Confessions of a pro-Jewish (and pro-Arab) Christian

Monday April 5, 1943 -- my grandfather’s hometown of Vilnius…

“At about 6am the Gestapo arrive by vehicle. They open four freight cars and order the Jews to get out… The Jews are nervous, but they go…

The first group in front of the first pit is ordered to undress. Weeping, groaning, pleading, falling to the feet of the Lithuanians and Germans, who kick them and shoot the most importunate.

But after they have been beaten, they undress about ten meters from the pit… Lithuanians begin to shoot from the side…

The Lithuanians throw the clothing onto a pile; suddenly one of the Lithuanians pulls out a child from under the clothing and throws him into the pit; again a child, and again another. In the same way—to the pit.

One of the Lithuanians stands over the pit and shoots at these children, as we can see.

What is this? The desperate mothers thought that in this way ‘they had saved’ the lives of the children, hiding them under the clothing.”

This is from an eyewitness account of the mass murder of thousands of Jews in the city of Vilnius, Lithuania in 1943 by Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators.

Vilnius, it so happens, was my Jewish grandfather’s hometown.

At the tender age of 14, near the turn of the 20th century and years before the mass murder in Vilnius, my grandfather, Harry, immigrated alone to America, eventually marrying my grandmother, a non-Jewish woman in St. Louis. In departing for America, he bade farewell to all his family in Vilnius.

From 1941 to 1943, virtually all the 70,000 Jews of Vilnius were exterminated by shooting at the hands of the Nazis and their local Lithuanian collaborators.

Perhaps the slaughter of his family and all childhood loved ones was on my grandfather’s mind when he uttered the only philosophical comment I remember him making. When, as a young man I explained to him my new, budding faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and my eternal hope, he replied, “There must be a heaven because we have hell on earth”.

The persecution and murder of Jews in Vilnius is, tragically, not unique. By the time of the Nazi Holocaust the Jewish people had already been scattered worldwide for nearly 2000 years after being mostly driven from their ancient homeland of Palestine in the first century.

During that time of dispersion, they were repeatedly singled out and persecuted in the various countries in which they settled, at times being completely expelled from various countries. This long nightmare of persecution culminated so far in the Nazi Holocaust in which 6 million Jewish men, women and children—6 million—were exterminated.

Simply for being Jewish.

In light of this tragic history, the current expressions of antisemitism since the barbaric October 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel are especially ominous.

In scenes reminiscent of 1930s Germany, waves of demonstrations swept onto college campuses, not only protesting Israel’s harsh military response to the Hamas attack but at times also involving chants against the Jews as a people and support for Hamas in its slaughter of over 1200 Jewish civilians.

National media reported incidents of Jewish students sheltering from angry mobs behind locked dorm or library doors as angry students pounded and screamed at them. Over half of Jewish students in the US say they do not feel physically safe on campuses and over a third feel compelled to hide their Jewish identity.

While fervent protests of the state of Israel’s actions of course may be valid, Christian followers of Jesus should be quick to stand strong with the Jewish people against any form of antisemitism. This is especially true given our shared Judeo-Christian heritage, the profoundly beneficial Jewish influence on culture and the unique role of the Jewish people in history.

Considering the two millennia worldwide scattering and persecution of the Jews, their mere survival as a distinct people is remarkable.

The Jewish people are the only ethnic group who have been scattered worldwide without a homeland for thousands of years and yet maintain their unique identity as a people, still using the same Hebrew language, celebrating the same defining Passover holiday, and identifying with the same God their ancestors did more than 3,000 years ago.

More extraordinary, students of the Bible—both Jewish and non-Jewish—have been for centuries anticipating the eventual regathering of the Jews and rebirth of their nation on their ancestral homeland. Throughout their long dispersion this looked circumstantially impossible.

Yet, based on their understanding of both the Old and New Testament prophets, this expectation was continuously maintained by Bible students, including notable intellectuals such as Isaac Newton.

Then, near the end of the 19th century a significant number of Jews, many fleeing persecutions in Czarist Russia, began to quietly immigrate back to Palestine. The long-embraced Zionist dream, to reestablish a Jewish safe-haven in their ancient homeland, was beginning to take shape.

In the early 20th century, thousands more Jews immigrated. In Palestine they purchased land from willing Arab sellers, developed farms and orchards, established businesses and contributed greatly to the development of the region.

In the 1930s and 40s, while my grandfather was a young man, thousands more fled to Palestine to escape certain death under the Nazis. In the aftermath of the genocidal murder of over a third of the world’s Jewish population in the Holocaust, the United Nations pronounced its blessing on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and in 1948 the nation of Israel was officially reborn.

The UN declaration authorizing the establishment of Israel was actually a two-state approach authorizing also an Arab Palestinian state, but this was rejected by Arab leaders.

Instead, a coalition of five Arab nations including Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq, attacked Israel with the expressed intention to annihilate the nascent Jewish state and “drive the Jews into the sea.” All this, not three years after the Holocaust while the human ashes of the Nazi extermination camps were barely cooled.

In the context of what was for Israel a war of survival, the Palestinian refugee crisis originated, and it is still festering today. During the war, over 700,000 Arab Palestinians either fled or were driven from their homes.

As the war wound down, the Arab High Command initially opposed the return of the Palestinians to their homes because it would constitute recognition of the new state of Israel. But in the ensuing years Israel has never permitted the Palestinian refugees to return to their abandoned homes.

This refusal is severely criticized and the causes for it, in the context of ongoing conflict and intense security concerns, are hotly debated. Israel is also stridently criticized for its severe security measures and harsh retaliations for terrorist attacks, often killing many civilians.

In regard to the intense controversies in Palestine, some Christians who recognize the providential unfolding of Jewish history can appear slow to criticize Israel’s policies as if the “chosen people” are above scrutiny.

But it stands to reason that the policies and actions of Israel’s government should be held to the highest Western standards of scrutiny, especially since the ancient Jews themselves laid the foundation for those standards.

It is, after all, Jewish thought—or divine revelation conveyed through the Jewish people—which laid the foundation for humanity’s perception of the innate value of every human being, including suffering Palestinians.

This understanding was an outgrowth of the monotheistic worldview which Jewish influence engrafted onto human consciousness in contrast to the pervasive ancient belief in a myriad of petty, localized deities.

Hebrew Monotheism involves the conviction that there is one transcendent creator of the universe who stands above the galaxies and yet is also profoundly personal, caring for the lowliest individual among us. “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly,” the Jewish prophet wrote of the creator.

This embracing of the innate value of every individual in turn led to the concept of the equality and brotherhood of all people. If there’s only one all-encompassing creator, there are no children of a lesser God.

Further, governments must give account to the ultimate divine authority for their treatment of inherently valuable human beings.

“Democracy… grows directly out of the Israelite vision of individuals, subjects of value because they are images of God, each with a unique personal destiny,” wrote Thomas Cahill in his bestselling series, Hinges of History. “There is no way that it could have been ‘self-evident that all men are created equal’ without the intervention of the Jews.”

Consequently, two things are clear. First, stringent scrutiny of the conduct and policies of Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, is demanded by the same lofty principles the Jewish people themselves fostered in society. And perhaps most importantly, those who love freedom and democracy should have a profound appreciation for the transformative Jewish influence on culture and should stand boldly against any form of antisemitism.

Unfortunately, Israel now finds itself engaged face-to-face with Hamas which, like an enraged drunkard in a street fight, has no regard for the “rules” of the fight or of enlightened civilization.

Hamas not only rejects the inherent human value of their perceived enemies but also of their own Arab subjects, cruelly hiding their targeted terrorist fighters in hospitals, apartment buildings and schools full of innocent Arab children.

And, though the Jewish people are indigenous to Palestine with a history extending beyond three thousand years, Hamas is utterly intolerant of their very existence there. In vivid contrast to most contemporary Muslim states, followers of Hamas base their position on the most extreme Islamic interpretations.

In addressing the existence of Israel in Palestine, the 1988 founding charter of Hamas states “the liberation of that land is an individual duty binding on all Muslims everywhere… there is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, and exercise in futility.”

In the face of such deeply embedded and enduring hostilities in Palestine, the conflict there appears insolvable. But could things have been, or ever be, different? Might we hope for something better?

I’m reminded of Former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, brother of President John Kennedy, who said, “Some men see things as they are and ask, why. I dream things that never were and ask, why not.” Perhaps we should apply to the Middle East Kennedy’s mode of questioning.

In this vein, it might be surprising to know that during the initial Jewish immigration back to Palestine in the early 20th century, prominent Arab leaders actually encouraged Palestinian Arabs to welcome the Jewish arrivals.

The editor of a prominent Egyptian newspaper wrote in 1913, “The Zionists are necessary for the country; the capital which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them, will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country.”

And in a letter appearing in the New York Times in 1919, the soon-to-be Iraqi ruler, King Faisal, wrote, “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. … we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”

Such conciliatory sentiments, though fleeting, evoke touching images we’ve all seen of racially diverse children embracing and playing together, having not yet been taught to hate. In the mode of Robert Kennedy, perhaps we should ask, why not?

Another question might be posed—could not the suffering of the Arab Palestinian refugees have long ago been significantly alleviated?

Since there exists in a monotheistic world “no children of a lesser god,” the suffering of individual Palestinians is as tragic as the historical suffering of the Jews.

While the Arab countries are severely critical of Israel’s disposition toward Palestinians, it’s deeply troubling that those countries by and large do not extend a welcome to them to alleviate their suffering. Egypt, for instance, famously continues to seal its border with Gaza, trapping the Palestinian refugees in an “iron cage” of displacement and hardship.

As a St Louisan, I am particularly troubled by this as I reflect on the experience of our city. In the 1990s St. Louis received thousands of Muslim refugees from Bosnia. Their number constituted nearly 2 percent of the total city population of that time. Yet these refugees were welcomed and have built productive lives for themselves and their children. Today St. Louis has the largest population of Bosnians in the world except Bosnia itself.

Subsequently, it has been the privilege of many of us to work with dynamic Christian organizations in St. Louis to continuously welcome, serve and personally befriend thousands of Muslim refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and African countries.

In embracing these refugees, we are following the example of Jesus who equated true worship with our care for the “stranger” among us. We are also following the ethic of the Jewish people’s preeminent prophet, Moses, who instructed, “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself.”

If the people of a modest midwestern city like St. Louis can extend welcoming Judeo-Christian friendship across traditional barriers of ethnic and religious difference, why will not Middle Eastern countries find a way to do the same to alleviate the suffering of their fellow Arab brethren? We dream of things in the Mideast that never were, and ask pointedly, why not?

Regardless of what “side” one supports or how one perceives the cultural and geopolitical complexities of the Mideast conflict, there’s a sad point on which all might agree—all the attacks, counterattacks and bloodshed of innocents will not likely accomplish for either side what is desired.

An Israeli political leader once said, “There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.” But can continued mutual bloodshed ever foster that love-over-hate dynamic?

In view of the decades old, seemingly insolvable conflict in Palestine, is there a reason to dream of a peace that never was and ask, why not?

It’s from the Jews themselves—specifically the Hebrew Old Testament prophets—that we receive an indication that there is indeed reason for hope.

The Jewish prophet, Isaiah, envisioned a gloriously climactic age—a time of peace and universal brotherhood in which “the wolf will dwell with the lamb” and warring humanity “shall hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war”.

Mankind has been so inspired by Isaiah’s vision that his words are enshrined on an international monument in front of the United Nations building in New York.

But Isaiah’s vision notwithstanding, thousands of years of war-laden human history and unspeakable cruelty surely demonstrate humanity lacks the capacity to accomplish such a perpetual peace.

Isaiah himself, in apparent contradiction to his own consummating vision of peace, summed up the sorry record of all humankind, “The way of peace they do not know… they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.”

It seems my grandfather was right, mankind has largely created “hell on earth.”

If it is indeed possible for humanity to experience Isaiah’s vision of peace, it’s apparent it would require someone beyond us to accomplish it. It would necessitate one who transcends human hate and division. One more pure, more just, more universally loving than ourselves.

In reality, Isaiah’s vision of peace actually centers on the arrival—or for believers in Jesus, the return—of just such a one. He’s the one whom the Jews engrafted on human consciousness from the beginning, the one Isaiah called, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

In closing, I leave you with a personal question: Can you perhaps venture to dream something so magnificent that you’ve never dared to dream it, and then ask yourself, why not? If so, you might want to explore the Jewish-authored texts of the Old and New Testaments.

“The Jews gave us…our outlook and our inner life,” wrote bestselling historian-author Thomas Cahill, “Humanity’s most extravagant dreams are articulated by the Jewish prophets."

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Sources:

Ponary Diary – A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder, Kazimierz Sakowicz

Emil Feisal and Felix Frankfurter Correspondence, March 1919; UN General Assembly- Partition Resolution of 1947; Hamas Charter of 1988, in The Israel-Arab Reader… A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict, Walter Laqueur & Barry Rubin editors

Righteous Victims - A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001, Benny Morris

Records of Dispossession – Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Michael R. Fischbach

The Gifts of the Jews – How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, (Hinges of History), Thomas Cahill

Iron Cage - The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, Rashid Khalidi

Scriptures: Isaiah 57:15; 11:6; 2:4; 59:8; 9:6; 11:9… Matthew 25:35-40… Leviticus 19:34