This article was originally published in Israel My Glory magazine in the January/February 2020 issue.

The air was cool, a hint of dampness pervading it. I stood huddled with my Jewish friends. In front of us lay a massive mound of gray ash. Fragments of human bone protruded from it. As I gazed at the mound, my friends recited the “Mourner’s Kaddish,” a Hebrew prayer praising God and expressing a longing for the establishment of His Kingdom on Earth.1

We were at Majdanek, a concentration camp the Germans built outside Lublin, Poland, where they systematically exterminated an estimated 78,000 Jewish people during World War II. We stood at the memorial to the victims; the mound of ash was all that remained of them.

My friends’ low and tearful prayers pulsated in my ears, as I silently offered up my own anguished prayer. Oh, Lord . . .

Nothing else would come out. What could I possibly say, or even think, that would express the grief I felt?

The ash represented so much: Lives cut short. Human dignity, the very image of God, reduced to refuse. Six million Jewish men, women, and children murdered due to the hatred of one demented German whose degeneracy was sustained by an acquiescent citizenry.

The metered sounds of the “Kaddish,” the cement memorial to the victims, the awful heap of ashes—I knew they had all come to symbolize the story of the Jewish people in a Gentile world, a mournful history in a minor key.

The Diaspora
Jewish people outside Israel live in what they call the Diaspora. The word comes from two Greek words meaning “to scatter across,” and it aptly describes Jewish history. In Deuteronomy 28, Moses told Israel that obedience to His Word would bring blessing, and disobedience would bring cursing.

Blessing meant fertile fields, healthy children, and security. Cursing meant dispersion around the globe—the Diaspora. The Jewish people would be plucked from their land, scattered to the four winds, and persecuted.

The first dispersion occurred in 722 BC, when Assyria conquered the 10 northern tribes of Israel and scattered them throughout the Middle East, where many of them remained for centuries. But the biggest dispersion took place between AD 66 and 135. After the Roman Empire crushed the great rebellion of AD 66, it destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70 and began driving God’s people into other parts of the world. Ancient historian Josephus said a million Jews perished and thousands were sold into slavery.

Over the centuries, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob settled on nearly every continent, initially living in close-knit communities separated from their Gentile neighbors. Later, especially in Europe, they sought to integrate into the broader societies in which they lived. Sometimes they were successful, but persecution followed them no matter how embedded they became.

Religious Persecution
Tragically, much Jewish persecution came at the hands of professing Christians who claimed to believe in the Scriptures and to follow the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Many saw the Temple’s destruction as a sign that God was finished with the Jews and had replaced them with the church, the “new Israel.”

Early Christian theologian Tertullian (c. AD 160–220) claimed Jacob and Esau were allegories of the church and Israel. “Beyond doubt,” he wrote, “through the edict of the divine utterance, the prior and ‘greater’ people—that is, the Jewish—must necessarily serve the ‘less’; and the ‘less’ people—that is, the Christian—overcome the ‘greater.’”2

Tertullian’s terribly flawed theology took root in the Gentile world, and Christendom’s message became clear: The Christians must subjugate the Jews. This anti-Semitic dogma motivated the infamous Crusades.

Literally meaning “the war for the cross,” the Crusades were a response to the Muslim occupation of Israel, then called Palestine. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a holy war against the Muslims “to recapture the Holy Land and ensure safety for Christian pilgrims visiting sacred sites.”3

Muslims were not the only people the bloodthirsty crusaders targeted. According to the dominant theology of the day, the Jewish people were also enemies of Christ and, therefore, fair game.

“Christian” armies massacred Jews throughout Europe. For example, Count Emicho, a German nobleman and crusader, led his marauders to attack Jewish communities throughout the Rhineland in 1096. They went from town to town with the message of convert or die.

At one point, Emicho and his henchmen exhumed the corpse of a Gentile man who had been buried for a month and claimed the Jews “took a gentile and boiled him in water. They then poured the water into our wells in order to kill us.” Angry mobs gathered “to avenge him who was crucified, whom their ancestors slew. . . . Let not a remnant or a residue escape; even an infant . . . in the cradle.”4 The crusaders killed nearly every Jewish person in the town.

Sadly, the Crusades were not isolated movements. Throughout the past 2,000 years, people who claim to follow Christ have been among the most virulent persecutors of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. During the Spanish Inquisition, for example, the Roman Catholic Church hunted down and tortured Jews who converted to Christianity, claiming it was ferreting out infidelity.

Today, anti-Semitism is growing. In April 2019, 19-year-old John Earnest, a member of an Orthodox Presbyterian church, entered a Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, and opened fire, killing one person and injuring three others, including the synagogue’s rabbi.

In an eight-page manifesto, Earnest based his hatred of Jewish people partially on his flawed understanding of Scripture. Referring to Jews as “one of the most ugly, sinful, deceitful, cursed, and corrupt” races, he gave 15 “reasons” for his action, including,

For their persecution of Christians of old (including the prophets of ancient Israel—Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.), members of the early church (Stephen—whose death at the hands of the Jews was both heart-wrenching and rage-inducing), Christians of modern-day Syria and Palestine, and Christians in White nations.5

The Muslim world, too, has been cruel to the Jews. Abdelmohsen Abouhatab, a Philadelphia imam who live-streams anti-Semitic sermons on YouTube, delivered a sermon in 2019 in which he called Jews “the vilest people” and “enemies of Allah.” He also accused the late prime minister Menachem Begin “of slitting the stomach of a pregnant woman as part of a ‘bet,’” timesofisrael.com reported.6

Abouhatab also spouts lies about so-called Jewish money and power, a tactic people have always used to justify anti-Semitism.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, is among Israel’s greatest enemies. Its charter declares its intent to fight the “warmongering Jews” and states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”7 Hamas’s efforts to annihilate Israel constitute a primary source of terrorism in the Middle East today.

Political Persecution
Not all persecution is religiously motivated. Jewish people also have been targeted for political reasons.

One of the most emblematic manifestations of political anti-Semitism is the work The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in 1905 and proven to be a hoax in the 1920s. It purported to be the secret minutes of meetings of Jewish leaders, the Elders of Zion, and their plans for world domination.

The Black Hundreds, an ultranationalist Russian organization, blamed the Jewish community for the Russian Revolution of 19058 and used the Protocols to justify their hatred, which eventually resulted in a vicious pogrom in Odessa that year in which more than 300 Jews were killed and thousands injured.9

As bad as the persecutions were, nothing equaled the politically motivated persecution led by a disgruntled painter named Adolf Hitler. His ultranationalism and Germany’s defeat in World War I fueled his hatred. Despite Jewish patriotism (more than 100,000 Jewish men fought for Germany during World War I),10 Hitler and many other Germans felt the Jewish people had cost them the war.

Hitler’s “Final Solution” for dealing with European Jewry resulted in the deaths of millions. In 1918, Europe’s Jewish population was about 9.5 million. By the end of World War II, it was only 3.5 million.11

Today college campuses are hotbeds of anti-Semitism, and mainstream society isn’t far behind. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2018 alone. Of these attacks, 39 of them were physical assaults, a 105 percent increase over 2017.12 One, called “the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the U.S.,”13 was conducted by a white supremacist at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and left 11 people dead.

The Hope to Come
Despite their tragic history, God has not abandoned His ancient people, whom He has loved “with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). I thought of His love for my friends as they concluded the “Mourner’s Kaddish” at the Majdanek death camp. Then we sang “Hatikvah” (“The Hope”), a 19th-century poem that is now the national anthem of the State of Israel:

As long as in the heart within,
The Jewish soul yearns,
And toward the eastern edges, onward,
An eye gazes toward Zion.
Our hope is not yet lost,
The hope that is two thousand years old,
To be a free nation in our land,
The Land of Zion, Jerusalem.14

Scripture exhorts us not to forget the hope—Hatikvah—that remains for the Jewish people because of the Lord who loves them:

I will make a covenant of peace with them. . . . They shall be safe in their land; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. And they shall no longer be a prey for the nations, nor shall beasts of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and no one shall make them afraid (Ezek. 34:25, 27–28).

When that future day comes, Israel’s story will be in a minor key no more.

ENDNOTES
“Jewish Prayers: Mourners Kaddish,” jewishvirtuallibrary.org [jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-mourners-kaddish].
Tertullian, “An Answer to the Jews,” newadvent.org [newadvent.org/fathers/0308.htm].
Joshua Levy, “How the Crusades Affected Medieval Jews in Europe and Palestine,” myjewishlearning.com[myjewishlearning.com/article/the-crusades].
Cited in Phyllis Goldstein, A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (Brookline, MA: Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, 2012), 67.
Michael Davis, “The Anti-Jewish Manifesto Of John T. Earnest, The San Diego Synagogue Shooter,” The Middle East Media Research Institute, Memri.org, May 15, 2019 [tinyurl.com/y2cpfufm].
“Philadelphia imam calls Jews ‘vilest people,’” timesofisrael.com, March 9, 2019 [tinyurl.com/yy54p7zt].
“Hamas Covenant 1988,” Yale Law School, avalon.yale.law.edu [tinyurl.com/y4qkper5].
“Anti-Semitism: History of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’” jewishvirtuallibrary.org [tinyurl.com/y66tcxw4].
“Odessa” [jewishvirtuallibrary.org/Odessa].
Goldstein, 260.
Ibid.
“Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents: Year in Review 2018” [adl.org/audit2018].
Ibid.
“Hatikvah—National Anthem of the State of Israel,” Knesset.gov.il [tinyurl.com/y6xoqv9p].

This article was originally published by The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

"Do you support Israel because you want Jesus to come back?”

I had been asked this question a handful of times before by Jewish friends but never in this setting. Riding on a tour bus through Poland, I was the only Gentile and, as far as I know, the only follower of Jesus on the bus. We were all part of an educational trip on the Holocaust. He was seated next to me on the bus when he asked me the question.

“No,” I answered. “I genuinely love Israel and the Jewish people, no strings attached. And I don’t believe Jesus’ return to Earth is dependent on anything I do. Why do you ask?”

The man went on to explain that the evangelicals he knows told him they support Israel and want the Jewish people to return to the land because they believe doing so will hasten Jesus’ return. He was understandably dubious of Christians like myself who say they support Israel.

Although it saddened me to learn that the Jewish people had been taught that believers in Jesus support Israel for selfish reasons, I was glad my friend felt free to confront me with these questions. It showed me that such misconceptions were common, and it gave me the opportunity to explain why I support Israel and love the Jewish people.

Why do Christians support Israel?

To be sure, not every Christian supports Israel. There are Christian organizations, such as Christ at the Checkpoint, that are actively opposed to Israel on political grounds. Many Christian denominations, too, hold to Replacement Theology—the theological concept that the church is God’s new Chosen People and that the Jewish people have no future. Sadly, there is not much love for Israel in these circles.

Thankfully, though, many evangelical Christians do support Israel and believe the Jewish people have a historic, God-given right to the land of Israel in perpetuity. Those of us who believe this way are called Christian Zionists.

So, why do Christian Zionists support Israel and love the Jewish people?

1. We recognize that God has chosen Israel as His unique people.

Christians believe the Bible, both the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the New Testament, is the inspired Word of God. All throughout the Bible, God makes it clear that He has formed and chosen the Jewish people (physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve tribes) to be a special people for Himself (Isa. 46:13).

To be sure, this doesn’t mean He loves Jewish people more than Gentiles—the Bible teaches He loves all people (Jn. 3:16). But God loves Israel in a unique way and has chosen to reveal Himself to that nation and to work through that people in a way He does not with anyone else (Rom. 9:4-5).

2. We are indebted to Israel.

Paul, the Pharisee-turned-Jesus-follower, described Gentiles as those who are “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). That’s a pretty stark picture of those of us who are not Jewish.

Indeed, part of Israel’s role as God’s chosen servant was to be a kingdom of priests to the world (Ex. 19:6). A priest is one who mediates between God and man. As a kingdom of priests, Israel was to represent God to the goyim, the nations.

Today, the majority of Christians are Gentiles. We, though “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel,” have come to know the God of Israel through the Scriptures He gave to the Jewish people. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the promised Messiah of Israel, a belief based on the Hebrew Scriptures. By faith in the Messiah, we “who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).

We are indebted to the Jewish people for their transmission and preservation of the Scriptures and for the gift of the Messiah Jesus by Whom we have been brought near to God and have hope.

3. We understand God has promised to bless those who bless Israel.

Further, He promised Abraham that He would bless those who bless Him and His descendants and He would curse those who curse him (Gen. 12:3). In fact, God says that aiding the Jewish people in their distress is the same as aiding Him (Matt. 25:35-40). Conversely, harming the Jewish people is the same as doing harm to Him (Zech. 2:8; Matt. 25:41-45). 

As Christians, our desire is to bless the Jewish people, not only for the great blessings we have received through Israel, but also because it reflects God’s heart.

This article was originally published by The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

Soon after his meeting with Newton, Wilberforce wrote in his journal, “God Almighty has placed before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners”.1

Wilberforce was indeed successful in his first “great object”. After a lifetime spent educating an apathetic public, largely ignorant of the plight of African slaves, and repeated defeats in the House of Commons to pass anti-Slavery legislation, the momentous day arrived on July 26, 1833: slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire. Just three days later, Wilberforce died, his earthly battle won.

Understandably, much is written about Wilberforce’s campaign against the traffic of human beings. But perhaps even more interesting is his “Reformation of Manners”, a 19th century term for meaning “to change the moral climate of the culture”. Fueled by his love for the Lord and His Word, Wilberforce was instrumental in bringing great societal change to the British Empire, including aiding the poor, taking the gospel to India, and establishing the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

What few people know, however, is that William Wilberforce’s faith inspired a great love for God’s chosen people. He believed in the biblical mandate to take the gospel to all the world, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, and he believed that God would one day bring the Jewish people back into their homeland. Wilberforce biographer Rev. Dr. Clifford Hill says, “[Wilberforce] longed to see the gospel going out throughout the world, and he believed that it was in God’s purposes that the Jewish people have a home back in Israel”.

In 1809, a Jewish believer in Jesus named Joseph Frey established the London Jews’ Society. Its first vice-president was none other than Wilberforce.

Dr. Paul Wilkinson says that Wilberforce and the other early members of this organization were united by their belief in the authority of Scripture. “They had the same understanding of the Word of God,” he says. “They believed in the inspiration of the Scriptures. They believed in the literal fulfillment of prophecy. And within that, the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restoration of the Jews to the land.”2

In 1813, the London Jews’ Society laid the foundation stone for “Palestine Place”, a campus composed of a ministry training college, boys’ and girls’ schools, and a church, where the service was conducted in both English and Hebrew, the first place of worship in England specifically for Jewish believers.3 Wilberforce attended the foundation-laying ceremony, an event that drew more than 20,000 spectators, and spoke at the reception that followed.4

It would be easy to think that a busy politician, such as Wilberforce, concerned as he was with the affairs of the British government, would be merely a figurehead of such an organization, dedicated to sharing biblical truth and raising awareness about the plight of the Jewish people. After all, he was already waging an all-out war on the British Slave Trade at the time—an arduous and unpopular cause in itself. But that was not how Wilberforce operated. Once he committed himself to a cause, he was one of its hardest workers and greatest champions.

Kevin Belmonte, in his work William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity, writes about the Christian statesman’s biblically-rooted work ethic: “Wilberforce’s Great Change also manifested itself in a very practical and conscientious way. He took greater care to be present for every debate in the Commons. He agreed to serve on countless committees, always a thankless task. His regularity in the House and service on its committees was all the more unique in an age when the chamber was seldom filled. He was there unless sick or obliged to be more than twenty miles from London”.5
This ethic translated to much involvement with the London Jews’ Society. It required him to be intimately acquainted with the workings of the organization, as he presided over, attended, and spoke at at least eight of the Society’s annual meetings.6

In the history of the organization, the authors write of Wilberforce, “He was one of the most loving and prominent personages of his day. It speaks volumes for the character of the Society’s work that it could command from such a man, affection patronage, time, and advocacy, all of which he ungrudgingly bestowed upon it from its foundation.”7

William Wilberforce died in 1833, at the age of 74. His passing was mourned, not only by his own nation, but by those of nations around the world. He was a man whose relationship with Jesus Christ was no private matter. On the contrary, it was a faith that compelled him to advocate for the rights of African slaves, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and to be a friend of Israel.

Today, in Westminster Abbey, among the memorials to famed men and women of British history, there stands a statue of a bent-over, elderly Wilberforce, whose features would not endear him to anyone. But engraved on this stone is a fitting tribute to the all-but-forgotten Christian Zionist:

To the memory of William Wilberforce:
…In an age and country fertile in great and good men,
He was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of their times
Because to high and various talents
To warm benevolence, and to universal candour,
He added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life.
…He died not unnoticed or forgotten by his country:
The Peers and Commons of England,
With the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker, at their head,
Carried him to his fitting place among the mighty dead around,
Here to repose: till, through the merits of Jesus Christ,
His only Redeemer and Saviour,
(Whom, in his life and in his writings he had desired to glorify,)
He shall rise in the resurrection of the just.8​

ENDNOTES
1 Curtis, Ken. “William Wilberforce.” Christianity.com 2007,christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/william-wilberforce-11630357.html.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Gidney, William Thomas. The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, from 1809 to 1908, 1908, p. 41.
5 Belmonte, Kevin. William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity. Zondervan, 2007. p. 91
6 Gidney, William Thomas. The History of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, from 1809 to 1908, 1908. p. 147.
7 Ibid.
8 Metaxas, Eric. Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. Harper One, 2007. p. 278.

This article was originally published by The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.

I first heard the name William Wilberforce when I was a sophomore in high school. Knowing of my interest in politics and history, a friend gave me a copy of a short biography of the man with the funny name. I stayed up into the early morning hours, unable to put the book down, finding within its pages an earthly hero.

William Wilberforce was born into a prosperous English family in 1759. While living with his aunt and uncle, as a young boy, Wilberforce came under the ministry and influence of their friend, the ex-slave ship captain, John Newton, author of the celebrated hymn Amazing Grace.

While the young boy made a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ during this time, his mother soon rushed her son back home to rescue him from the influence of the dreaded evangelicals. His walk with the Lord was soon snuffed out by the worldliness of Hull’s high society.

Years later, while serving as a young and wealthy member of the English parliament, Wilberforce began, again, to consider the spiritual truths he had been exposed to as a child.

As his carriage bounced its way across the European countryside during a parliamentary recess, Wilberforce found himself engaged in intense conversation with his friend and traveling partner, the intellectual Isaac Milner, who was himself an evangelical Christian.
The duo spent much of their time together reading Philip Doddridge’s work, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, and discussing the veracity of the Christian faith. When Wilberforce returned home to England, he was not yet a genuine believer; but he could not deny that something within his heart and mind was changing.

“What madness is the course I am pursuing,” he wrote. “I believe all the great truths of the Christian religion, but I am not acting as though I did. Should I die in this state I must go into a place of misery.”

Over a period of time, Wilberforce continued to wrestle with the idea of becoming a believer. What would it mean for his way of life? What of his career in Parliament?

It was this latter question that led him to the door of his old preacher-friend, John Newton. It was, Wilberforce thought, contradictory to be a follower of Christ, yet remain active in the worldly realm of politics. He was surprised, then, when Newton told him the exact opposite—that to stay in Parliament, to be a voice for truth in the spiritual vacuum of the political arena, was an excellent mission field.

A few months later, Newton wrote to his poet-friend William Cowper of Wilberforce, “I judge he is now decided on the right track…I hope the Lord will make him a blessing both as a Christian and a statesman. How seldom do these characters coincide!! But they are not incompatible.”

What Wilberforce termed “the Great Change” had taken place within his heart and mind. Newton’s prayer was answered.

​Soon after his meeting with Newton, Wilberforce wrote in his journal, “God Almighty has placed before me two great objects: the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners”.
Wilberforce was indeed successful in his first “great object”. After a lifetime spent educating an apathetic public, largely ignorant of the plight of African slaves, and repeated defeats in the House of Commons to pass anti-Slavery legislation, the momentous day arrived on July 26, 1833: slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire. Just three days later, Wilberforce died, his earthly battle won.

1Metaxas, Eric. Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery. Harper One, 2007. p.53.
2Ibid.