Hatred Toward the Jew
I can remember my dad saying many times, “the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.” I’ve been shocked and surprised of late watching things unfold that happened in my Father’s day that, until recently, I only read about in the history books.
The hatred that I have been witnessing coming from self-identified Christians is alarming. That we should have any hate coming from Christians should be alarming, since Jesus said we are to love one another as He loved us. He even said we should love our enemies. If we should hate anything, it should be hating sin.
The hatred I have been witnessing of late towards the Jews and towards Israel is not new historically, but it is new in light of having this many Christians repeating these things and seemingly blinded to their associations. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” They simply are promoting the message that Islam has been promoting for many years. Many years ago, a prophet prophesied that “communism would become ‘Com-u-was-um.’” That in time communism and Islam would partner together to form an even more dangerous threat towards righteousness. We are witnessing that play out today. It is unfortunate that so many self-proclaimed Christians are joining with that evil force to promote their evil agenda. Communists have a term for those people who join with them to their own destruction. They call them useful idiots. It’s remarkable to see those on the left, who promote all forms of debauchery that is condemned by Islam, join with the Islamists to their own promised destruction. Somehow, they’re blinded, thinking that if they join with the jihadists that they will be spared. It’s irrational for professing Christians to join with the hatred of the Communists and the Islamists and to join in their rhetoric.
Hatred of the Jews is nothing new and it’s just as inexcusable today as it ever was. But because of its prevalence it has a name, “anti-Semitism.” Lately I’ve been hearing the same so-called Christians redefining anti-Semitism or discounting it as if it really doesn’t exist. Of course they would. The hatred for the Jews is not logical, it’s irrational, it is spiritual. And for these Christians to join in with the enemies of the gospel is to me inexplicable and inexpressible and unacceptable.
Recently a friend wrote, “I haven’t heard Christians speak as evil about atheists as I’ve heard some talk about Israel.” It’s true, I haven’t heard the same Christians say a word about the horrors of Islam, the beheading, kidnaping, torture, burning alive of Christians, in places around the globe. Recently President Trump brought the world’s attention to the horrors Islam is performing against Christians through the genocide against Christians in Nigeria. The same is going on in Sudan and other places. Thank God someone is speaking up. Yet these Christians haven’t said one word about Islam and the horrors it promotes and has promoted for millennia.
It was astounding to me, and to many others, to witness the willful blindness of so many since the unacceptable barbaric attack on the Israelis on October 7, 2023. Every nation, every person, has a right, even a responsibility to self-defense and to the defense of one’s loved ones. Yet it’s been so remarkable to see so much criticism regarding those who were attacked and, on the other hand, see the defense of the barbaric and evil attackers. “War is hell!” So said Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Those who are screaming about the horrors that have purportedly occurred in Gaza during the war must be ignorant of what the allies did to Germany and Japan after what they did to Europe, London, and Pearl Harbor. Berlin, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki looked much worse than Gaza does today with much greater loss of life. When you start a war, you don’t have a right to complain about how you lose that war, neither do your apologists.
Bill Clinton said, “Palestinians were offered a state on the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem as its capital. Israel accepted, but Palestinians refused. They did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians; all they wanted was to kill Israelis.”
The critics seemingly are totally ignorant of the enemy we face and the nature of that enemy. While we fight to protect our children and our loved ones, Hamas brags openly that they put their children in harm’s way in order to sway public opinion.
Former prime minister of Israel Golda Mier said, “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
So we come back to hate. The hate that I see emanating from certain people who call themselves Christians is inexplicable, inexpressible, and unacceptable for anyone who is called a Christian. Jesus said we would be known as disciples of His by our love for one another. Hatred has no place in His kingdom, unless it is to hate evil.
I’m not saying that any person, persons, or nation is beyond criticism. None, no one, and no kingdom is perfect but the Kingdom of God. But, when criticism so biased, comes from such a deep-seated hatred, and is so one-sided, it cannot be accepted. It doesn’t take much discernment, if you’re not blinded, to know its source is spiritual.
To the Roman believers Paul wrote 3 chapters concerning the Jews, his countrymen according to common ancestry. Concerning them he wrote, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Romans 11:29. I’m not alone in often using this verse concerning the gifts of the Spirit or the ascension gifts from the Son, but the actual context is – God hasn’t revoked his gifts or calling to the Hebrews.
Recently I heard an Israeli woman speaking, her words had to be translated from Hebrew. What she said, was “if someone is raised a Christian but they decide they don’t believe in God, you call them atheists. But if a Jew who decides he doesn’t believe in God what do you call them? You call him a Jew.”
I think there’s some wisdom in that. We all know of godless Jews, we can name a few. Karl Marx, George Soros, Alexander Soros, Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer. I don’t think you can blame other Jews, any more than you can blame God for their godless actions and evil intentions. What surprises me is the blindness and the one sidedness to the hatred that I am witnessing.
The words from Bob Dylan’s song Precious Angel keep coming to my mind, “my so-called friends have fallen under a spell.” I can also think of the apostle Paul’s words to the Galatians “who has bewitched you?” I think this current situation is nothing short of spiritual.
The apostle Paul wrote that blindness had come upon Israel for a time, and I believe that blindness is still there when it comes to Jesus being the Messiah. It’s not total blindness, because many, and currently many, many more are recognizing Jesus as the Jewish Messiah! It is interesting that the same people who have such blindness towards the Jews and Israel and express such hatred will in a few weeks be celebrating the birth of a Jewish baby.
Back to what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 9 through 11 that blindness had come upon Israel for a time until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. We’re still in that period of time for the fullness of the Gentiles is not completed. He also said that salvation was first to the Jews and then offered to the Gentiles. Romans 1:16, “for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Gentile.”
I think there’s something in the line – “for the Jew first and then the Gentile.” I think this is also with persecution. Islam continually calls Israel little Satan and America the great Satan. These professing Christians who are joining with the powers of darkness to attack and hate Jews and Israel are unwittingly joining with the persecution that is intended also to come towards Christendom. They are aiding and abetting the enemy.
There is something in this hate towards the Hebrew people that is actually anti-American. During World War Two there were a number of instances like when a American POW officer refused to identify and single out Jewish GI’s to the Nazis, instead proclaiming that “We are all Jews” rather than see some of the Americans singled out for their heritage.
The respect for the Hebrew people goes all the way back to the time of the pilgrims. At the time of the birth of our nation Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson recommended as the original seal for the United States of America the depiction of Moses parting the Red Sea and God drowning the Egyptians. With the words “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”
George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah, Georgia, in 1790, “May the same ‘Wonder-Working Deity’, who long since ‘Delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors’, ‘Planted them in the Promised Land — whose ‘Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States’ as an independent Nation Still continue to water them with ‘The Dews of Heaven’ and to ‘make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and Spiritual blessings’ of ‘that people whose God is Jehovah’.”
Without Jewish immigrant Haym Solomon we likely would not have an independent nation today. Haym Solomon has been given the title of “The Financier of the American Revolution.” It was Haym Solomon who was called upon time and again to raise funds to support the Army of the Republic and he sacrificed much in the support of a nation that promised to be a sanctuary for his ancestral people. And America has traditionally been a sanctuary for many peoples, including the persecuted Jewish people.
To the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, George Washington also wrote, “The citizens of the United States of America have the right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of citizens that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” If only today we could say that all Christians were free of bigotry and persecution towards the Jewish people.
Thomas Jefferson wrote “there is nothing more certain written in the book of fate then that these people are to be free.” The values of the American system are Judeo-Christian. Those who unwittingly attack one are attacking the values of both, and they are unwittingly joining with those who are sworn to destroy the very foundations upon which we stand. I for one will not join in the chorus of evil hatred but rather will pray for blindness to be lifted on all parties mentioned, and that the grace of God can prevail, as the alternative is unacceptable.
Lloyd Phillips