The Shanda of Christians Who Abuse the Holocaust: In the Nazi Era it was Fundamentalist Christians who blocked Roosevelt’s efforts to bring the Jews here. Now, these same Christians support Israel, at a terrible price.
I came across this ad on the web. What might $33 buy? A meal? Some clothes? A JEWISH prayer book?
No. It funds a Christian Missionary Group.
Watch the video or click the image for more.
This is a large part of the horror Jews still face as we approach the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald. The only blessing that Buchenwald leaves is the memory of the courage of Jews who survived and were able to go to Israel despite the hateful efforts of antisemites in the US to allow us all to die.
Even Franklin Roosevelt, probably the first American President to welcome Jews as supporters and advisers, was not immune. Because of his fear of anti-Semitism, President Roosevelt, never was able to “come out” and publically say what was happening in the concentration camps. The best he could do was get entry visas for a few thousand people. Even children were refused.
No country, the US included, was willing to take the survivors. As the great Hillel taught, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?” The Zionists were proven right, the only answer to the anti-Semitism of Christianity and Islam, was and is for the Jews to have their own country. As WWII came to its denouement, Jews from Christian Europe and from the Islamic world were rescued by the chance to return home.
Now Christian missionaries, working with far right Republicans and Jews who desperately want political support for the existence of Israel, have become allies. This alliance celebrates a bizarre vision of a triumphant Israel leading, at least for the Christian partnership, to the return of their messiah. This is truly a shanda.
On the other side, liberal Jews, driven by traditional Jewish commitments to freedom for all people, join with the Muslims supporting the Palestinian cause. These Jews ally with another group of anti-Semites who only see in Israel the caricature of the greedy Jew. That too is a shanda.
In between are Jews who want it all … who want Israel to exist alongside our Arab brothers and sisters. The full quote form Hillel is:
If I am not for myself, who is for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, then when?”[2]