Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Why Have Jews Been Persecuted?

        Jews have been the perennial target of racial persecution for thousands of years; the question arises, “Why this persecution?” 
        The Romans crucified 50,000-100,000 anti-Roman Jewish activists during the Roman rule over Judea. And later, Jews were accused of being “Christ killers” for at least 2000 years until Vatican 2 in 1962 when Pope John XXIII exonerated Jews for that act. Shortly after Christ’s death on the cross, many European people began to accuse the Jews of killing him, whom they rightly believed was God, himself. They reasoned that there could be no greater sin than that of killing God. The practice of ritual murder became a not uncommon practice during the Middle Ages, as supposedly Christian people killed thousands of Jews.
        In 12th Century England, a myth arose that said Jews were murdering non-Jews and drinking their blood in their religious rituals. This belief persisted for hundreds of years and accounted for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews. This practice spread to the Muslim world and was purportedly practiced for the last time in Saudi Arabia under the administration of King Faisal in the 1970’s.
        Anti-Jewish sentiment was enshrined in English literature by Wm. Shakespeare in his characterization of the Jew, Shylock, in the Merchant of Venice. Charles Dickens portrayed a very unsavory character in Oliver Twist in the character of the Jew, Fagin, a man who taught boys to be pick-pockets. 
        The Spanish inquisition of 1492 under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella killed 300,000 Jews.   
        It is not news that there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. Swedish Jews have complained that they have been targets of hate crimes from Muslim extremists, but authorities have rarely, if ever, taken any action against the perpetrators. Terrorist bombs in Paris have recently injured and killed Jews. Their property has, also, been destroyed.
        In Hungary, the new-fascist mayor of Erpatak, located in eastern Hungary, said the “the Jewish terror state” (Israel) was trying to annihilate the Palestinians. In western Hungary, a strongly anti-Semitic political party recently elected a powerful government official; that party consists of 20% of the Hungarian electorate.
        In Turkey, the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, demanded the leader of Turkey’s Jewish community apologize for Israel’s self-defense during the Gaza attacks. Then he added, “One feels like saying, ‘God bless that Hitler!’”
        Another startling example of the murderous rage surfacing against Jews was a film made by Muslim students at al-Quds University in Jerusalem. The film demonstrated how to kill Jews, and it included a reenactment of the murder of four rabbis at a synagogue in Jerusalem in which the killers, after murdering the praying rabbi, shamelessly bowed toward a replica of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.
        The Palestinian Authority bears a huge responsibility for such outrages, yet continues to enjoy virtually total impunity in the international community, as well as funding that helps promote hatred and attacks against Jews.
      The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews reported in their March 2015 newsletter that 26,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel from dozens of countries in the past year to escape persecution at home; this immigration rate represents an increase of 39% over the previous year. Israel has received over 7000 French immigrants this past year in addition to almost 6000 from Ukraine.
       Our Savior was a Jew. We, Christians owe it to Jews everywhere to pray for Jews and support them in their distress from unjust persecution. You might think of contributing to the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, 30 North LaSalle Street, Suite 4300, Chicago, IL 60602-2584.

No comments:

Post a Comment