Worldwide Anti-Semitism on the Rise
Passover is the season in which Jewish people all over the world remember how God supernaturally and powerfully set our nation free. But now that this year’s joyful celebration has come and gone, I am feeling somewhat melancholy about it. With as much gratitude that Passover stirs in me for Adonai’s everlasting faithfulness and truth, I find my current emotional state considerably tempered by the sobering signs of the times.
Recently, a supporter of the ministry sent me a link to a five-and-a-half-minute video entitled “The Jewish Voices on Campus,” which depicts “a message of hate bred on the tongues of terrorists” that is “now poison[ing] our college campuses today.” As one Jewish student in the video puts it, “Being against Israel has become the ‘cool’ thing to do.” In other words, American college campuses are seeing a sharp and serious rise in anti-Semitic (Jew-hating) rhetoric and behavior, and it is being seen as normal and “cool.” The grossly negative world-sentiment concerning the modern State of Israel has infected the hearts and minds of teenagers—the future leaders and decision-makers of our nation.
I have to confess to you: as I watched the video, I had a very difficult time comprehending what I was seeing and hearing. Don’t get me wrong—I fully understand the concept of anti-Semitism. My grandparents narrowly escaped the Holocaust—a subject that was quite prominent in my family during my childhood—and I myself have been the brunt of racial slurs and physical attack. Additionally, my father recounts how when he first went to graduate school in Arizona in the late 1950s, students he didn’t know would come visit him in his dorm room because they had never seen a Jew before. Yes, I definitely have a concept of what it means to be singled-out for being Jewish! But watching that video, it truly felt like I was witnessing something unreal—like in a dream. I don’t think my middle-class, second-generation American upbringing has at all prepared me to comprehend the depth, irrationality, and oppressiveness of anti-Semitism.
The video to which I am referring was first posted in October of 2014. Now, in April 2015, the reports of the rise in world-wide, openly anti-Semitic behavior are continuing to increase. European Jews are especially concerned for their safety. A senior official in the European Union has called for the establishment of a task force to combat anti-Semitism across the continent. And just this month, the cover story of a prominent news magazine here in the US asks, “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?”
My friend, as difficult as it is for me to comprehend, everything appears to be pointing to the coming widespread oppression and persecution of Jews—God forbid, a 21st century holocaust. How will true believers in Yeshua respond to the rising tide of anti-Semitism?
There is no time to lose. We must act today to share the Messiah Yeshua with every Jewish person everywhere, before anti-Semitism closes their ears to the truth of God’s Word. The spirit of anti-Semitism is the spirit of anti-Messiah. How will we respond?
“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name” (Matthew 24:9, NAS).
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