"ANTI-SEMITISM, THE OLDEST HATRED" - John Stonestreet and Maria Baer, Breakpoint.org, 07/30/20; https://www.breakpoint.org/anti-semitism-the-oldest-hatred/
Last week in Germany, vandals desecrated dozens of graves in the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Some of the stones vandalized date back to the 11th century.
Years ago, one of my colleagues visited Babi Yar, a ravine just outside the city center of Kiev in Ukraine. There, in late September 1941, Nazi soldiers marched 34-thousand Jewish men, women, and children, before shooting them and burying in the dirt. On the day my colleague visited, someone had spray-painted a swastika on the memorial at the entrance to the ravine.
Right now, as our nation has a hard but necessary conversation about racism, reckoning especially with the often unjust and hateful treatment of African Americans, the Church must reaffirm that ethnic partiality of any kind is antithetical to the Gospel, which begins by recognizing all humans as made in the image of God. And, if we are to be consistent in upholding human dignity, we must say (unfortunately, again) that anti-Semitism is, still, a very real and growing evil.
Though it often doesn’t receive the attention or the unanimous condemnation that other forms of racism do, the Anti-Defamation League reported 21-hundred incidents of assault, vandalism, violence, or harassment against Jewish people in America in 2019. That’s the highest number reported since they started keeping track in 1979.
Less than two years ago, an American neo-Nazi committed the bloodiest attack on Jewish people in our country’s history when he stormed Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire, killing eleven people and wounding six. Less than a year later, another gunman charged a synagogue just north of San Diego on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others.
And, since the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis, we’ve seen anti-Semitism hit a strange new cultural stride. Global pandemics, it seems, inspire conspiracy theories, and wherever there are conspiracy theories, there’s anti-Semitism. I can’t begin to explain it, but it’s true.
Earlier this month, Louis Farrakhan, the disgraced leader of a dangerous political group calling itself the Nation of Islam, called Jewish people Satan and accused Bill Gates of plotting world domination through a Coronavirus vaccine. Though many would dismiss Farrakhan as crazy, he enjoys support by more than a few in the mainstream. Shortly after Farrakhan’s crazy speech, NFL star DeSean Jackson posted a video of it, offering his support of Farrakhan’s delusional claims. National leaders of the Women’s March Movement and other celebrities with sizeable platforms have also openly supported Farrakhan, and they’re not alone.
Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, for example, openly advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, Movement, an international effort to boycott products made by Israeli companies in an open effort to hurt Israel’s economy. The BDS movement is founded on the principle that Israel, as a nation, has no right to exist.
Like any form of racism, I find anti-Semitism baffling. What I mean is that racism is arbitrary and irrational, but a hatred that’s persisted for this long and to this degree has supernatural roots. Biblically, it makes sense the Enemy would despise the Jewish people. God chose the nation of Israel through which Jesus would come and bring redemption to all nations. After targeting the Jews for centuries before Christ, the Enemy has even been successful, at times, in turning the hearts of Christians against the Jews.
As long as the Jewish people endure, so will hatred of them. If our surrounding culture is going to turn a blind eye to it, or even openly support it, somehow without fear of cultural cancellation, the Church must lead in condemning it. After all, in this moment of racial reckoning, to pretend anti-Semitism isn’t a pressing and current problem is to lose our moral authority to fight other forms of racism.
In a recent poignant piece condemning anti-Semitic comments made by a few African-American athletes and celebrities, former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabaar put it succinctly: “If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.” Amen.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCES:
"Dozens of graves in Europe’s oldest Jewish cemetery vandalized, desecrated" - Aaron Reich | The Jerusalem Post | July 13, 2020; https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/dozens-of-graves-in-europes-oldest-jewish-cemetery-vandalized-desecrated-634852
"Kiev and Babi Yar" - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | 2020; https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kiev-and-babi-yar
"Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2019" - ADL | 2020; https://www.adl.org/audit2019
"11 Killed in Synagogue Massacre; Suspect Charged with 29 Counts" - Campbell Robertson | New York Times | October 27, 2018; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html
"Poway synagogue shooting suspect charged with murder, attempted murder, mosque arson" -
Teri Figueroa | The San Diego Union-Tribune | April 29, 2019; https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-04-29/poway-synagogue-shooting-suspect-charged-with-murder-attempted-murder-mosque-arson
"American Rapper ‘Diddy’ Promotes Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitic Independence Day Message" - Combat Anti-Semitism | July 6, 2020; https://combatantisemitism.org/latest-news/american-rapper-diddy-promotes-farrakhans-anti-semitic-independence-day-message/
"DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic posts continue long history of tension over Farrakhan" - Michael A. Fletcher | The Undefeated | July 15, 2020;
https://theundefeated.com/features/desean-jacksons-anti-semitic-posts-continue-long-history-of-tension-over-farrakhan/
"The Women’s March Has a Farrakhan Problem" - John-Paul Pagano | The Atlantic | March 8, 2018; https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/womens-march/555122/
"BDS: The Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel" - ADL | 2020 - https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/bds-the-global-campaign-to-delegitimize-israel
"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Condemns Anti-Semitism: Be Outraged by Anyone’s Injustice" -
Blake Schuster | Bleacher Report | July 14, 2020; https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2900243-kareem-abdul-jabbar-condemns-anti-semitism-be-outraged-by-anyones-injustice
Years ago, one of my colleagues visited Babi Yar, a ravine just outside the city center of Kiev in Ukraine. There, in late September 1941, Nazi soldiers marched 34-thousand Jewish men, women, and children, before shooting them and burying in the dirt. On the day my colleague visited, someone had spray-painted a swastika on the memorial at the entrance to the ravine.
Right now, as our nation has a hard but necessary conversation about racism, reckoning especially with the often unjust and hateful treatment of African Americans, the Church must reaffirm that ethnic partiality of any kind is antithetical to the Gospel, which begins by recognizing all humans as made in the image of God. And, if we are to be consistent in upholding human dignity, we must say (unfortunately, again) that anti-Semitism is, still, a very real and growing evil.
Though it often doesn’t receive the attention or the unanimous condemnation that other forms of racism do, the Anti-Defamation League reported 21-hundred incidents of assault, vandalism, violence, or harassment against Jewish people in America in 2019. That’s the highest number reported since they started keeping track in 1979.
Less than two years ago, an American neo-Nazi committed the bloodiest attack on Jewish people in our country’s history when he stormed Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire, killing eleven people and wounding six. Less than a year later, another gunman charged a synagogue just north of San Diego on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others.
And, since the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis, we’ve seen anti-Semitism hit a strange new cultural stride. Global pandemics, it seems, inspire conspiracy theories, and wherever there are conspiracy theories, there’s anti-Semitism. I can’t begin to explain it, but it’s true.
Earlier this month, Louis Farrakhan, the disgraced leader of a dangerous political group calling itself the Nation of Islam, called Jewish people Satan and accused Bill Gates of plotting world domination through a Coronavirus vaccine. Though many would dismiss Farrakhan as crazy, he enjoys support by more than a few in the mainstream. Shortly after Farrakhan’s crazy speech, NFL star DeSean Jackson posted a video of it, offering his support of Farrakhan’s delusional claims. National leaders of the Women’s March Movement and other celebrities with sizeable platforms have also openly supported Farrakhan, and they’re not alone.
Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, for example, openly advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, Movement, an international effort to boycott products made by Israeli companies in an open effort to hurt Israel’s economy. The BDS movement is founded on the principle that Israel, as a nation, has no right to exist.
Like any form of racism, I find anti-Semitism baffling. What I mean is that racism is arbitrary and irrational, but a hatred that’s persisted for this long and to this degree has supernatural roots. Biblically, it makes sense the Enemy would despise the Jewish people. God chose the nation of Israel through which Jesus would come and bring redemption to all nations. After targeting the Jews for centuries before Christ, the Enemy has even been successful, at times, in turning the hearts of Christians against the Jews.
As long as the Jewish people endure, so will hatred of them. If our surrounding culture is going to turn a blind eye to it, or even openly support it, somehow without fear of cultural cancellation, the Church must lead in condemning it. After all, in this moment of racial reckoning, to pretend anti-Semitism isn’t a pressing and current problem is to lose our moral authority to fight other forms of racism.
In a recent poignant piece condemning anti-Semitic comments made by a few African-American athletes and celebrities, former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabaar put it succinctly: “If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.” Amen.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
RESOURCES:
"Dozens of graves in Europe’s oldest Jewish cemetery vandalized, desecrated" - Aaron Reich | The Jerusalem Post | July 13, 2020; https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/dozens-of-graves-in-europes-oldest-jewish-cemetery-vandalized-desecrated-634852
"Kiev and Babi Yar" - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | 2020; https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kiev-and-babi-yar
"Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2019" - ADL | 2020; https://www.adl.org/audit2019
"11 Killed in Synagogue Massacre; Suspect Charged with 29 Counts" - Campbell Robertson | New York Times | October 27, 2018; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html
"Poway synagogue shooting suspect charged with murder, attempted murder, mosque arson" -
Teri Figueroa | The San Diego Union-Tribune | April 29, 2019; https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/story/2019-04-29/poway-synagogue-shooting-suspect-charged-with-murder-attempted-murder-mosque-arson
"American Rapper ‘Diddy’ Promotes Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitic Independence Day Message" - Combat Anti-Semitism | July 6, 2020; https://combatantisemitism.org/latest-news/american-rapper-diddy-promotes-farrakhans-anti-semitic-independence-day-message/
"DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic posts continue long history of tension over Farrakhan" - Michael A. Fletcher | The Undefeated | July 15, 2020;
https://theundefeated.com/features/desean-jacksons-anti-semitic-posts-continue-long-history-of-tension-over-farrakhan/
"The Women’s March Has a Farrakhan Problem" - John-Paul Pagano | The Atlantic | March 8, 2018; https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/womens-march/555122/
"BDS: The Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel" - ADL | 2020 - https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/bds-the-global-campaign-to-delegitimize-israel
"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Condemns Anti-Semitism: Be Outraged by Anyone’s Injustice" -
Blake Schuster | Bleacher Report | July 14, 2020; https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2900243-kareem-abdul-jabbar-condemns-anti-semitism-be-outraged-by-anyones-injustice
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PRAYER MATTERS:
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against
the disorder of the world. - Karl Barth
the disorder of the world. - Karl Barth
"Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and trusting/resting in His love and grace to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time and for His greatest glory. Intercession is one of the great privileges AND responsibilities for EVERY believer."- Stan
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World-Wide Prayer Requests:
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Praying Through the Open Doors World Watch List for persecuted believers:https://www.opendoorsusa.org/take-action/pray/monthly-prayer-calendar/
LIBYA - In order to support his mother and siblings, Romany, a 27-year-old Egyptian believer, moved to Libya after his father died. A deacon in his church, he was always smiling and had a strong faith. Tragically, Romany’s life was cut short when he was kidnapped -reportedly by the Islamist militia group Ansar al-Sharia—and then tortured and killed after he refused to renounce his faith in Jesus and convert to Islam. Christian converts and migrants are vulnerable in Libya, No. 4 on Open Doors’ World Watch List. Sometimes religious leaders incite violence against these groups.
August 2 - Pray that religious leaders would stop inciting violence against Christian converts or migrants.
*Representative name or photo used to protect identity.
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