Prophecy

September 19, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 49 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!

July 21, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 2 Comments

Could The 1942 “Vel d’Hiv” Round-up of Jews Happen Again?

Eighty years ago, a massive round-up of Jews took place in the Greater Paris area. It became known as “La rafle du Vel d’Hiv” or the “Vel d’Hiv Round-up.” The Vel d’Hiv or “Velodrome d’hiver” was a winter stadium built for bicycle races near the Eiffel Tower. It was a highly frequented place for sports fans and could hold a large crowd. In 1942, the stadium became the site of World War II’s most extensive round-up of Jews from France. The French police worked very closely with the Nazi regime, and in two days, July 16 and 17, over 13,000 Jews were taken to the stadium, including 4,000 children. They were packed in and kept in minimally sanitary conditions. Soon after, the French police sent the people to one of three internment camps in France in Pithiviers, Beaune-La-Rolande and Drancy. The next step occurred in late July and early August when most prisoners were sent to Auschwitz. Of the 4,000 children, only six came back, and only 811 adults returned after the war. My maternal grandfather was put on a train out of Paris to Auschwitz on July 19, 1942, only two days after the infamous round-up. All seems to indicate that he was part of the round-up.

Outside of the terrible collaboration between the Vichy government and the Nazi regime, the Vel d’Hiv round-up left a scar on France that has been haunting people, although not much has been said or done to date to maintain the memory of the event. The building was burned to the ground in a fire in 1959. Soon after, a small plaque was attached to a wall near where it stood. It was not until 2008 that another more detailed plaque was placed to remember the victims, thank those who might have helped some of them at such a difficult and dangerous time and encourage people passing by to remember the past. The plaque says:” On July 16 and 17 1942, 13152 Jews were arrested in Paris and its suburbs and then deported and assassinated in Auschwitz. In the Winter Stadium that once stood here, 4115 children, 2916 women and 1129 men were packed in inhuman conditions by the Vichy government police obeying orders from the Nazi occupiers. Let us be grateful to those who tried to help the victims. As you are passing by, please remember!” The discrepancy in the final numbers of victims is due to the fact that a final count brought the revised number of victims to over 13,000. The Vichy Government had promised 22,000 Jews out of France to the Nazi regime and came short at the round-up, but by the war’s end, 88,000 French Jews had perished.

Eighty years later, could such a thing happen again anywhere in the world? In his book, Every Day Remembrance Day: A Chronicle of Jewish Martyrdom, the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal listed six major causes that could lead to another Jewish catastrophe. A close look and analysis might surprise you as to how close we are.

1. Hatred (prejudice, racism, xenophobia or antisemitism).
There has not been a time in our recent history when hatred was so strong. We live at a time of extreme polarization between the political left and right, between conservatives and liberals, and between blacks and whites. Somehow, just as it was during the Maccabean period when the Seleucids fought the Ptolemies, and the Jews got caught in the proverbial crossfire, modern-day Jewish people end up in the crossfire between the polarized factions. Fair and polite dialogue including disagreements doesn’t seem possible anymore in 2022. Add to this the fact that we are in what appears to be the 59th minute of the 11th hour on the end-times timetable.

2. A dictatorship or totalitarian regime.
Throughout its history, the world has seen a number of dictators like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein to name just a few. The dictionary defines a dictator as, “a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.” The idea is that one person or a few elite members of a group control the masses. It could be argued that the World Economic Forum (WEF) operates with dictatorial tendencies. Biblically speaking, we know that there is a new world order coming that will include the antichrist (1 John 2:18-22; Revelation 13) as the ultimate global dictator. Even in the United States, as we are seeing the rapid erosion of free speech, freedom of religion and Judeo/Christian ethics, we could see a totalitarian regime on the horizon if things don’t pivot back to a more balanced political landscape.

3. A bureaucracy.
When we speak of bureaucracy, people often think of large offices with a myriad of paper-pushers and a hierarchical system of filing, retrieving and processing. There is truth to that at the core of the definition, but what is meant here is more about those who carry out the order of the regime, often almost blindly and “for the greater good”, whatever that means! We have witnessed some of that recently when the world came to a stop and the masses were funneled into doing the same thing, like sheep, hoping for the best results.

4. Technology.
Technology has grown by leaps and bounds in the last 50 years. Personally, I have always considered myself somewhat of a technology aficionado. I love all the different things we get to perform better and faster, not to mention the new things we have at our fingertips that several decades ago would have been considered pure sci-fi. Technology will continue to be developed and grow exponentially. The problem is not with the technology, but rather on how it is used and by whom. We have seen too often when technology falls into the wrong hands, disaster follows. Take for instance the use of the Hollerith tabulating machines (IBM) by Nazis in the camps to catalog and process Jews faster towards total elimination. This was most definitely a case of great new technology landing in the wrong hands.

5. A crisis that becomes an opportunity to blame people.
The world we live in is never going to be without crisis, simply because it is an imperfect world. It has been that way since the fall of man in Genesis 3. Crises can be economic, political, natural or medical to name just a few categories. Gas shortages, food shortages, extreme weather, immigration, diseases, inflation, recession and political uncertainty are all crises that we have seen recently. Globally, we can even look at all these and see how they have converged to a point where our planet appears to have become so fragile. Many of these crises are great opportunities to blame people and further control them.

6. A scapegoat people such as a minority to demonize.
Now if the world could pinpoint a people group, point the finger at them and have them carry the responsibility, that would be the perfect storm. But wait, the world HAS found its scapegoat, and not just recently, but for the last several millennia. We, the Jews, are constantly held responsible for the ills of the world. We have been accused of the black plague, using the blood of Christians to make Matzoh, killing Jesus, controlling Hollywood, controlling the world, inventing diseases and inventing their cures to make money. When it comes to faulting the Jews, much of the world has never let a crisis go to waste.

So, when I look at the events of the Vel d’Hiv that took place eighty years ago; and when I see how over two days, 13,000 Jews were collected in the greater Paris area and packed in a single location with the help of French police bureaucracy under the Nazi totalitarian regime without much fight from the Jews and with almost no help from the French populace, I have no doubt that everything is currently in place for another catastrophe to take place. This time it will include the Jews–it always has in the past–but people need to wake up because more of us are at risk today. There is a slew of ready-made “immigration camps” all over the USA and the world. They are ideal for a repeat of the Vel d’Hiv scenario. Please, do not believe that humanity has learned from the mistakes of the past. Yet, as individuals, we always have an opportunity to make a difference and fight tyranny.

People of goodwill, Christians and Jews are now becoming prime targets. The reason why I need to bring your attention to the Jewish people is that for a very long time now, we have been the canaries in the coal mine of civilization. What happens to us is often a precursor of what can or will happen to you. When you see the world going after us, don’t look the other way or you might miss those who are coming after you next!

July 18, 2022 By Olivier Melnick 2 Comments

Satan’s Creativity: Antisemites Come in Different Shapes, Sizes and Colors! – Part 1

As early as the first Jews were described in the Bible, antisemitism was a thing. And thousands of years later, it continues to be a thing. What could possibly fuel so much hatred against the same people group for such a long time? It is fair and accurate to say that Jewish history has been and continues to be punctuated by acts of antisemitism. Most scholars who write and teach on antisemitism through the ages are somewhat puzzled at its pernicious persistence. I believe that it is due to the fact that they do not take into account the spiritual aspect of the oldest hatred. The moment God expressed interest in the Jewish people and shared His plan for Israel and her people, His archenemy, Satan, started to work towards eliminating the chosen people.

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. He tried to kill the “Seed of the Woman” (Messiah) in Genesis 3:15, and then corrupt the lineage of the Jewish Messiah in Genesis 6:1-5. He turned the Amalekites against the Jews in the wilderness in Deuteronomy 25:17-19. We cannot forget his attempt at completely annihilating the Jews through Haman in the book of Esther.

Yet, Satan didn’t stop there. He continued to turn the world against the Jews, and when Yeshua of Nazareth–the Jewish Messiah–gave His life on that cross for all of us two millennia ago, it didn’t take long for people to accuse the Jews of deicide (the killing of God). Incidentally, it took the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Paul VI, over 1900 years to officially declare in 1965 in Nostra Aetate, that the Jews were no longer guilty of killing Christ. This hasn’t really stopped some modern Catholics from hating Jews to this day.

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 that they are doing a great deed. So, who are these various antisemites? Let us list a few in no particular order, keeping in mind that some of these 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. I will let you discover where some of these people fit within that list.

The Historical antisemite: Deep in the soil of Europe grows the kind of hatred based on the multiple libels and tropes that have cursed Jewish communities from post-biblical days, through the Middle Ages and the Reformation. This is the antisemite who believes that Jews use Christian blood to make matzah for Passover and that Jews poisoned the wells of Europe to cause the great plague that killed over 50 million people in Europe from 1346 to 1353. This is a brand of antisemitism that is in the DNA of many Europeans.

The Muslim antisemite: Islam (early 7th Century) is much younger than Judaism and Christianity. For the last 13 centuries, Islam has developed into one of the three top world religions. For reasons beyond the scope of this article, parts of Islam have become radicalized, and an intense polarization now exists between our Judeo/Christian community and Islam. Jews have become a prime target of Islam and are often targeted as archenemies worthy of death. The Arab/Israeli conflict of the last century certainly doesn’t help the issue. Children are often indoctrinated against Jews and Israel at a very young age.

The College antisemite: For a couple of decades now, antisemitism has been present on college and university campuses. Unfortunately, due to extreme beliefs taught on campuses across the United States, Jews are targeted as enemies. “Campus Intifada” and “Hate Fests” are held on numerous campuses where most of the speakers are solely antisemitic. Gullible students who don’t communicate with others outside those circles end up believing Israel and the Jewish People are the “great Satan”! When Jewish and pro-Israel or pro-Zionist students try and organize themselves, they almost always get disrupted and shouted out of having a voice.|

The Joking antisemite: Everybody loves a good joke, right? Well, we should be careful not to make ethnic jokes, and most people do pay attention to that warning. Yet, there seems to be a disconnect when it comes to jokes involving Jewish people. People regularly joke about Jewish people being stingy, liking money and good deals, thinking it is funny when it really is very offensive. Most Jewish people will shrug their shoulders and appear to be brushing it off, but it is hurtful. The Joking antisemite thinks he/she is funny, but they are not.

The Christian antisemite: How can one be a Christian and hate the Jewish people? Wasn’t Jesus a Jew? Of course, He was! Unfortunately, starting within one century after the closing of the biblical canon, many Church Fathers started to develop an allegorical approach to the Bible that led them and their disciples to believe that the Christians had replaced the Jews in God’s plan, promises and covenants. This is known today as Replacement Theology and is absolutely not biblical. The Christian antisemite thinks he/she is keeping with the Bible’s instruction by replacing the Jews, but they are actually making God a liar and a covenant breaker. Additionally, another group of Christians teaches that Jewish people do not need Jesus or the Gospel to be saved because they are already accepted by God by virtue of being Jewish. This is known as Dual Covenant theology and is also not biblical. Actually, to love Jewish people, but refrain from sharing the gospel with them, is a form of soft antisemitism.

The Political antisemite: The political arena is not exempt from the poison of antisemitism. Various states have elected representatives who claim not to be antisemitic, but only anti-Zionists. These representatives have infiltrated Congress and are fighting hard to give Israel and the Jewish people a bad rep. They claim that Israel is an occupier, colonizer and human rights violator while completely ignoring terrorist attacks against Israel and the Jewish people. The political antisemites lobby against Israel and slowly recruit more of their acolytes who will grow their ranks and help pass more resolutions against Israel.

The United Nations antisemite: When it comes to resolutions, we cannot ignore the many antisemites filling the ranks at the UN. Fourteen resolutions were passed against Israel (population 9.5 MM) in 2021, while five were passed against the rest of the world (population 7.9B), which shows the vast imbalance. Israel represents only .012% of the world population. There was three times more resolution against a country the size of New Jersey than against the whole world. This happened during the 76th session of the UN General Assembly for 2021-2022. UN antisemitism comes from various countries, many of them from the Middle East, but not exclusively. Israel’s demonization at the UN makes one wonder what they are really “United” about?

The Theological antisemite: At a recent Christian conference that is known for supporting Israel, I walked into a hallway and overheard a man conversing with a fellow Jewish believer in Yeshua. I was shocked when the man dogmatically claimed that “the Jews killed Christ!” I had to stop and ask him what he meant after I told him that both of his interlocutors were Jewish. His response was even worse. He told me, “I was only speaking theologically!” How can one spew that kind of nonsensical hatred and claim that it was just a theological statement? You cannot cover antisemitism with a veneer of theology. I asked the man if Hitler killed six million theologically as well. He had no comments.

A few more types of antisemites need to be listed and exposed, but for now, we need to pause and reflect on the first eight of our list. You probably know someone who fits the bill or even more than one type within the same person. People can be corrected once we know that they need correction. We have to do our part firmly and in love. In part II, I will list nine more types and we will look at what they all have in common and how we can start to redirect their biased and xenophobic mentalities toward the truth about Israel and the Jewish people.

March 14, 2022 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Purim: Don’t Mess with the God of Israel!

Wednesday, March 16, 2022, marks the celebration of Purim, also known as the feast of Esther. At this joyous feast, Jewish people gather to recall God’s protection in days of old. special foods are consumed, people dress up and read the Megillat Ester or scroll of Esther in the synagogue, where a lot of noise is made at the calling of the names of the three main protagonists: Mordechai, Esther and Haman. Additionally, gifts are exchanged, as well as donations made to charity.

• PURIM IN THE BIBLE: The only time we read about Purim, is at the end of the book of Esther–a book about God’s miraculous preservation of the Jewish people–even though this is the only book of the Bible where God is never mentioned by name. This didn’t prevent God from orchestrating an incredible story of survival, redemption and blessing, albeit behind the scenes.

The story of Purim is also a very strong post-Genesis example of God’s promise to Abraham to bless those who bless him and curse him who curses Abraham (Genesis 12:3). Haman, the archenemy of the Jews built gallows to hang Mordechai, and at the end, he and all of his sons were hanging on these very gallows…A curse for a curse! People ought to take the promise made by God to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 very seriously. In a sense, it is God’s foreign policy when it comes to Israel, and it has proven true all throughout history (biblical and post-biblical).

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

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

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

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

Furthermore, in verse 8, Haman proceeds to give the reason why the Jews are not wanted in Ahasuerus’ kingdom, and that is simply because THEY ARE DIFFERENT. “Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people, and they do not observe the king’s laws, so it is not in the king’s interest to let them remain.

Because of his hatred for one man who happened to be Jewish, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews of the kingdom. This was a very extreme decision, driven by an irrational desire to hold all people of the same ethnic group responsible because of one of theirs who actually wasn’t guilty of anything but faithfulness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Haman was on a mission to destroy all the Jews.

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

While it might not be obvious at first glance, the process by which Haman sought to annihilate all the Jews within his reach and the one used by Hitler and the Nazi regime have many similarities. There is nothing new under the sun. Consider the parallels between Haman and Hitler in these five points:
• One Man’s jealousy led to uncontrolled hatred (3:5)
• Targeted hatred became global hatred (3:6, 13)
• Hatred was apparently caused because of non-conformity (3:8)
• Attempted annihilation of the Jews was structured and organized (3:9-13)
• Funds were spent and financial wealth was provided for the perpetrators (3:9, 4:7)

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

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

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

• PURIM IN 2022: Satan knows that he cannot succeed, but he tries without ceasing. He has indoctrinated much of the world against the Jewish people, creating antisemitism and making it the oldest and most enduring form of hatred against an ethnic group. While he keeps sub-contracting his hatred to different groups of people, the danger remains the same and the Jewish people continue to be the “scapegoats of humanity”. The same approach used in biblical days and during Hitler’s reign is used today by historical revisionists, BDS promoters, Christian Palestinianism proponents and all other enemies of Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, Satan has even been able to infiltrate and indoctrinate the church. If all these groups had their way, Israel would be erased from the map and the Jewish people completely eradicated from existence and from history. But in a very “Purimesque” ending, the Jewish people will continue to flourish as promised by God Himself in Jeremiah 31:35-37 and Israel will prevail because of God.

Jeremiah 31:35-37 35 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: 36 “If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” 37 Thus says the Lord: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.”

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

Chag Purim Sameach! Happy Purim!

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