Antisemitism is on the rise

Antisemitism is on the rise. We all know it; you know it and your Jewish friends certainly know it. In the first half of last year, there were a reported 1,978 antisemitic incidents (compared with 964 in the same period of 2023).

We have just had the festival of Hannukah, a festival which commemorates (amongst other things) the victory of the Jewish Maccabean rebels over the forces of the Seleucid Emperor, Atiochus IV Epiphanes. The revolt was prompted by the antisemitism of this deranged Emperor’s forces and, as Jews across the UK gathered to celebrate God’s provision in those days, conversations would have turned to antisemitism today.

It can be hard to understand why Jews in Britain today feel fear, but they do. Our personal experience of racism and the weight of being a part of the most persecuted nation in history tell us that we should be scared.

Most Jews have experienced racism in our lives, and all have stories of tragedy in our lineage. Most Jews also feel that this experience in underplayed by the world at large – the success of David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count evinces this.

When sharing our faith with our Jewish friends, it is essential that we recognise the role that the church has played in this pain. From the crusades to the Spanish Inquisition, from the Middle Ages to the Reformation, even as recently as Nazi Germany, people have used Christ and their 'Christian' identity to justify and explain their persecution of Jews.

When I served with Jews for Jesus in Budapest, Hungary, a gentleman came up to me on my first day. He asked my translator, 'Are you a Jew?' 'No,' responded my translator, 'but I have a heart for the Jewish people.' He turned to me. 'Are you a Jew?' He spat the word 'Jew.' 'Yes,' I said. 'Well,' he said to me 'you nailed Jesus to the cross. And you,' he said, turning to my translator, 'held him there.'

This attitude is not as rare as you might think, and similar thoughts are expressed more freely now amongst certain circles of 'Christian nationalists' in America. The man who said this was a Roman Catholic, but there is not one denomination that is uniquely at fault here.

If you were to visit Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem, the biggest museum of antisemitism in the world, you would see much time devoted to the protestant reformer, Martin Luther, who spoke with such blind hatred of the Jewish race that it is mind-boggling.

We cannot avoid this topic when speaking with our Jewish friends because, for many, it is the reason they won’t countenance Christ. They honestly wonder how followers of the Jewish messiah could have demonstrated such hatred toward the Jewish people through the years.

It is really important to recognise this reality, but also to frame it in its proper context. History is the story of people who claim to, and in some ways do, represent God, doing a pretty shoddy job of it. From the creation of the first images of God, through the Patriarchs of our nation, to the kings and prophets and the Apostles, the story of humanity is one of broken people doing broken things.

Encourage your friend to pick up a copy of Matthew and see what Jesus himself thought of the Jews, and all people. The Bible, Old and New Testament, is written by Jews (with the possible exception of Luke) and is, by in large, for Jews.

It is an inter-Jewish conversation, between Jews of different stripes. What was Jesus’ view of Jews? That they were the natural children of God! Think of the parable of the prodigal son or this famously controversial remark from Matthew 15: 'It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.'

The story of Christian antisemitism is a story of some people claiming to be followers of Christ illegitimately and some legitimate followers of Christ committing heinous sin. But racism is not the natural outworking of any teaching in the New Testament; it is a distortion.

If your friend is struggling with what they have heard about the relationship between the Church and Jews, take those concerns seriously. Don’t ignore, justify, or obfuscate - those are real concerns. But also, invite them into the story of Scripture to judge for themselves, into the beauty of Christ’s teaching and the honour that he gave his own people and all people. The gospel is a beautiful truth, with which all followers of Christ have been entrusted – 'to the Jew first.'