- “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up. Testing Yeshua, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, ‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” And in the morning, “There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.” Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?’” (Matthew 16:1-3).
Imagine there’s no anti-Semitism
In the movie Schindler’s List, a group of Polish Jews huddle around an old oil barrel in the Jewish ghetto in Kraków. As they warm their hands over burning scrap wood, one of them confidently proclaims, “There’s nowhere down from here. This is it! This is the bottom. The ghetto is liberty!” This fellow was full of hope. He could not imagine that things would get worse. But his was an appalling misreading of the situation.
A recent discussion I had with an American Jewish friend touched on the current explosion of anti-Semitism in the USA. He insisted that anti-Semitism was not on the rise in the Land of the Brave; that the best professional surveys indicate that no problems are on the immediate horizon; and that the really dangerous location for Jews is Israel. But the levee continues to rise – as Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie sang in 1929 – and anti-Jewish attacks (whether on university campuses, in the media, on the streets or demonstrating across from Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers) are surging to levels last seen in Nazi Germany of the mid-1930’s.
- The recent tsunami of American, Canadian, and European riots, violence, marches and individual attacks on Jews and their institutions actually rivals Nazi anti-Semitic riots and attacks as described in such scholarly articles as ‘Everyday Antisemitism in Pre-War Nazi Germany: The Popular Bases’ (Michael H. Kater, in Yad Vashem Studies XVI; Jerusalem, 1984, pp. 129-159) and ‘Anti-Semitism in Europe Before the Holocaust’ (William I. Brustein and Ryan D. King, in International Political Science Review (2004), Vol. 25, No. 1, 33-53).
When one recalls that the percentage of popular support for the Bolsheviks and their violent Communist Russian revolutionary movement in February 1917 was less at that time than today’s spreading plague of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli hatred, it might be time to sit up and take notice.
When anti-Semitism raised its ugly head in Germany of the 1930’s, most nations pooh-poohed the matter. It’s just overly excitable Jews trying to drag us into their paranoid delusions, said many. The Jewish people deserve it, others opined; they are simply too successful in business. Even today, some well-known Christian ministers as well as TV personalities slyly whisper that the Jews are the power behind all thrones, supposedly controlling the banks, the media, the world economy, the arts, etc. We are living witnesses to the fact that each one of these anti-Semitic charges from the 1930’s are ricocheting around us in broad daylight. These poisonous words echo in the public square, in religious conferences, at the plenum of the U.N. and from some evangelical pulpits.
- Our day is strikingly similar to the days of Hitler’s rise. But many are asleep at the wheel. What will wake us up so that we begin to discern the signs of the times?
Genocide against the Jews
Jewish communities in the West responded to the October 7, 2023 Hamas jihadi terror-pogroms with bold declarations: “Not in my lifetime!” “Not on my watch!” “Never again!” And over 80 years ago, the Jewish people voiced similar reactions in response to the disasters of the Shoah (the Holocaust). In that context, the term ‘never again!’ was a call to the descendants of Jacob never to forget how the Nazi anti-Semites murdered their relatives, destroyed their communities and turned their flourishing culture into powder and ashes. The phrase ‘never again’ has been used in many official commemorations and appears on many Holocaust memorials and museums, including at Treblinka extermination camp and Dachau concentration camp.
Jews with longer memories use the term ‘never again’ to recall events further back in history – the Destruction of the Second Temple (70 A.D.), the agonies of the Exile of the Hebrew people from their Promised Land (721 B.C. to the present), and the pogroms in Eastern Europe (the late 1800’s and early 1900’s).
In 1972 Meir Kahane of the radical Jewish Defense League authored a book outlining his vision of Jewish history titled ‘Never Again! A Program for Survival.’ Kahane said, “Our motto ‘Never Again’ does not mean that ‘it’ [a holocaust] will never happen again. That would be nonsense. It means that if it happens again, it won’t happen in the same way. Last time, the Jews behaved like sheep.”
The term ‘never again!’ has been a catalyzing call to remember the murderous legacy of anti-Semitic history and to proactively prepare for the defense of the Jewish people and their national homeland (the state of Israel) from these rabid forces – whether Marxist-leftist, fascist-extreme right wing, or jihadi Islamist. According to Aaron Dorfman, “Since the Holocaust, the Jewish community’s attitude toward preventing genocide has been summed up in the moral philosophy of ‘Never Again.’” In other words: the Jews will not allow themselves to be victimized again. Eric Sundquist notes that “the founding of Israel was predicated on the injunction to remember a history of destruction – the destruction of two Temples, exile and pogroms, and the Holocaust – and to ensure that such events will never happen again.”
Universalizing the Holocaust while blaming the Jews for genocide
The United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because “the international community vowed never again to allow” the atrocities of World War II. The Genocide Convention was adopted the same year.
But today the forces of PC (political correctness) have blurred and universalized the term ‘never again,’ appropriating it as a political slogan of the moment – whether it be the promotion of gun control or infanticide/abortion, or even as an anti-Semitic slogan to be used against the Jewish state’s post-October 7, 2023 efforts to crush the terrorist forces of Hamas (which are attempting to destroy Israel and replace it with a jihadi dictatorship).
An example of this ‘woke’ appropriation came to light in an internal debate within the Frankfurt School of neo-Marxist ‘critical theory.’ Its most prominent living member, Jürgen Habermas, in a November 13, 2023 statement, declared that the “never again” principle must above all lead to a German commitment to protecting Jewish life and Israel’s right to exist. His neo-Marxist colleagues vociferously disagreed, accusing Israel of genocide. Here is an excerpt from his response to their anti-Semitic declarations:
- “The current situation created by Hamas’ extreme atrocity and Israel’s response to it has led to a cascade of moral and political statements and protests. We believe that amidst all the conflicting views being expressed, there are some principles that should not be disputed. They are the basis of a rightly understood solidarity with Israel and Jews in Germany . . . The Hamas massacre with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general has prompted Israel to strike back . . . Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel’s actions. In particular, Israel’s actions in no way justify anti-Semitic reactions, especially not in Germany. It is intolerable that Jews in Germany are once again exposed to threats to life and limb and have to fear physical violence on the streets . . . All those in our country who have cultivated anti-Semitic sentiments and convictions behind all kinds of pretexts and now see a welcome opportunity to express them uninhibitedly must also abide by this.”
Black, green and red – the colors of poison
Today most American Jews tend to see the murder of Jews primarily as a right-wing or white racist/fascist (often symbolized by the color black) phenomenon. Yet in fact it is international jihadi and Islamist Jew-hatred (often symbolized by the color green) which is the prime mover in this field, closely followed by woke and Marxist-Leninist leftist movements (often symbolized by the color red) – like the recent murder of the Israeli Embassy couple in Washington D.C. Right-wing Judenhass (hatred of the Jews) actually comes third in this ignominious line.
The modern explosion of Western anti-Jewish attacks has been catalyzed by a synthesis of Muslim immigrants (bringing their centuries-old anti-Jewish Islamist attitudes and history) and woke-anarchist-communist violent street activism (which in turn owes much to the recent Black Lives Matter and Antifa movements).
Lady Liberty and a Jewish torch
Emma Lazarus was a Jewish American activist, an author of poetry, prose, and translations. Born in New York City in 1849, she wrote a sonnet in 1883 which would have deep prophetic significance. This poem was titled ‘The New Colossus’ and it was inspired by the arrival in America of the French-casted Statue of Liberty. Its lines are inscribed on a bronze plaque, fixed to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus was much involved in aiding Jewish refugees who were fleeing anti-Semitic pogroms in eastern Europe. She saw her sonnet as a way to express her empathy for these refugees. Here are a few lines from that poem:
“A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame is the imprisoned lightning,
And her name – ‘Mother of Exiles.’
From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome;
Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she with silent lips.
‘Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’
The Statue of Liberty commemorates many wonderful dreams, hopes and visions. And, at the same time, the Holy One of Israel made sure that, every time they approached that statue and read the words of that plaque, America and all the nations would be reminded of YHVH’s love for Israel, His promises to Jewish people, and His unshakeable commitment to protect the sons and daughters of Jacob from the demonic scourge of anti-Semitism:
- “For you are a holy people to YHVH your God. YHVH your God has chosen you to be a people for His personal possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. YHVH did not make you His beloved nor choose you because you were greater in number than any of the peoples, since you were the fewest of all peoples, but because YHVH loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, YHVH brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that YHVH your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His faithfulness to a thousand generations for those who love Him and keep His commandments; but He repays those who hate Him to their faces, to eliminate them; He will not hesitate toward him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face” (Deuteronomy 7:6-10)
Anti-Semitism in the Home of the Free
Many Jewish people worldwide have thought of America as an exception to the rule of Jewish history: they assumed that the USA will never again be faced with anti-Jewish pogroms, exiles, concentration camps or genocidal slaughter. There has been a lightness of spirit for many North American Jews – that perhaps once and for all they have broken free from the anti-Semitic chains of Europe and the Middle East. “Persecuted Jews?” they say. “That won’t apply to North America! That view of Jewish history was written for another time – a more ancient period when things were different!”
- Yet the eruption of anti-Semitic lava across the Western world, the attacking of Jewish students at American universities, the dastardly murder of Israeli Embassy staff in the nation’s capitol – it must be said that it is no longer business as usual.
In our next newsletter we will look at the catalysts which have led to and accelerated this explosion.
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation and strategic wisdom to be given to believers worldwide on how to counter anti-Semitic forces and how to stand with and protect the Jewish people across the face of the globe
- Pray for revelation and courage to be given to international leaders in political, intelligence and military spheres – to understand and counteract strategies against Israel, the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) – as jihadi armies gather at Israel’s borders.
- Pray that enemy strategies against the Jewish people and their state, against Middle East Christians and other minorities – will be confounded, and that a great harvest would take place in all of these areas!
- Pray for the protection of Israeli and Jewish people from the assaults of jihadi terror organizations and their Western fellow-travelers, and the return of the Jewish people to both the Land and the Messiah of Israel
- There are approximately 20 living Israeli hostages remaining, kidnapped by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Hamas is also holding on to approximately 70 Israeli corpses as cold storage bargaining chips. Pray for the speedy release of all the hostages, and for YHVH’s justice to be brought on the heads of the Islamist kidnappers
- Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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