There Is No Place For Anti-Christian Bias in Israel
By
Leonard Zwelling
“This is the reality: Whomever is a Christian—visibly a Christian—is becoming a target.”
–Yisca Harani an Israeli scholar who monitors Christian hate
I found this article in The Wall Street Journal on August 4 particularly distressing. Apparently attacks in Israel on Christians, some of whom are Palestinian Arabs and some of whom are foreign clerics and nuns, are increasing. Young Jews are seeking to spit on Christians. Knesset and Netanyahu Cabinet member Itamar Ben-Gvir said that “spitting on Christians is an ancient Jewish custom and shouldn’t be considered a crime.” Yes, it should. It is disgusting and antithetical to everything I have ever been taught about tolerance and respect for others. It has no place in Judaism and no place in Israel.
As readers of this blog know, I am a very passionate Zionist. I also believe there is more than enough room in Israel for non-Jews including Arabs, Christians, and Druze. Many non-Jews contribute greatly to the nation of Israel in the military, in health care, in science, and in commerce.
I have seen the anti-Arab discrimination with my own eyes during my visits to Israel. It is ugly and very upsetting when it occurs within walking distance of the Western Wall of the Second Temple and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
I am more than aware of the importance of the Christian historical and religious sites to tourism and thus, the Israeli economy. I always make it my business to walk the Fourteen Stations of the Cross (the path Jesus walked toward his crucifixion) when I am in the Old City of Jerusalem. Some of the most important historical sites in the Holy Land were preserved by Christian pilgrims. But, perhaps of greatest importance to we Jews, in Israel and in the diaspora, is the tremendous support for Israel given by evangelical Christians from the United States. There are no greater supporters of Israel than these American Christians and we Jews should be grateful for it. That support may have its basis in Christian beliefs about the End of Days, but for right now, I’ll take it.
It is pretty clear at this point that the current Israeli government has unleashed violence from West Bank settlers on West Bank Arabs and now from Jews on Christians within the recognized boundaries of the Jewish state.
Perhaps, the Jews of Israel, like the Jews in the United States, would do well educating themselves about Christianity, what its core tenets are, and how it emerged from Judaism in the early parts of the first millennium CE. One of the most important courses I ever took in my life was my second semester freshman year Religion 2 course at Duke, the New Testament. It was taught by a man named Boyd Daniels who was a Presbyterian minister and an expert in the Pauline letters. In the first semester we read parts of the Old Testament. During the second semester we read every word of the New Testament. The Old Testament, which I had read as a child, is a lot of stories about what happened to the Jewish people and how these occurrences cemented our relationship with God and with the land of Israel. Mostly it followed the old joke about Jewish holidays: “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.”
The New Testament is completely different. Yes, there are many stories about Jesus and, of course, Paul’s letters, but this is a book of philosophy, theology, and how to behave. Where the Old Testament told you what to do (613 commandments) and called you a sinner if you didn’t do it, the New Testament showed you how to decide what to do on your own using your faith to guide your decisions. When you fell short you would be granted forgiveness. The Old Testament is Jewish, a book of laws. The New Testament is Christian, a book of faith. A thinking person ought to know both, know how one emerged from the other, grasp the long history of anti-Semitism, often, but not only, perpetrated by Christians, and then arrive at a set of beliefs and behaviors that promote co-existence.
This WSJ article conveyed that a subset of the Jewish population of Israel and some of the members of the Knesset do not believe there is value in Christian teaching or in Christians. This is dangerous, regressive thinking that the government needs to denounce.
Yes, Israel is the Jewish homeland, but there are an awful lot of Christian citizens in the country and they deserve the same rights and protections as the Jews of Israel.
Israel and particularly Jerusalem play a major role in the history of Christianity. The Christian history is right there next to the Jewish history. It all matters. It is all sacred. There is no room for anti-Christian behavior in Israel any more than there is room for antisemitism in the United States. This anti-Christian bias in the Holyland is a dreadful development and should be a factor in ousting the Netanyahu government from power.
