On Day 8 of our trip, the Sar Shalom Israel team went to the site on the Jordan River where "the locals" choose to be baptized. I had been there last January, and really had no desire to go back, especially since I wanted to go somewhere else.
On my last trip to Israel, 9 months ago, I had been driven by Yad Vashem, Israel's World Holocaust Remembrance Center. But, there had sadly been no time to visit.
With my team leader's permission, I went on my own to experience it on Nov. 2nd.
The center was opened in 1953, only five years after Israel won its independence and established itself as a free country. Obviously, creating a place such as this was a high priority for the people.
There is no admission price for visiting Yad Vashem, although they solicit donations and charge for both the audio tour and the "guide" - - the brochure and map. With both in hand, off I went. It was a gorgeous day outside. (In fact, we had no rain to hamper our activities, this entire trip.)
I will tell you I was either near tears or openly weeping as I walked through the main building of the campus. Several times, I was tempted to just take a shortcut out, and leave. The architect of this place was brilliant in his designs. There was an introductory film about life in Europe before the Holocaust. The term Jews use for The Holocaust is "shoah", which means "catastrophe". It is closely related to the Hebrew "shoar", which means "burning". Both are relevant.
In late 1930s Germany the Nazis' persecution of Jews was gradual, increasing in intensity as time went on. In 1938, for example, Nazis publicly burned hundreds of copies of the Hebrew Bible. Jews were then prevented from equal opportunity in the marketplace. Next, Jews were herded into "ghettos", areas in the towns WAY too small to contain them adequately, and prevented from leaving. They could take next-to-nothing with them. Their possessions were confiscated by neighbors and by the State, and synagogues were looted and burned. Here are some confiscated items of silver.
There in the ghettos, tens of thousands, especially the medically vulnerable and elderly, died. Next, the Nazis began to execute Jews via firing squads, near their towns. And, finally, the piece of the Holocaust we hear most about - - extermination centers were set up in Poland, after that nation was conquered. Jews were then shipped via train to these death camps and exterminated, often after medical experiments of the grossest order were perpetrated on them.
In the first gallery after that film I mentioned earlier, the role of the Christian Church as a whole was laid out.
It was damning and extremely hard-to-bear. I will make a bold statement here: if the Christian world and so-called Christian countries had stood up to Hitler's initial mistreatment of Jews, there would have been no World War II. Allowed to punish and mistreat Jews without interference, Hitler became emboldened to spread his hate all over Europe. By the time the Christian world "got woke", it was too late. Entering the fray, Allied countries had all they could handle to try to defeat Hitler who, by that time, had conquered most of Europe.
Although the major Christian institutions were silent, there were individual European Christians who put their own lives at risk to intervene and save Jewish families. Over 21,000 of those individuals are commemorated on the grounds of Yad Vashem, an area called The Righteous Among the Nations. Learn more about these heroes here:
https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous.html
One of them was the missionary Corrie Ten Boom. A tree is planted in her honor on the campus. Another was Oskar Schindler, a non-Jewish German of "Schindler's List" fame (Steven Spielberg movie), who is credited for saving the lives of over 1200 Jews. See picture below of Schindler's List. Many Holocaust rescue stories remain, of course, unknown - - but not to God.
There were a couple of nations who saved their 58,000 Jews - - Denmark and Bulgaria. They stood up to the Nazi menace and just said "NO!", followed by deliberate action to get Jewish citizens to safe harbor elsewhere (to Sweden, in the case of the Danes).
When the Catholic Church became established around 325 AD, there was (and continues to be, in some quarters) a strong vein of anti-Semitism. Why? The argument is that "the Jews killed the Savior". This is closely tied to "replacement theology", the belief that the modern day Church (Catholic and Protestant) has replaced the Jews as God's chosen people. Later, some of the most prominent Reformers (Protestant leaders) were horribly anti-Semitic, for this same reason. So, let's not lay all this on the Catholics, shall we?
By contrast, the Bible teaches that the Jews were and still are God's chosen people.
Paul explains this in Romans 9:33 - - -
"They are Israelites, and to them belong the glory, the adoption, the covenants, the giving of the Law, the worship and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen."
But, he goes on to talk about grafting in of Gentiles in Romans 11:16-24. He refers to the whole Church as an olive tree, and to the Gentile members as "wild olive branches" who were grafted in.
In Romans 1:16, Paul affirms that the gospel of Jesus Christ has been made available "to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (the Greeks being a prominent group of Gentile people).
Horrible, horrible things have been perpetrated on the Jews over the last 2000 years by many groups who claim to follow Jesus - - that same Jesus who was (hello?) Jewish!! Not only that, but Jesus was an observant Jew. He said Himself that He did not come to destroy the Law, but instead to fulfill it.
I'm getting rather far afield here in this post, but suffice it to say that our attitudes as Christians should be to LOVE Jewish people and to try to make up for the atrocities committed by those so-called Christians who came before us.
Another bold statement: if you mistreat the Jews, the "apple of His eye", you are not a true Christian.
Allright, enough of my sermonizing (for the moment, lol!). Here are some additional pictures from Yad Vashem.
Children's Memorial, Entrance
In this exhibit, visitors walk through in utter darkness, while the names and ages of Holocaust victim children are read aloud in somber voices. It is chilling.
Hall of Names, where the names and personal details of millions of victims have been recorded on Pages of Testimony (symbolic tombstones, filled out by the surviving family members of dead loved ones). These can be seen at the bottom of the photo, a macabre library...Pictures of some victims are shown above. The Hall is massive.
Hall of Remembrance, where the names of 22 murder sites (chosen from among hundreds that existed) are placed on the floor. A memorial flame (the tall black structure) burns continuously, next to a crypt in the floor. It contains the ashes of martyred dead, brought from concentration camps.
By the grace and power of Yeshua HaMaschiah, may we all swear . . .
Never again!
Yet....
When I blogged recently about the Israeli pro-life ministry Be'ad Chaim, I said I'd return to the passage from Joel 1. That time has come. Let's briefly examine the entire passage:
listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your ancestors?
3Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.
4What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
5Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
Wail, all you drinkers of wine;
wail because of the new wine,
for it has been snatched from your lips.
Joel 1:2-5 (NIV)
Yes, the Holocaust, the shoah, was a 20th century catastrophe of epic proportions.
But, what about modern-day Israel? What about the "new wine", the unborn future of Israel, being devoured by the "locust" of abortion? Babies are being slaughtered at a rate of 1 out of every 6. Yes, today, one of every six pregnancies is aborted in Israel. (This is actually an improvement, because earlier in the 1940s-50s, it was one in four.)
When we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, let's remember the unborn. When we pray that the barbaric practice of abortion will stop in America, let's pray it stops in Israel as well, that Israel's modern-day holocaust will cease.
Let's "get woke", this time before it is too late.
