Antisemitism

Dear Editor,

Thank you for the items in the December en which brought focus to the Israel-Hamas war and its ramifications worldwide. As Christians we cannot but cry to God for a swift end to the hostilities in Israel and Gaza. Our hearts go out to those Jews, Arabs and others who are full of fear, whose own lives are under daily threat, and who grieve the loss of family and friends. We cannot but pray that many will turn to the Saviour at this time through the ministries of people like Misha Vayshengolts, whose witness you reported.

I want to put in a plea that we remember the larger context of this conflict, in particular the worldwide rise in hostility towards Jewish people. Antisemitism is called the longest hatred, and many are baffled by its intensity and persistence – as a young Israeli man once said to me: ‘I can understand why people might hate us, but why do they hate us so much?’ Those who believe God’s word should not be baffled. Humans are rebels against their creator and are hostile to any clear witness to His existence and rule. The Jewish people are one of those witnesses. A passive one, by and large, but disturbing nonetheless. Christians differ on their understanding of the role of the Jewish people in God’s future plans, but there can be no disagreement about their past significance; their Biblical history is a witness to the one, true living God, and their subsequent history to His grace and truth. It should therefore come as no surprise that fallen humanity has singled out the Jewish people for opposition, attack and, yes, annihilation.

The prompting of Satan in this activity is not hard to perceive. Christians are in a similar position, especially those subject to Islamist violence, and shouldn’t find it difficult to empathise with the Jewish people, and pray for their preservation when efforts are made to annihilate them by groups like Hamas. We should pray for their preservation at a time like this, in our services and prayer meetings; we should pray that God will be honoured by the preservation of those to whom He has attached His name. If as a consequence we receive communications like the one Nicola Laver mentioned regarding a church in Bridgend, then so be it. We should also express our concern to those Jewish people we know, especially if our church has Jewish neighbours – most of them are filled with a deep anxiety. None of this negates the concerns expressed by Palestinian Christian leaders in one of your articles, but my concern is to ask readers to focus on this latest eruption of antisemitism, the longest hatred.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Morris
Brightwalton, Newbury