rockets are raining down on Israel by the hundreds, from a human perspective, the situation looks very bleak. While casualties are inevitable on both sides, God isn’t caught by surprise by the present conflict, and neither should those of us who take His word seriously. Satan’s demise clock is ticking quickly, and he is desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Satan finds, in most of the world, a plethora of willing executioners for his antisemitic agenda. Truth has long ceased to matter. Fact-checks are politically or socially motivated.

If someone believes that they are contributing to social justice, multiculturalism and tolerance, they immediately feel like they are making a difference to improve the world we live in; even if it is at the expense of someone else, and in this case, as is too often the case, at the expense of Israel and the Jewish people.

Not long after the tragedy of the Hyper Cacher Supermarket on the east side of Paris in 2015, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a piece in The Atlantic that still resonates in my head. In it, he made a sobering statement that I was really hoping was inaccurate, but as it turns out, he might have been spot on. He wrote, ” The Shoah served for a while as a sort of inoculation against the return of overt Jew-hatred—but the effects of the inoculation, it is becoming clear, are wearing off. What was once impermissible is again imaginable. Memories of 6 million Jewish dead fade, and guilt becomes burdensome….Israel is coming to be understood not as a small country in a difficult spot whose leaders, especially lately, have been making shortsighted and potentially disastrous decisions, but as a source of cosmological evil—the Jew of nations.”

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What Goldberg saw six years ago, was the erosion of Europe’s compassion towards the Jewish people. I have long been a believer that what happens in Europe, and even particularly in France, is a good indication of what is coming to America. The barometer of the new antisemitism in Europe sets the temperature for what is coming to America. Since 1948–when Israel was reborn as a modern nation–antisemitism, which was localized mostly to Greater Europe, became a global virus. The tiny Jewish state gave anti-Semites a justification for a Jew-hatred that has now spread over the four corners of the world. The irrational conclusion has been that if Israel is guilty, by proxy, all Jews are as well. This could lead to the whole world hating the Jews…but wait, isn’t there a prophecy in the Bible about that?

The prophet Zechariah wrote, “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.” (Zechariah 12:2-3). Mind you, this is a reference to the Campaign of Armageddon, and we are not there since this will be taking place during the final stretch of the Great Tribulation (Revelation 16:16, 19:19). Yet, we cannot afford to put our heads in the sand and ignore the signs of the times. None of this final chapter of mankind, hinging around Israel is going to happen in a vacuum, but rather, it will be progressive AND exponential. I believe that we are well on the way to that final Biblical curtain call, as the pressure is mounting against Jews worldwide. In the last week:

In a recent conversation with the Pope, Turkish president Erdogan declared, “All of humanity should be united against Israel.” I wonder if he had any idea of how Biblical he was when he made that outrageous statement?
Pro-Palestinian crowds gathered in Los Angeles and attacked Jewish diners as a result of the current conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Pro-Palestinian crowds rallied in Westwood, CA demanding that Israel stop the airstrikes over the Gaza Strip. They didn’t ask for a ceasefire or for an end to the conflict, but just for Israel to stop defending itself.
In New York, Jewish people were attacked by pro-Palestinian passing cars who threw fireworks at them, screaming “F…ing Zionists”. One Jewish person was burned.
In Germany, people marched on the streets shouting “free Palestine for the Jordan to the sea” which is a euphemism for getting rid of all the Jews.
In London, a group of cars drove through a Jewish neighborhood screaming, “F… the Jews, rape their daughters.“
In Washington D.C., protesters gathered outside the Israeli Embassy and shouted “Free, Free Palestine” and declared that Israel had no right to exist.

As of this writing, Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It is uncertain if that ceasefire will hold, but what is sure is that the hatred for Israel and the Jewish people seems to continue to grow on a global scale, preparing the way for an all-out war against the Jews. The Bible is clear, at some point, all the nations of the world will gather against Jerusalem, but that doesn’t mean that all people will follow suit. It is time for all Christians and people of goodwill to unite in rebellion against the real oppressor. For the last several decades, under the leadership of the new antisemitism, the Jews became the perpetrators, something that they never have been. Now is the time to reset our moral GPS because nobody in his right mind will find any moral equivalence between a country that uses weapons to defend its civilians and a group of people who uses civilians to hide their weapons.

Maybe the days of Zechariah 12:3 are closer than we think?

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!

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