Jewish Archives - The New Antisemitism

February 11, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 23, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 7 Comments

Could Radical Islam be the Curse of Genesis 12:3 ?

In the book of Genesis, G-d made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants (the Jewish people) in which He unconditionally promised Abraham several things including many descendants, a specific area of land in the Middle East known as Israel and in verse 3, He also promised to reward those dealing with Israel and the Jewish people according to their behavior, as we read: “And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse.”

This promise from G-d isn’t an empty one as we can track through biblical history how He caught up with those who mistreated Israel. It didn’t take long for G-d to punish Egypt with the death of all their firstborns as the tenth plague inflicted on the Egyptians whose Pharaoh–who didn’t know Joseph– had ordered the death of all male children of the Jewish slaves he controlled (Exodus 1:8-22; 11:1-7). A curse for a curse!

We can also look at the story that unfolds in the Book of Esther. Haman, the arch-enemy of the Jewish people wants to get rid of Mordecai and all his people, so he fabricates a story and builds gallows to hang Mordecai. By the end of the book, it is Haman who is hanging dead on the gallows (Esther 3:5-15; 7:7-10), again…A curse for a curse!

But the Genesis 12:3 principle doesn’t stop with the biblical narrative. It continues through time as we can see with the Spanish empire that had been leading Western Europe for close to 600 years until the late 1400’s. That era was known as the “Golden Age” of Spain and it lasted until 1492, a date that according to most historians and scholars isn’t only the time when Christopher Columbus “sailed the ocean blue”, but also the year when Queen Isabella chose to drive out all the Jews of Spain. Subsequently, 1492 became known as the start of the decline of the Spanish empire.

Genesis 12:3 could be labelled “G-d’s foreign policy as it pertains to Israel.” And if indeed G-d keeps his word, He will catch up with all the enemies of Israel sooner or later. Sometimes sooner, sometimes not, sometimes with a similar curse, but not necessarily always with matching curses.

Looking at the situation in Europe today, it is hard not to connect the impact of radical Islam to the behavior of certain countries towards Israel. All or most of the countries of the current European Union have had a history of antisemitism that, one way or another, can be traced back to the second Century BCE. Consider just a few of the European countries who expelled their Jewish communities over the last 600 years (several more could be listed):

England: Expelled the Jews in 1290
France: Expelled the Jews in 1306, 1321-22, 1394
Spain: Expelled the Jews in 1492
Sicily: Expelled the Jews in 1492-93
Lithuania: Expelled the Jews in 1495
Portugal: Expelled the Jews in 1496-97
Germany: Expelled the Jews in 1510, 1610, 1885
Bavaria: Expelled the Jews in 1551
Italy: Expelled the Jews 1567, 69, 1593
Austria: Expelled the Jews in 1670
Czechoslovakia: Expelled the Jews in 1745
Russia: Expelled the Jews in 1891

This doesn’t include a record of other major events in the annals of Jewish history that have punctuated the Jewish people’s story with horrific acts of antisemitism such as the Crusades, the Blood Libels, The Host Desecration accusations, Talmud burnings, the Inquisition, the Pogroms and of course the Holocaust. Without performing an in-depth socio-demographic study of all these countries, we can still speculate that there might be a connection between the treatment of their respective Jewish communities and how G-d might be responding in the twenty-first century.

Radical Islam had already almost impregnated all European countries until very recently. People like Bat Ye’or saw the hand-writing on the wall of European civilization as early as the mid 1970s in her seminal work Eurabia. Mark Steyn understood the demographics “point of no return” in 2006 in his book America Alone. I wrote about it as early as 2000 in my first book They Have Conspired Against You.

With the advent of the migrant crisis in the last two years, Europe has now been placed on a collision course. Germany and Sweden are leading the way in what could become to the first country wide cultural suicides. They are plagued by a brand of political correctness that has crippled them. They have lost their ability and in some cases their willingness to fight for their native sovereignty and established law of the land. Belgium, England and France are not far behind.

While we cannot dogmatically ascertain the connection between Jewish expulsions and God’s curse, there is a strong possibility that the steady, exponential and irreversible decline of Europe might be a result of these nations disdain for the chosen people of G-d. This certainly doesn’t place all Muslim as a curse to Europe, just like not all Germans were Nazis, but one cannot ignore the on-going cultural and demographic jihad happening in Europe. “G-d’s foreign policy as it pertains to Israel,” doesn’t allow for any grey areas. You bless or you curse and the results, while not always immediate and similar, have always been in kind– a curse for a curse and a blessing for a blessing– The wake-up call is imminent and many will be surprised!

February 20, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 5 Comments

How did Zionism become a cuss word?

Growing up in France in the 60s, I often heard conversations about Zionism and Israel at family gatherings. I didn’t really understand what they were all about except that there were always a few family members who spoke passionately about Eretz Yisrael. Some even occasionally spoke of the possibility of returning to the Land. Zionism was some sort of magical, mystical word that made people both dream and argue in the same breath. It never got bad press, except maybe from the few Jewish family members who were comfortably assimilated in France and wouldn’t fathom making Aliyah. Fast forward to 2016 and Zionism has now become a cuss word in many circles around the world.

The term “Zionism” and “Zionist” were coined in 1890 by Jewish activist Nathan Birnbaum (1864-1937) who also played an important part in the first Zionist Congress in 1897. The word “Zion” comes from the Hebrew tzion, a reference to Jerusalem and often, by extension, to the land of Israel itself (first mentioned in II Samuel 5:7.)

According to scholar Mitchell Bard, Zionism is: “ The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Additionally, Israeli diplomat, politician and historian Abba Eban defines it as follows: “Zionism is nothing more — but also nothing less — than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name.

Over the years, we have heard about historical, political, practical, cultural and even Christian Zionism. Today we hear more about anti-Zionism because the word has been given a new meaning that is so politically charged and so negative. How did we go from “The national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel” to a movement labelled as “occupation”, “colonization” or even “racism?”

After the early Zionist pioneers of the late 1800s, the Jewish people started to move back to the land of Israel in the late 40s from all over the Diaspora. They were drawn to Israel for reasons as various as political, familial, economic or even religious. Nothing was frowned upon by anyone. Then came Yassir Arafat, the PLO and the Palestinian quest for self-determination. Unfortunately, the Palestinian cause was one without a land…something had to happen!

“Wait a minute! What if the Palestinians were a people displaced by Jewish colonialists who stole their land, kicked them out and even killed them? This is a long shot but if we keep at it, the masses will eventually buy it!” This might be what went through the minds of Yassir Arafat and his cronies. Zionism slowly started to acquire a bad reputation. It would take several decades to get as bad as it is now, but eventually, it started to spread beyond the Middle East to the rest of the western world

For a while, the damage inflicted on Zionism was counteracted by a strong support from Evangelical Christians who became known as “Christian Zionists.” They based their support of Israel on a belief that the Bible spoke of that land given to Jewish people by God Himself. They also made a strong connection to End-Times prophecies including and involving Israel in a very strong way all the way to the end.

In Genesis 12:1-3, which I like to call “God’s foreign policy as it pertains to Israel” we see that God made a covenant with Abraham, further confirmed through Isaac (not Ishmael) and Jacob. In that Covenant, He gives the Jewish people the deed to the Land of Canaan (Exodus 13:11). This is further developed in Genesis 12:1-3, 7; 13:15;17:7-8, 19; 25:5-6; 26:3; 28:3-4; 35:9-15. Anti-Zionism is simply a human attempt at rewriting a Divine Covenant between God and the Jewish people and because of that, it can be deemed as anti-biblical and is bound to failure. If God changed His mind, this would also make Him a Covenant breaker and a liar.

Israel and Zionism suffer from many foes, not just the Palestinians. The United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 3379 in 1975, in which it stated that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” It took sixteen years for the UN to revoke that statement in 1991. But the damage was done and would continue to be inflicted on Israel and the Jewish people to this day. Today, many countries in the Middle East continue to see Israel as the enemy. They describe Zionism in no uncertain terms:

• Ahmadinejad used to call for the complete destruction of the Zionist Regime.
• Khameini believes that the Zionist Network dictates US policies which a lie taken straight from the early twentieth century hoax known as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
• Hamas claims that, “The lie of the Zionist Holocaust crumbles with countless holocausts committed by the Zionists.”

Should a Zionist agree with every single decision made by the Israeli government? Of course not! Should a Zionist systematically reject any prospect of shared land space between Jews and Palestinians if peace is truly the goal? Probably not! Yet, these and many more libelous statements by Israel’s enemy have poured over into the Evangelical Church. The Palestinian narrative has become stronger than the biblical narrative. The Christian Zionists of yesterday has morphed into a politically correct Christian “Palestinianist.” As a result, very few within the Evangelical ranks continue to support Israel. Zionism has truly become a cuss word and yet, the Bible never changed. Anti-Zionism is almost always antisemitism in a cloak of social justice.

Many followers of Yeshua (Jesus) look at the Bible and clearly see that God is NOT done with Israel. They see a glorious future for the people and the Land. While their numbers are dwindling down, these people are still called Christian Zionists as they recognize Israel’s biblical right to the Land and the Jewish people right to return to that Land. Christian Zionism is a noble cause and is part of what every Bible believing Christian should promote because God Himself declared it to be true in His Word.

The foundation for Zionism was established by God in the book of Genesis. It continues to run through like an uninterrupted thread through the tapestry of Jewish history. If Zionism has existed for a long time, we also cannot deny that God used people like Theodore Herzl, Achad Ha’am, Eliezer Ben Yehuda, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gourion, Golda Meir and many others to further promote the Jewish people right to the Land of Israel. What God established, no man can destroy (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

January 22, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 8 Comments

Is Holocaust Denial Really about the Holocaust?

In 2005, The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 60/7 to officially choose January 27 as the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. This is the day when the world is supposed to mark and remember the Holocaust and its victims.

2016 marks the 71st anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Today more than ever, the motto NEVER AGAIN needs to be repeated to older generations and taught to the newer ones. as very few of the Holocaust survivors remain alive today, we run the risk of forgetting one of the most–if not the most–tragic genocide of human history.

This date is different from the Jewish commemoration of Yom HaShoah that takes place each spring in Israel. The International Day is an event sponsored by the United Nations. Even though I have lost faith in the ability or even the willingness of the UN to deal with Israel fairly, I appreciate UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s statement about this event: “Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people. I would like to see this fundamental principle respected both in rhetoric and in practice by all the members of the international community”. Of course, with all the pressure applied at the UN by many countries who are vowed enemies of the Jewish State, the tug-o-war between historical accuracy and political correctness is ever present.

In 1978, staunch antisemite Willis Carto founded the Institute for Historical Review (IHR.) Mr. Carto passed away last year but the website is still up and even though their administrator claim that they are not Holocaust deniers, their site is replete with books, videos, CDs and DVDs promoting that very view. It is interesting to note that a site called “Institute for Historical Review” almost exclusively deals with Holocaust denial and Jewish cabal theories. IHR is one of many websites promoting historical revisionism, yet they have in common to focus on Israel, the Jews and the Holocaust more than anything else.

On one hand, it is only when it comes to the Holocaust that people come out of nowhere with a pseudo-scholarly approach to the Jewish tragedy. People like David Irving, Louis Faurisson, Roger Garaudy, Louis Farrakhan or Bobby Fisher are just a few names in the pantheon of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. It appears to be such an obsession for these men (and many more) to prove that the Jewish catastrophe was a hoax.
On the other hand, very few people, if any, are interested in writing books trying to play down or deny events such as the Sudanese mass killings, the war in Kosovo, the Armenian genocide or even the Stalin massacres. All these tragedies (and so many more throughout history) were responsible for the death of millions of innocent people. When one evaluates the level of interest in denying the Holocaust as opposed to any other genocide, there is a flagrant imbalance. Why?

Additionally, nobody seems to hold any ethnic group or sub-group corporately responsible for the ills inflicted by a small section of their community onto another ethnic group. This being said, we would even have to prove that Israeli Jews are guilty of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, and they are not. But, let us assume that it is the case for a moment. The question would then arise:” Why should all Jews be equally responsible for what Israelis do to Palestinians?” Logically, they shouldn’t, right? But you see, antisemitism is highly illogical.

Using the same logic, all Turks of all times should be held corporately responsible for the Armenian genocide of the 20^th Century. There is certainly a small percentage of people who hate the Turks, but nobody sees all Turks of all times responsible by proxy. Yet this is exactly what looms over the global Jew wherever he is geographically or historically. Even Jewish people today–and as difficult as it might be–do not see all Germans as Nazis.

So maybe, Holocaust denial is more about the demonization and ostracism of the global Jew than it is about historical revisionism. This would lead the world to consider the Jews as lesser important or even “sub-human”. This concept was exactly what Hitler used to justify the Holocaust. So wait a minute, Holocaust denial could lead to another Holocaust?

It is exactly for that reason that we must continue to remember the Holocaust; because of Holocaust deniers. We must also continue to remember the Armenian genocide, but that one doesn’t seem to suffer at the hands of Armenian Genocide deniers (the same principle applies to all other genocides). Even though we continue to witness an increase in “Holocaust fatigue”, for as long as people try to tell us that the Holocaust never happened, it is OUR duty as decent human beings to continue to tell them and the rest of the world that IT DID happen, because very soon, all the first hand witnesses of the Catastrophe will be all gone.

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. Isaiah 63:9

January 15, 2016 By Olivier Melnick 8 Comments

John Kerry Excludes Jewish Victims from Paris Attack Anniversary!

On January 7, 2016, The U.S. Department of State issued a statement in which Secretary of State John Kerry wanted to recognize the victims of the Paris attacks of January 7, 8, 9, 2015. The statement was short and read as follows: “On the one-year anniversary of the January 7-9, 2015, attacks that took the lives of 17 people, we honor the victims of this tragedy and share the sadness of their loss. Their legacy endures as a challenge and inspiration to all of us. Charlie Hebdo continues to publish, and journalists around the world continue in their essential mission to tell the stories that people everywhere need to hear. No country knows better than France that freedom has a price, and that no rationale can justify attacks on innocent men, women, and children. But what was intended to sow fear and division has, in fact, brought us together. We must remain committed to protect each other and renew our determination to turn this moment of profound loss into a lasting commitment. Just as we tackle today’s most daunting challenges side by side, the United States and France will always stand together.”

At first glance, the statement appeared to be remembering the victims of the Paris triple terrorist attack that took place, and that’s commendable. But something is profoundly wrong with that statement, not so much in what it says but in what it failed to mention. This was a case when silence spoke louder than words!

Mr. Kerry is mentioning the 17 victims and how their tragic death united France and the United States, and continues to do so in our on-going fight against terrorism. But why is Mr. Kerry only mentioning the Charlie Hebdo magazine? The 17 victims were made of 3 groups: 12 victims from Charlie Hebdo, one police officer on the street and four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket. There is no mention of the police officer or the four Jewish victims. The whole tragedy is bundled under the Charlie Hebdo massacre. It is not my intention to belittle the magazine’s 12 deaths or the police officer’s death, but the attack was more than an attack against freedom of the press. It was also an attack against freedom of religion.

I have no doubt that if the terror attack of January 2015 in Paris had only been against the four Jewish shoppers, there would have not been a 4 million people march in France the following week-end. Similarly, outside of the French Jewish community, the Toulouse attack of 2012 by Mohammed Merah is mostly forgotten, yet it took the life of 7 people, including a rabbi and 3 Jewish day school children.

In the recent statement by John Kerry, I don’t believe that not making reference to the Jewish victims was an oversight. He, along with the vast majority of the current U.S. administration are no friends of Israel and the Jewish people. It would have gone a long way if the Jewish victims had been acknowledged along with the police officer and the magazine. Instead, a blanket statement was made, only connecting the event to the magazine.

After all, it was President Obama who right after the attack, described the Jewish victims shopping at the kosher supermarket a few hours before Shabbat as” a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris” who had been “randomly shot.” This is either a lack of sensitivity or a severe disconnect with reality. There is no doubt in everybody’s mind that the terrorist Amédy Coulibally picked the Hypercacher store on purpose. It was a Jewish store where Jewish people shopped for kosher food, especially on Friday afternoons before the Sabbath.

So for John Kerry not to mention the Jewish victim is a diplomatic faux pas at best and antisemitism by omission at worst. It would have been easy to say “12 members of the Charlie Hebdo staff, one police officer in the line of duty and four Jewish people shopping in a kosher Market.”

The world is used to antisemitism by commission when Jewish people are ostracized, demonized, persecuted and even murdered. This is a form of hatred that can be measured in a tangible way. A stabbed person, a defaced Jewish tombstone or a burned synagogue door are all visual witnesses of antisemitism by commission.

But when the Jewish people are categorized as regular folks after an antisemitism attack, re-labelled or totally ignored when they should be remembered as victims, it is antisemitism by omission. Most people already don’t care much about the devastation brought in by antisemitism by commission. They certainly will not pick-up on the subtle approach of antisemitism by omission.

Too bad Mr. Kerry. You had a simple opportunity to not only align the USA with France in the fight against terror but also reach out to the French Jewish community at a time when they don’t feel much friendship from most of the world. By generalizing your statement, you ignored the French Jewish victims and offended them. I wonder…. was there any other group you cared not to offend by leaving the Jews out of your statement?

Subscribe to our Daily Devotions

Archived Articles

Tags