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Aug 1, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

It’s a surprisingly short drive from West Jerusalem to Bethlehem – 10 or 15 minutes, at the most. But on a hot summer night a couple of weeks ago, it felt like I had traveled light-years, setting out from a bustling city-center Jerusalem neighborhood and arriving at a modest home in a quiet Bethlehem village.

In my mind, the leafy, well-lit street from which I departed was quickly juxtaposed with my gloomy destination. I flashed back to a journey I had made from West to East Berlin in the late 1980s. Back then, the Stasi (East German secret police) were the threat.

Today in Bethlehem, it’s the Islamists.

After the guards glanced at our United States passports, my American friends and I were waved through the checkpoint that separates Israel from King David’s ancient hometown.

Upon our arrival, the wariness of our hosts also felt eerily familiar to me. I could almost read their minds: “Who saw them come into our house? Who might be listening? Can we trust these friends-of-friends?”

For me, having visited Berlin before its infamous wall came down, the mood was reminiscent of the bad old days: Life behind the Iron Curtain.

My friends and I spent time with, among others, a Christian woman and her small family. I wish I could tell you her name. And I would like very much to describe her circumstances – her needs, her struggle to keep financially afloat and her family’s specific fears.

I also wish I could use real names when I write about other Bethlehem Christians – those I’ve met and those I’ve heard about through trustworthy friends.

Why can’t I name names or cite locations? Because the slightest hint that Bethlehem’s Christians are “informing outsiders” about the troubles they face might very well endanger them, not to mention their friends and family members.

Today, much of the tension in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the West Bank is blamed on the “Israeli occupation” and the security fence.

In some places, including Bethlehem, there is indeed a formidable military wall – also reminiscent of Berlin – officially called the “West Bank Barrier.” It divides Arab communities from the Israeli population.

Christian
The West Bank Barrier

It is true that the wall is an encumbrance on the people who live behind it. It is an eyesore and, in some places, has taken a heavy toll on business and commerce.

The checkpoints into Israel can be a nuisance. This is particularly so since Arabs and Israelis alike were able to come and go without restrictions until the ill-starred Oslo Peace Accords robbed them of their freedom of movement.

But the security wall has also saved Israeli lives. It was erected during the Second Intifada, during which a seemingly endless barrage of exploding buses, pizza shops, cafes and other public venues devastated Israel for well over three years, costing more than 1,000 lives.

It is widely reported that after the West Bank Barrier was constructed, the number of suicide bombings decreased by more than 90 percent.

Today, terrorism continues in Israel, but it wears a different face. Palestinians primarily target soldiers and religious Jews who live in settlements. These attacks are sporadic and unpredictable, involving stabbing with knives or machetes, vehicles ramming groups at bus stops or the stoning and firebombing of cars and buses. One recent attack on a chic Tel Aviv café involved firearms.

Since September 2015, 40 people have been killed in these terrorist attacks and 517 people have been injured.

As for the security barrier, when the Palestinian cry of “Tear down this wall!” is heard in Israel, the response is defiant: “Stop the terrorism or forget about it.”

In the meantime, it is quite clear that the West Bank’s Christian population is diminishing. In 2013, Rosanna Rafel reported that “in British-mandated Palestine, before the establishment of Israel in 1948, the percentage of the Christian population stood at 18 percent. This figure has now dwindled to under 1.5 percent.”

This plummeting Christian population is invariably blamed on the “Israeli occupation.” But if this is so, why isn’t the Muslim population diminishing too?

Christians are escaping the West Bank because of anti-Christian persecution.

In Bethlehem, Christians are not just a minority population in an overwhelmingly Muslim community. They aren’t simply marginalized; they don’t just suffer discrimination. Too often, they are threatened and intimidated; injured or even killed. They are cautious. They are uneasy. Many of them live in fear.

In the March 2016 issue of Providence Magazine, The Philos Project Executive Director Robert Nicholson wrote a persuasive article, “Why are Palestinian Christians Fleeing?”

He explained that “the Palestinian Authority – the government created by the PLO to manage the West Bank and Gaza – is, by its own constitution, an Islamic state that embodies the principles of sharia.”

Christians living under the PA are “accorded sanctity and respect,” but, as is the case under all sharia-based systems, Christians are relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Of course, it is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity. Let’s not even mention the fact that sale of land to Jews is a crime punishable by death.

Discrimination against Christians under the Palestinian Authority isn’t just legal – it’s also social. Living as a Christian, one is constantly reminded that he or she is not a member of the majority culture.

Bethlehem’s Christians are at risk of being detained by authorities based on vague accusations. An “interview” with local officials may lead to stern threats or, even more frightening, to an arrest on trumped-up charges.

Justus Weiner, a scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has written extensively about the condition of Christians under the Palestinian Authority.

“Under that regime,” Weiner explained to me, “Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations.”

Weiner told me that Muslims who have converted to Christianity are in the greatest danger. They are defenseless against abuse by Muslim fundamentalists. Some have been murdered.

Many Christians are subject to various fees and fines, which amount to bureaucratic extortion or protection money – a thinly disguised “jizya” tax.

Chuck Kopp has been a pastor in Jerusalem for nearly half a century; he and his wife lived for several years in Bethlehem. “We can no longer remain complacent regarding the plight of the Christian minority in the Palestinian Authority,” he recently told me. “Something significant needs to be done to rectify this current imbalance.”

Meanwhile, story after story confirm that Christian women are sexually harassed, threatened and even raped for not following Islamic dress codes.

In my book “Saturday People, Sunday People,” I wrote about a young Christian woman from a village near Bethlehem who was walking home from school. She was not “covered,” meaning she did not wear an Arab-style headscarf or a long skirt.

When a gang of local Muslim males cruised past her, made obscene remarks and tried to force her into their car, she escaped and ran home, where she tearfully poured out her terrifying experience to her brother “Habib.”

It didn’t take Habib long to figure out who the Arabs were.

He knocked on the door where the ringleader and his friends hung out. When Habib demanded that they leave his sister alone, they laughed at him.

They were, however, not amused. In the days that followed, they began to track Habib.

One afternoon, Habib and his cousin went to a nearby forest to walk and talk and relax. Suddenly 13 young men, who had arrived in cars and on motorbikes, surrounded them. At first, they seemed only to be armed with sticks and a billy club. Then the knives appeared.

While his cousin was beaten and held back from interfering, Habib was stabbed 28 times. He was knifed on the head, neck, hands and the inner thighs (the attackers were trying to sever a main artery) and left for dead. Once the assailants fled and the cousin was released, he frantically drove Habib to the hospital before he bled out. Habib received massive blood transfusions; his wounds were repaired, and his life was spared. But he still requires further surgery.

During our visit in Bethlehem, my friends and I also spoke to a workman – we’ll call him George – who does outdoor maintenance near a Bethlehem school. This year, despite an intense heat wave, and notwithstanding the fact that he is not Muslim, he was angrily threatened with physical harm for publicly drinking a bottle of water during Ramadan.

Elsewhere, we heard about a Christian property owner who had rented an apartment to a Muslim family. When the rent came due, the new tenants refused to pay. This continued for months. The local authorities were alerted, but they simply shrugged. “Nothing we can do about that,” they said. “Our hands are tied.”

In recent years, several church properties in Bethlehem have been vandalized, set ablaze or invaded by violent intruders during celebrations or worship services. PA law enforcement usually arrives long after the emergency call is made – if at all.

In a recent tragedy, a young man suffering from mental retardation and who lives in a Christian village (one of his friends refers to him as “a blessed boy”) heard offensive anti-Christian statements emanating from a local mosque.

Infuriated, he shouted an insult to Muslims.

Later, he posted something equally anti-Islamic on Facebook.

A few days later, the “blessed boy” vanished. At the time of this writing, he has been missing for more than three months. His family is utterly traumatized, afraid to approach the local authorities. They fear both devastating news and deadly retaliation.

We ourselves were blessed, listening and learning from the Christians we visited. Meeting us was an act of great courage on their part. For us, it was an extraordinary opportunity.

As Nicholson wrote,

I’ve spoken to numerous Palestinian Christians who describe how Muslim terrorists would commandeer Christian homes and use them to direct sniper fire on Israeli soldiers. Others speak of systematic discrimination in hiring, housing and education. Of course, all of these conversations take place in private meetings and hushed tones.

Christians in Bethlehem rarely interact with Muslims beyond the marketplace, and are, in fact, very much afraid. But in public, Palestinian Christians equate their situation with that of their Muslim neighbors and laud the happy coexistence between the two groups.

They don’t have a choice. They are hostages inside their own city.

Oct 4, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

One of the best known and most widely admired Israeli statesmen died on Sept. 28. After suffering a massive stroke two weeks earlier, Shimon Peres – former president, prime minister and minister of defense, to name just a few of his myriad roles – died at age 93. His family was at his side.

What may have been the most extraordinary international funeral in Israel’s history was held on Sept. 30.

For two days and nights after Peres’ passing, the ministry of foreign affairs, the prime minister’s office, the Israeli Defense Forces, the public security ministry, hundreds of journalists, pundits, protocol experts and an innumerable array of various professionals worked around the clock to welcome the arrival of delegations representing some 80 countries.

Highway 1, the primary route from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport to Jerusalem, was blocked both ways for several hours as dignitaries poured in from around the world. Barricades surrounded Jerusalem hotels. Security forces appeared on every corner. Motorcades, with sirens blaring, wended their way through town, ferrying vans full of jet-lagged diplomats.

Approximately 8,000 police officers and soldiers secured the city of Jerusalem – miraculously without incident.

On that Friday, I had a long-standing lunch appointment at the Mamilla Mall – a 20-minute walk from my apartment. The question in my mind wasn’t the usual concern about being on time. I simply wasn’t sure whether I could get past four of the heavily guarded five-star hotels in which international diplomats and media were being housed.

As it turned out, I was able to find a taxi. During my brief journey, the driver cranked up President Barack Obama’s solemn tones to full volume on the radio. I was a captive audience to the United States president’s artful fusion of adulation for Peres and thinly veiled antipathy for Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

From dawn till dusk, Peres was praised in glowing remembrances, penned and spoken by friends and even a few foes. As his body lay in state outside the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) the day before the funeral, some 50,000 citizens and foreign guests formed somber queues to pay their respects.

Shimon
—— Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (center), Israeli President Reuven Rivlin (left) and Knesset Chairman Yuli Edelstein stand next to the coffin of Shimon Peres during a memorial ceremony held for the public at the Knesset.

Among the dignitaries who made their way to Israel for the funeral — including Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Charles — were President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, President of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra.

Even Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was granted permission to attend the funeral. He did so – and shook hands with Netanyahu – despite the biting criticism of many of his own people.

Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime minister, accurately described Peres as a man who didn’t always enjoy the same admiration in life that he did in death. Harper wrote, “To be sure, glory was often not forthcoming. To speak of the career of Shimon Peres is to speak of a life in which defeat and setback consistently accompanied success and progress. There were lost arguments, lost battles and lost elections, but never lost hope.”

In fact, it’s very true that despite the effusive eulogies that streamed forth at Peres’ funeral, he remains a controversial figure in Israel.

As a young man, he entered the political world as a disciple of Israel’s first prime minister, David ben Gurion, who oversaw the country’s tumultuous, often violent beginnings.

Despite Peres’ reputation as a man of peace – frequently celebrated by those who promote “peace at any price” with the surrounding Muslim communities – in the nascent State’s earliest years, Peres was responsible for laying some of its most essential military foundations.

Not only did he forge indispensable arms deals, particularly with France, but he also played an essential role in the development of Israel’s own military industry. Today, the Jewish State has become a world leader in the innovation and production of cutting-edge defense technology.

Peres is also credited by many for the clandestine origins of Israel’s nuclear research projects – efforts that may (or may not) have led to a formidable array of nuclear weaponry.

While he served as minister of defense, in 1976, Peres wholeheartedly championed the daring commando raid that successfully freed more than a hundred hostages from Uganda’s Entebbe Airport.

This brilliant raid on Entebbe established Israel as a nation of innovative and relentless warriors who refused to tolerate terrorism against Israelis in particular and Jews in general.

Indeed, at Peres’ funeral, Netanyahu described his own first meeting with Peres “here, on this very hill 40 years ago.”

Two days after the bold rescue operation in Entebbe in which my brother gave his life, Yoni’s funeral was held here. As defense minister, together with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon approved that operation.

At the funeral, he delivered a deeply stirring eulogy, which I will never forget. It was the first time I ever met him. My late parents, my brother and I were profoundly moved by what he said about Yoni, about the operation, about the bond with our forefathers and about the pride of our nation. From that point on, a special bond was formed between us.”

In Peres’ later years, the path he forged toward political success proved to be a rocky one. As one of my friends remarked, for most of his career, he was “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Despite the many lofty titles he sought and sometime enjoyed, he experienced more than a few humiliating defeats.

The Oslo Peace Agreement – for which Peres, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO President Yasser Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – has proved to be his most controversial accomplishment.

The deal was furtively initiated by Peres in secret Oslo meetings with PLO representatives before the Rabin government reluctantly recognized it. And since its enactment in 1993, The Oslo Agreement has proved to be an ongoing tragedy for Israelis and Arabs alike.

Nevertheless, Peres’ quest for peace continues to be revered by much of the world. Yet, strangely, the very nations with whom he sought reconciliation continue to reject not only his dreams, but also the Jewish State he served.

As Herb Keinon wrote in The Jerusalem Post,

Peres had a vision – a vision embraced by the world, as evidence by the number of leaders who arrived. How ironic, therefore, that the objects of this vision – the Arab world – were so noticeably absent.

For the last 30 years of his life, Peres tried to forge a new reality with Israel’s neighbors.

World leaders beat a path to Mount Herzl on Friday because they identified and supported his vision of peace with the Arab world, and because they wanted to send a message of encouragement to Israelis to keep going down that path.

But the people with whom he had hoped to make peace were, for the most part, missing from the crowd. That, too, sends a message.

If the Joint List MKs boycott the funeral of Peres, the man who preached coexistence; if Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whose father had a close relationship with Peres, can’t make the journey across the Allenby Bridge to pay last respects, then why go through the motions?

It won’t work.

In the meantime, other less-than-glowing reports have also emerged. For example, in The New York Times, Tom Segev described Peres as a Polish-born outsider who never really fit into Israeli society.

“For most of his life, he had to endure widespread hatred from his people, and, even worse, mockery,” Segev explained. “Throughout his career, he gave ample reason to associate him with petty party politics and sleazy intrigue. But in reality, he was motivated not by a lust for power or by greed, but by an outsider’s desperate quest for his people’s love.”

More recently, Israel’s YNet recounted some of the angry words spoken about Peres by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination ended their lengthy political feud and elevated Rabin’s rival to his long-sought role as prime minister. “The solid base assumption upon which this insatiable underminer, Shimon Peres, has based his delusion was [the idea] that between him and the prime minister position stood no obstacle save for Yitzhak Rabin.”

Peres has been depicted as hero and hypocrite, statesman and spoiler, time-honored diplomat and treacherous competitor. However, for most observers, he remains enigmatic – a man of war and a man of peace; a patriot, a poet and above all else, a puzzle.

In such a time as this, it is perhaps best to refrain from speculation. Most will simply remember Peres for his years of service to the Jewish State, his tireless energy and his final role as a beloved elder statesman.

As for judging the man himself?

Never more appropriate than at Peres’ passing is the traditional Jewish response to news of a death – any death. In Hebrew, it is Baruch Dayan Emet.

This final declaration simply honors God:

“Blessed is the true Judge.”

Oct 12, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

I first arrived in Israel in 2006, and my move into a little Jerusalem apartment coincided very closely with the Jewish High Holy Days – and with my birthday. This provided me with an extraordinary introduction to the most sacred season of Judaism, its soul-searching observance, and its colorful festivities.

Celebrating my birthday then made it all the more significant.

I wrote about those days – which remain deeply meaningful to me – in my book “Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.” It’s been precisely 10 years since then. And now, in 2016, I’ve celebrated Rosh Hashanah with dear friends, and Yom Kippur began at sunset yesterday.

As I look back, I hope you’ll enjoy sharing some of my memories from 2006. I’ll add a few comments about insights I’ve gained along the way.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated on the first and second days of the Jewish month of Tishri, which falls in September or October. It initiates a 10-day period called the Days of Repentance, or Days of Awe.

These end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the most sacred of all Jewish holidays. During these days, Jews reflect on their sins and moral failings, and seek forgiveness from anyone they have wronged during the past year.

Rosh Hashanah is the “Day of Judgment,” but although God’s judgment is passed on that day, it is not finalized – made absolute – until Yom Kippur, when it is sealed in the Book of Life.

Yom Kippur’s observance includes a strict 25-hour fast, during which the faithful neither eat nor drink anything, including water. In prayer, fasting and asking forgiveness, and through God’s mercy, Rosh Hashanah’s initial judgment can be altered.

One Yom Kippur greeting is hatima tova – “may you have a good seal …” in the Book of Life.

But why should a Christian be interested in Jewish holidays? St. Paul described Christians as wild olive branches engrafted into the ancient Jewish olive tree: “If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”

If St. Paul is correct, perhaps Christianity would benefit by sitting at the feet of the Jewish faithful, listening carefully to what our “elder brothers,” as he called them, can teach us.

Maybe that is why those first High Holy Days in Jerusalem were especially meaningful to me, because I had so much to learn. I didn’t really observe them in a religious sense – I didn’t know any Jewish people well enough to be included in their family plans, and I was too unsure of cultural do’s and don’ts to venture into a synagogue alone.

Instead, like a child with her nose pressed against a window, I watched and listened and wondered – perhaps the mirror image of the Jewish child staring in curiosity at the neighbors’ Christmas tree.

Christians believe that our ultimate atonement for sin took place at Golgotha, where the Son of God died for the sins of the whole world – the final sacrifice. His redemptive work on our behalf was sealed by his resurrection and through his continual intercession for us.

The Jewish people fast and pray, year by year, on Yom Kippur, seeking atonement and believing that Yom Kippur’s observance addresses sins and trespasses against the Lord.

However, they also believe that it is up to each individual to confront personal offenses, attitudes of unforgiveness, or wrongdoing against others.

“In order to be forgiven by God for wronging another person, one is required to seek [that person’s] forgiveness,” a rabbi recently wrote on Facebook. “And one is required to seek, confront and appease anyone who we might have wronged throughout the year.”

Christians believe, in principle, in practicing ongoing forgiveness, as Scripture instructs us. Nonetheless, specifically concentrating on bruised and broken relationships during just one day of the year, and seeking to heal and mend them, seems not only wise, but prudent.

And fasting in order to focus our minds on matters of the Spirit – not only on forgiving others and being forgiven by them, but also on praying for all concerned – is hardly a bad idea.

Meanwhile, finding myself surrounded by an entire nation that stops absolutely everything – eating, drinking, driving, working, shopping – for 25 hours of reflection and repentance has become a wonderful motivation. And, as I discovered during my first Yom Kippur, it isn’t all sadness and solemnity.

Yom Kippur
Children and adults alike take to the streets on their bicycles in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur.

In Jerusalem, Yom Kippur is not only a day of fasting and of denying oneself water and food, but it also involves ample time for contemplation. I’d read an article in The Jerusalem Post by my friend Ruthie Blum about children riding bicycles on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. The story surprised me, but the truth of it turned out to be one of the nicest things about the day. More silent than any Sabbath, there were no cars (and hence no horns), no radios or TVs, no hammering, no drilling, no shouting – no work of any kind. A complete shutdown of the city is enforced, and the wonderful byproduct of this is almost complete silence. I say “almost” because, as Ruthie predicted, all was not solemn. The streets were full of colorfully helmeted kids on bikes, riding fearlessly and frenetically because there was no traffic.

Some people – I later learned that they were Sephardic Jews from North Africa – dress entirely in white to celebrate Yom Kippur. I walked past them as they sat in circles like huge white flowers on the park’s grass, chattering and laughing. And of course, musical chants emanated from synagogues everywhere I walked. These cheerful sights and sounds seemed like prescient glimpses: the sought-after Atonement would surely be fulfilled. The cup of redemptive blessings was spilling over into the streets, unable to contain itself until sunset – until the three stars’ appearance – and the final blast of the shofar. The children, the singers and the people in white already seemed to know – their sins would most certainly be forgiven, cast away by their Redeemer’s hand as far as the East is from the West.

It was nearly sunset when I walked to the Haas Promenade, a park with a spectacular view of the Old City, not far from my apartment. As I surveyed Abu Tor, the Kidron Valley and the Old City, yellow streetlights were beginning to illuminate the roadways. All seemed muted. Even the muezzins’ call to prayer sounded distant and less piercing than usual. The only other noise I noticed was the caw-cawing of raucous and disheveled-looking ravens that flocked around the hilltop.

Daylight faded to black and just as I was leaving the Promenade, I heard the city siren’s prolonged whine, announcing the holiday’s end. Minutes later, I found myself near the corner of Hebron Road and Yehuda Street, standing outside a synagogue where the Yom Kippur service was still going on. There were several dozen women and children talking and laughing in a crowded outside courtyard; it was packed with people of all ages, including a few men.

I stood off to the side where I could watch, unnoticed, through a window and between some leaves. The men inside, garbed in prayer shawls, chanted and davened, bowing rhythmically as they prayed. Less than a minute later, the shofar sounded and soon the men filed out of the synagogue, gathered their wives, children and friends, and went off in every direction, laughing and talking as they headed toward what, in my religious past, was usually categorized as “food, fun and fellowship.”

I walked on, noticing that the streets were quickly began to surge with families streaming out of all sorts of little shuls in the area – unmarked synagogues that I didn’t even know were there. At about the same time, cars rematerialized on the streets and, unavoidably, horns once again began to honk.

I was starving by then. I hadn’t officially fasted, since I drank water all day. But I hadn’t eaten, so I rushed home and heated up some leftover pasta in the microwave. Not the most traditional fast-breaking meal, but it was more than welcome.

Thankfully, in recent years, I’ve been invited to break the Yom Kippur fast with good friends. We gather in relief, shared joy and new beginnings for a New Year – and we very much enjoy the food!

In our American culture, “New Year’s resolutions” often involve diets, gym memberships, fulfilling bucket lists, and the breaking of bad habits and the formation of new, healthier ones. In Judaism, there is a deeper spiritual perspective – one that all believers can surely embrace.

The beloved Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it this way: “The single most important lesson of Yom Kippur is that it’s never too late to change, start again and live differently from the way we’ve done in the past. God forgives every mistake we’ve made so long as we are honest in regretting it and doing our best to put it right. Even if there’s nothing we regret, Yom Kippur makes us think about how to use the coming year in such a way as to bring blessings into the lives of others by way of thanking God for all He has given us.”

Nov 14, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Current Events

It is painful to recall the events of late summer 2014, when the Islamic State killed or expelled thousands of Christians from their historic homeland Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. Most of them fled to Erbil, Kurdistan.

Later that year, I was fortunate enough to visit the displaced survivors. By then, massive efforts had begun to provide them with basic needs – food, water, blankets, winterization of shelters and medical supplies.

Most of those Christians languished in churches, abandoned buildings and tent cities. As weeks turned to months, it became clear that fragile hopes of returning to their ISIS-occupied cities, towns and villages would not soon be fulfilled.

What would they do? Should these Christians wait in Kurdistan until they could safely return home? Or should they try to seek a new life in an adopted country?

Some, who were driven out of their homes on more than one occasion over recent years, continue to dream of starting over in distant lands, far removed from the fears that still haunt them. Unfortunately, that remains a difficult course with many obstacles.

But others yearn to return to their homes and churches in their ancestral Christian heartland. This, too, is a huge challenge. But now, at last, they are finally sensing a surge of hope.

Today a coalition of Iraqi military forces, supported by United States air power and advisors, is aggressively seeking the destruction of ISIS. Its goal is to liberate the Nineveh Plains one village and town at a time. And its No. 1 target is Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

It isn’t an easy operation, to put it mildly. The liberation of the Christian town of Bartella is illustrative of the critical challenges that lie ahead. But a lifesaving miracle in Kirkuk proves that there is hope, even when dangers seem insurmountable.

“Bartella is liberated, but not free,” Father Behnam told me during a recent FaceTime conversation. He is a Syriac Catholic priest from Bartella who is presently living in Erbil.

International media sources are widely reporting the liberation of Bartella as a positive indication of the Islamic State’s impending eviction from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Videos of Bartella’s once-silenced church bells have chimed joyfully on social media across the world.

Meanwhile, hopeful news reports describe the surging anticipation of Iraq’s Christians: Will they soon be able to return to their ancestral homes and churches?

The hopes are real, but the perspective from the ground is sobering. The handful of displaced Bartella residents who have managed to reenter their town, escorted by Iraqi soldiers, are apprehensive. And this includes Behnam.

Large portions of Bartella are utterly trashed; ruined beyond repair. ISIS has savagely plundered innumerable private residences, demolishing them with explosives.

Meanwhile, the safety of those who manage to briefly visit, like Behnam, cannot be guaranteed. ISIS may have departed, but building after building has been left booby-trapped with mines, suitcase bombs and other assorted deadly devices.

“ISIS has excellent technology,” Behnam told me. “They mined everything. Even Bibles.” Behnam learned about such tactics when he was able to visit the Orthodox Church of St. George, which was the spiritual home to a sizeable portion of Bartella’s Christian community. The church’s interior is demolished. ISIS vandalized Bibles and New Testaments from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Terrorists ripped or cut them apart, used them to fuel the flames of their arson, and otherwise desecrated them.

In several Bartella churches, statuary was beheaded and crushed. Frescoes were defaced. ISIS mottos, such as “Enduring and Expanding,” were spray-painted across sanctuary walls, along with stenciled ISIS flags.

But perhaps most disturbing at St. George’s was a noose, hanging ominously in the courtyard, just inside the entryway. It bears mute witness to the demise of a Christian welcome center, which was ruthlessly transformed into an execution site. Countless innocent ISIS victims were murdered there.

Meanwhile, who is 100 percent sure that ISIS has been driven entirely out of Bartella?

Behnam described the oldest section of town, where enormous basements are dug beneath timeworn houses. “No one has dared to enter those underground areas, “ he told me. “And ISIS may well be hiding there.”

The Los Angeles Times quoted an Iraqi soldier who was deployed in the recent battle. “’A militant comes in from one building, takes a tunnel and emerges from another several doors down. How can we clean this place up?’ he asked, the frustration in his voice evident.

That’s reason enough to cast doubt on the present situation. But Iraqi Christians also face long-range challenges.

Although the troops that liberated Bartella were uniformed as Iraqi soldiers, the flags they displayed told a somewhat different story. “There were more Shia flags than Iraqi flags,” Behnam said. “Flags honoring Hussein. Or Ali. These were clearly Shia militias.”

Charmaine Hedding of Shai Fund, a nonprofit relief organization working in Kurdistan, told me that the Christian community’s problems extend beyond ISIS. “Iraq’s Christians are caught in the crossfire of a dangerous power struggle,” she explained. “Their villages and towns are located in disputed territories.

“The Kurds hope to annex the region,” she continued. “But Christians haven’t forgotten that the Peshmerga withdrew their forces just hours before ISIS invaded in 2014. At the same time, Baghdad’s Iraqi forces also want to assert control over that same region.”

And that’s not to mention the territory-hungry Turks. Or the Sunnis who once turned a blind eye to the Islamic State’s horrors.

I asked Behnam how he’d felt when he entered Bartella a few days before. He paused. “I felt insecure,” he finally replied. “And I was so disappointed. I kept thinking, ‘What can we do?’”

I asked, “So what would make it possible for Iraq’s Christians to return to their ancestral homes?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It would require massive reconstruction. And very complicated security arrangements.”

Clearly discouraged, he shook his head again and concluded, “And who will help us?”

Behnam’s story illustrates the enormously complex efforts necessary to fully expel ISIS terrorists and to begin reconstruction.

Another story reminds us that God is an “ever-present help in time of need.” It took place in Kirkuk, Iraq – an Iraqi city that was previously thought to have been “liberated” from ISIS. Unfortunately, some ISIS fighters had remained hidden in Kirkuk after their fellow terrorists were either killed or expelled.

That made it possible – when coalition forces pushed successfully ahead toward Mosul – for the terrorist group to make a sudden comeback, staging a diversionary assault on Kirkuk.

As Newsweek reported,

The attack in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city located 100 miles southeast of Mosul, was initiated Friday by sleeper cells who joined forces with infiltrating ISIS fighters. They captured several buildings and engaged in gun battles with Iraqi forces, who eventually defeated them.

At 4 a.m. on Oct. 21, in a dormitory-style house sponsored by the Chaldean diocese of Kirkuk , seven college girls were harshly awakened by the sound of four men breaking down their door and heading toward their bedroom. The panicked young women grabbed their cell phones and blankets and hurriedly crawled under one of the beds. They froze in place, listening in dazed silence. It didn’t take them long to realize that the home invaders were ISIS terrorists.

Meanwhile, they could hear gunfire in the streets outside along with urgent shouts and explosions. Their quiet neighborhood had become a warzone. They offered up silent prayers, stifled their tears, and texted their families. They also SMS’d the three Dominican nuns who lived next door.

And they waited, barely breathing. The nuns, who were also hiding, admonished them to keep still, remain calm and pray.

All at once the bedroom door burst open, and two critically wounded ISIS fighters were carried into the room. One was hurriedly placed on a nearby bed. The other, groaning in pain, was laid out on the same bed that hid the girls.

He was bleeding profusely and his blood began to drip through the mattress and onto the girls’ trembling bodies.

They heard the terrorists in the kitchen, eating whatever food they could find, then rushing back out into the battle that raged outside.

Minutes turned to hours. The girls suppressed coughs and whispers. They ignored their need for a toilet. They texted. They listened to the gunfire just outside. And still they waited.

Sister Diana, a Dominican nun who has worked for years among displaced Iraqi Christians in Kurdistan, recounted the story to me in a recent FaceTime interview.

“It was a miracle. For eight hours, the girls were not discovered,” she recalled. “One of the ISIS guys even touched a girl’s leg with his foot while he was tending to the injured fighter. But he never noticed.”

As those long hours passed, Iraqi soldiers, local security and Peshmerga fighters successfully killed a number of ISIS terrorists in the neighborhood. The invaders seemed troubled as they moved the two injured fighters into another room, then rushed out.

“By that time the sisters next-door, priests and some of the girls’ family member were in touch with local security,” Sister Diana explained. “They texted that while the ISIS men were outside, the girls should very quietly leave the house, one by one, through a back entrance that had been left open.”

Of course the girls were terrified. But all seven of them bravely made their way out the door and into the house next-door.

Then, just minutes after the last girl escaped, a massive explosion rocked the neighborhood. A hurried investigation revealed that the two wounded terrorists had detonated suicide belts.

If the girls hadn’t left when they did, they would have died with them.

“They’re all still traumatized,” Sister Diana told me, “but everyone survived that terrible night.

“It was nothing less than a miracle.”

The hope of restoring Iraq’s Christians to their ruined homes and churches still seems an impossible dream to some. But for others, real optimism and a sense of expectation have begun to stir in their hearts.

For the past two years, The Philos Project’s Executive Director Robert Nicholson has devoted enormous time and energy developing a workable plan to provide Iraq’s Christians with a safe and secure homeland in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. He has written extensively on the subject. He has also worked with the U.S. Congress to provide legislation in support of the effort.

I asked him, in view of the enormous challenges that Iraq’s Christians face in the newly liberated Nineveh Plains, what are the next steps that need to be taken? And how can America’s Christians help?

We must support Iraq’s efforts to create a new protected province – a safe haven – that will empower minorities to finally return to their homes in safety. This should be seen as a larger U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State once and for all, and to support the Iraqi people as they rebuild.

While this is ultimately an Iraqi proposal and not an American one, backing from the United States will prompt the international community to support the religious minorities who desire to rebuild their lives in their ancient homeland.

I encourage concerned Americans to ask their elected officials to support the creation of a safe haven in northern Iraq to protect the thousands of minorities who are still facing genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. A protected province will provide these displaced peoples with a much-needed zone of stability and influence.

Jan 1, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Those who have the healthy habit of working out at a gym several times a week will soon be complaining about the massive – and often annoying – “New Year’s resolution crowd” that throngs every fitness center starting on Jan. 2.

They will be equally relieved, on about Feb. 3, when the entire mass of newcomers are virtually all gone – their New Year’s resolutions broken and forgotten. Instead of working out, their time will soon be consumed with other distractions like Netflix. Or cooking classes. Or social media.

Meanwhile, much has been made – particularly on social media – of 2016 as being a year notable for its tragedies and deaths. It has often been said that 2017 can’t come soon enough. And there is some truth to this – perhaps more than meets the eye.

Of course, the loss of some beloved celebrities – most recently including the sudden deaths of film stars Carrie Fischer and her mother Debbie Reynolds – have grieved millions of fans.

Over the months, cherished music icons such as David Bowie, Leon Russell, Prince and Leonard Cohen were among other celebrities whose passings were observed with sorrow by devoted fans. Such passings seemed to arrive with increasing frequency as 2016 neared its end.

And it wasn’t just rock stars.

For example, the loss of Holocaust memorialist Elie Wiesel brought forth innumerable eulogies and remembrances. This was particularly true in Israel, where so many had been touched by his eloquent recollections and reflections on the Third Reich’s “Final Solution” and how it robbed the world of 6 million Jews.

Although Wiesel was 87 years old when he died, more than one columnist reflected that – like so many late celebrities – he was “gone too soon.”

Other 2016 losses were of a different sort.

In the months leading up to the United States presidential election, there was a nearly unprecedented political polarization that dramatically divided Americans – and not only between rival political parties. There was also radical division between identity groups and conflicting ideologies, even within the ranks of Democrats and Republicans.

The coarseness and enraged tone of some of these debates was notable not only in published commentaries, but even more starkly in a digital flood of profane and demeaning tweets and posts and comments.

These losses were personal, and some seemed to be permanent. Families were divided. Businesses were split along jagged lines of disagreement. Friendships were bruised, if not broken altogether.

Both the run-up to the election and its aftermath continued along the same divisive course, which lingers even now. Friends are no longer friends. Family members are not invited to dinner. Coworkers are avoided, if not altogether estranged.

Other losses were the bitter fruit of jihadi terrorism. A long list of 2016 attacks recounts violence in every corner of the world – the handiwork of religious fanatics. Among so many others, we read of suicide bombings in Istanbul and Baghdad, Nice and Brussels, Lahore and Quetta.

In Israel, every month of the year was marred by Palestinian assaults that involved stabbing, firearms, the stoning of cars and even a bus bombing that injured 21 in Jerusalem.

Then, perhaps eclipsing all the other violence that gripped the world in 2016, was the most horrifying bloodbath of all – the Syrian civil war. Today, estimates of that war’s fatalities are beginning to approach half a million souls. The bloodshed has been unstoppable. Most recently, this has been exposed in Aleppo, where a besieged population has been decimated by radical Sunni militias along with Syrian and Russian airstrikes.

Max Boot wrote in Commentary Magazine,

It is painful simply to read about the horrors that Aleppo is currently enduring. In its death throes, it is reminiscent of Stalingrad, Warsaw and Manila in World War II, or Srebrenica during the Yugoslav Wars of Succession – cities that endured suffering beyond human comprehension. Amid reports of razed buildings and dead bodies in the streets, it is numbing to read that some women have committed suicide rather than be raped by regime troops.

The world has been in turmoil since time began, but it isn’t an exaggeration to say that in 2016, the upheaval in the Middle East reached monumental proportions.

And then, just as 2016 seemed to be winding down to its welcome end, the little nation of Israel suffered one of the most vicious blows in its nearly 70-year history. This was not a physical blow, although it will no doubt have violent repercussions.

The assault was done in the supposed peacemaking assembly of the United Nations, in the name of international diplomacy. Just as the presidency of Barack Obama was nearing completion, it appears that he personally inspired United Nations Resolution 2334 – a declaration regarding Israeli settlements and borders. With the encouragement of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, 14 countries voted for the resolution. The U.S. did not veto it. It simply abstained from the vote and allowed it to pass.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren summed up the resolution’s dangers:

The hazards for Israel are clear. The resolution means the Western Wall and other places sacred to Jews for 3,000 years are considered as illegally occupied. It labels 600,000 Israelis as “flagrant violators of international law.” As such, Israel could be sued in international criminal courts, boycotted and sanctioned. The goal of the initiators of the resolution was not to achieve a better two-state solution, I believe, but to deny Israel the right to defend itself and, ultimately, the right to exist as sovereign Jewish State.

I have felt the weight of this latest U.N. assault on Israel’s legitimacy bearing down on my Jerusalem friends. In fact, for many Israelis, this is a time of despair and deep weariness after more than half a century of opposition to the Jewish State’s very survival.

Most certainly, in the wake of all this, 2016 couldn’t have come at a better time, not only for America and Israel, but for much of the world. Because, as a poet once proclaimed, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

And so it is that despite the incomprehensible violence and destruction that infects the globe; despite the bloodthirsty killers who ravage innumerable innocents; despite America’s feckless leaders who have done virtually nothing to change the course of Mideast brutalities (the Book of Common Prayer provides words of confession “for what we have done and for what we have left undone”), yet still the world hopes, envisions and longs for a new beginning.

And so we look forward to 2017: A New Year. A fresh start. A blank slate.

Our western “New Year” is a wonderful occasion on which to pin such hopes. But during the decade in which I have lived in Jerusalem, I have been inspired by the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – in a different way. Because it involves something more substantial than “New Year’s resolutions.”

The Jewish New Year, which begins 10 solemn “Days of Awe,” requires those who observe it to move beyond their good intentions. One writer explained,

Rosh Hashanah is “a holiday that emphasizes teshuvah, turning around, becoming a better person, living a life closer to what God wants from us. How can we experience teshuvah? Teshuvah needs to include empathy, empathetic listening, paying attention, hearing beyond words to the soul and meaning of what is uttered. On Rosh Hashanah we ask God to be empathetic toward us, even though empathy was so often lacking in ourselves.”

As Christian believers, we often resolve to start another year pursuing better physical and spiritual health than the year before. But as we vow to take better care of our bodies, are we really turning our attention heavenward? We need very much to return to God in both our thoughts and our actions.

Perhaps more than ever in 2017, beginning afresh ought to include reflecting more seriously on the troubled and broken world we live in.

Can we find the time to look beyond our own shores, to broaden our horizons and encompass those who have been ravaged by terrorism, war, anti-Christian persecution and anti-Semitism?

Closer to home, can we find the courage to mend our own relationships with friends and family – particularly in the wake of such a divisive political season?

And can we commit ourselves to continue these spiritual exercises beyond a few days in January, carrying on throughout the year to come?

Mar 3, 2017 | Current Events, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Perspectives

From the lips of a little child – an 8-year-old girl from El Arish, Egypt – comes a heartbreaking message. Her words speak volumes about the violent attacks on Christians that are taking place today in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

“I am very sad,” she explained in words too worldly wise for her years, “because I had to leave my friends and my school, and I don’t know if I will go back or not. I saw the threats with my own eyes, on notices and written on the walls of [my] house. I heard what they said to my father on the phone, when they said we had to leave or else they would kill us.”

This young girl, along with hundreds of other Christians, was forced to flee for her life because the Islamic State continues to make bloodthirsty threats against Christians: “We swear that we will repay you, oh Egypt’s Christians. We will expel you, slaughter you, and subject you to Allah’s laws, oh idolaters – oh unclean ones.”

And to make sure no one doubts that declaration, ISIS has killed at least seven El Arish Christians in recent days. The believers were shot, burned alive or beheaded. And their bodies were left, like so much rubbish, by the side of the road.

Any Jewish or Christian child who has attended Sunday school or Bible classes has probably heard the wonderful story of the Exodus, and how God miraculously delivered his suffering people from the brutality of Pharaoh.

With Passover approaching next month, the story of the Jews’ deliverance will take on even more significance for the people of Israel. And some of them still remember all too well that their people have experienced not just one Exodus from Egypt, but two.

The second departure took place between 1948 and 1970, when a thriving Jewish population of some 90,000 in Egypt was reduced to just a few dozen. Today, only about 10 elderly Jews still live in Egypt.

Thankfully, many of those who were expelled were able to start their lives over in Israel, where the Jewish State offered them a new beginning.

However, as an infamous jihadi saying in the Middle East forebodes, “First the Saturday People, then the Sunday people.” Or, in other words, “On Saturday we kill the Jews and on Sunday, we kill the Christians.”

Today, thanks to strong military deterrence and wise diplomacy, Israel is at peace with Egypt. But the “Saturday people” in Israel are watching a horrifying scenario unfold in Egypt, which, for some of them, recalls their own suffering.

And it’s taking place somewhere not far away.

A pogrom against Christians has begun in the north of Sinai, a part of Egypt that Israel conquered during a defensive war, and later – for the sake of peace – gave back to the Egyptian government. Today, rockets are periodically fired from Sinai into Israel.

Meanwhile, the Coptic Christians in the Northern Sinai – the “Sunday people” – are running for their lives. And for good reason.

One of the women who fled along with the 8-year-old girl told a MEMRI interviewer the horrifying scene in her home. The reporter’s words are below:

“There was a knock on her door one night, and when her son opened it, terrorists burst in, shot him dead, and then searched the house for the other men of the family. They found her elderly husband and shot him too, and then they stole her jewelry and set the house on fire.”

Unfortunately, persecution of Christians in Egypt isn’t a new situation. But since 2011, violence against Christians has been escalating. As I wrote in the Huffington Post in 2013,

There is a pattern of attacks on Coptic Christians … at the hand of radical Islamists. These assaults have increased exponentially since the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak’s government. Incidents of violence against Copts are usually underreported in the western media, and my friend and Hudson Institute colleague Samuel Tadros, who is in close touch with the Coptic community in Egypt, provides some perspective.

“In the past two years from April 2011 until today,” Tadros told me, “59 Copts have been murdered: 28 in Maspero, four in Abu Qurqas, six in Imbaba, 12 in Mansheyet Nasser, one in Libya, one in Dahshur, and at least eight in Khosous.

“Besides the fatalities, 714 Copts have been wounded and not one assailant has been tried for those attacks.

“114 Coptic families have had their property looted; 112 have been forced to leave their homes.

“24 churches have been attacked, 4 of which have been completely destroyed.

“Eight Copts, including three children, have been imprisoned for insulting Islam.”

In July 2013, the demise of the Muslim Brotherhood at the hand of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi kindled hope in the Coptic Christian community, which comprises roughly 10 percent of Egypt’s population, numbering some 9 or 10 million. Optimism increased as Sisi publicly reached out a hand of friendship to the Coptic Pope, while calling on the Islamic leadership in Egypt to moderate Islam.

But today there is growing disappointment. Change – real change – has not begun to appear.

Last May, a riot – based on a salacious rumor – led to ferocious violence against a Coptic family in El-Karm, located in Egypt’s southern province of Minya. Some 300 raging Islamists stripped a 70-year-old mother naked and paraded her, shamed and weeping, through the streets of her hometown, while torching seven Christian houses.

Then, on December 11, a suicide bomber attacked St. Peter and St. Paul Coptic Orthodox Church in Cairo, killing 29 and injured dozens. MEMRI reported, “Jihadis took to social media to express their satisfaction, even before any organization claimed responsibility. Many ISIS supporters shared posts on social media … explaining why Egypt’s Coptic Christians deserve punishment, while others vowed that Egyptian Christians will either be expelled or slaughtered.”

Today, the hopes of Egypt’s Copts have been all but extinguished. Hundreds if not thousands of Christians have permanently left the country.

The Economist put it this way:

It has been over two years since Mr. Sisi, an observant Muslim, lamented that some of his co-religionists were becoming “a source of worry, fear, danger, murder and destruction to all the world.” He urged Egyptian clerics to push back against the jihadists of Islamic State. Egypt itself was a victim, he said: Angry Islamists have attacked the government, and an affiliate of IS battles the army in Sinai. To combat such extremism, “a religious revolution” was needed, said Mr. Sisi – and Al-Azhar, the Sunni world’s oldest seat of learning, should take the lead.

But the clerics … have largely resisted Mr. Sisi’s appeal. Though al-Azhar bills itself as moderate, critics say that it has allowed hardliners to remain in senior positions and failed to reform its curriculums, which include centuries-old texts often cited by extremists. It has blocked efforts at social reform and tried to censor its critics. “Nothing has been done since the president called for renewing religious discourse,” said Helmi al-Namnam, the culture minister, last August.

Some hold onto the frail hope that Sisi – who is seeking a way to resettle the Christians who have fled North Sinai – will find a way to crack down on the jihadi violence against Christians. Others have lost any confidence that relief will come, particularly in light of the seemingly endless bloodshed in the greater Middle East.

My friend Mina Abdelmalak – a Coptic activist based in Washington, D.C. – first brought the present attacks on the Sinai Christians to my attention. I asked him for his thoughts on the current situation. “Generally,” he told me,

I understand that the Egyptian military is facing a great challenge in Sinai, and it doesn’t seem like they are capable of restoring control. However, the attack against the Copts in El-Arish has been taking place for some time now, and the Egyptian government knows that Copts are a target for ISIS. So, either the government could have helped to evacuate the Copts from there. Or they could have done their job and secured their safety.

What happened in El Arish sends a message: The Egyptian government and military don’t really care about the safety and wellbeing of the Copts.

Christians in the Muslim world have been the victims of their careless, complicit governments and Islamic terrorism for so long now that our communities are vanishing in our home countries. El-Arish isn’t the first place where they’ll manage to destroy the Coptic existence. And it won’t be the last.

Will today’s Christian believers, who are suffering persecution in the Middle East, be delivered in some new, modern-day Exodus? And if so, where will they go? There is no Israel – no well-defended home country – for Middle East Christians.

Meanwhile, Israel also watches and wonders. The Jewish State is said to be quietly cooperating with Egypt in its war against ISIS terrorists in the Sinai. And, as writer Micah Halpern pointed out in The Jerusalem Post, despite the fact that the Western media barely acknowledges the plight of Christians in the Middle East, there is good reason for Israel to pay close attention.

The massacres of Christians in the Middle East have barely made a blip on the radar of the Western news media.

Sisi is reacting much the way Western media is reacting. The Copts are not a part of the mainstream; they don’t belong. Their tradition, their practice, looks nothing like Western Christianity. There are no significant populations and affiliations outside of Egypt to take up the battle cry and defend them. Libya and Sudan have small Coptic communities, but they’re not going to make waves and risk their relative safety to help out in Egypt. Western Catholic and Protestant groups are not connected to these Christians who are part of the Eastern Church, sometimes referred to as the National Churches.

That leaves Israel and Jews around the world.

Defense of Egypt’s Christian community is not purely selfless. We have, as they say, skin in the game. We must call attention to the plight of the Christians under ISIS and other oppressors in order to make certain that moderate regimes in the region remain stable.

The deadly “Saturday people, Sunday people” threat continues to menace the Middle East, Europe and beyond. It is being acted out wherever jihadis are given a free hand to impose their seventh-century violence on 21st-century Jews and Christians.

Bloodthirsty Islamist attacks impose indescribable grief and loss on those who manage to survive. Just ask the Iraqi and Syrian Christian survivors of the ISIS genocide. They are caught between their utterly devastated and unsafe ancient homelands, and a world that turns a blind eye and cold shoulder to their suffering.

Will Egypt’s Christians be next?

Mar 22, 2017 | Christians and Minority Rights, Current Events, Jerusalem Notebook, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jews and the Jewish State

When I first set foot in Jerusalem in August 2006 – arriving in the country in the midst of the second Lebanon War – one of the earliest discoveries I made was that truth is sometimes hard to identify in the not-always-holy Holy Land.

I also found out that truth isn’t high on the list of priorities for international media sources. And many of them – prestigious though they might be – are more than happy to eclipse truth with what is now popularly known as “fake news.”

There are innumerable examples, and far too many to mention. But one classic instance – recently recycled – is that Israel is frequently accused of being an “apartheid state.”

This falsehood is carefully tucked between the glossy covers of former President Jimmy Carter’s notorious book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which officially introduced me to the libel that Israel supposedly treats today’s Arabs the way South Africa treated people of color between 1948 and 1991.

This accusation can be soundly debunked by those who actually lived in South Africa during those dark decades. But more about that in a moment.

Thanks to the willful blindness of various journalists, diplomats and anti-Israel activists, the apartheid accusation against Israel has never really disappeared. And in recent days, the subject has been revisited, this time at the United Nations.

The ancient warning “Beware the Ides of March” was appropriate in Israel on March 15, when the United Nations published a report accusing the Jewish State of imposing an “apartheid regime” of racial discrimination on the Palestinian people. U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf posted the report and explained that it was the “first of its type” from a U.N. body, and it “clearly and frankly concludes that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people.”

The report was titled “Israeli Practices Towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” and said that “available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law.”

ESCWA comprises 18 Arab states in Western Asia and aims to support economic and social development in member states, according to its website. According to Khalaf, the report was prepared at the request of the member states.

Unfortunately for herself and her cause, Khalaf published the report on the U.N. website without consulting with the United Nations secretariat.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was not pleased.

“The report as it stands does not reflect the views of the secretary-general,” said U.N. Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric.

Meanwhile, the newly inaugurated Donald Trump Administration – which has repeatedly reaffirmed that America is Israel’s faithful ally – responded to the report with indignation.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, declared in an official statement, “The United Nations secretariat was right to distance itself from this report, but it must go further and withdraw the report altogether.”

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon was outraged:

The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie.

The report itself was authored by the infamous Richard Falk, a former U.N. human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.

Before leaving his post in 2014 as U.N. “Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories,” Falk – a Princeton professor emeritus with radically anti-Israel views – declared that Israeli policies bore unacceptable characteristics of colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

One of my most insightful journalist friends, Ruthie Blum, provided some essential background on Falk in an Israel Hayom column, pointing out that he is hardly a trustworthy voice regarding Middle East issues. Falk’s foolish glorification of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of today’s treacherous Islamic Republic of Iran, should have been enough to disgrace any of his future pontifications. Blum explained,

On February 16, 1979, Falk published an op-ed in The New York Times called “Trusting Khomeini.” In it, he ‎waxed poetic about the Muslim cleric, who would turn Iran into the nuclear weapons-hungry ‎theocracy that it is today. “The depiction of [Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude ‎prejudices seems certainly and happily false,” Falk wrote.‎

He then went on to praise Shiite Islam: “What is distinctive, perhaps, about this religious orientation is ‎its concern with resisting oppression and promoting social justice,” he said, concluding, “Having ‎created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may ‎provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third-world country.”‎

Falk should have been discredited academically and politically ‎decades ago. Alas, people of his ilk, who purport to care about the issue of human rights while siding ‎with and apologizing for its greatest abusers, are not only immune to consequences, but are rewarded ‎with illustrious titles and lucrative positions. ‎

Haley concluded that Falk is “a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories.”

Perhaps because of Trump’s sanguine views about Israel, the false accusation was not rejected by only the U.S. The questionable report was also removed from the U.N. website. This rather surprising outcome took place thanks to the intervention of the U.N. secretary-general himself.

But that wasn’t the only result. Khalaf, who initially posted the ESCWA report, and who once served as an under-secretary-general to Guterres at the U.N., announced her resignation at a “hastily arranged press conference” after Guterres demanded that the report be removed.

Khalaf explained,

The secretary-general asked me yesterday morning to withdraw [the report]. I asked him to rethink his decision. He insisted, so I submitted my resignation from the U.N.

We expected, of course, that Israel and its allies would put huge pressure on the secretary-general of the U.N. so that he would disavow the report, and that they would ask him to withdraw it.

Dujarric clarified that “the secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary-general or any other senior U.N. official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the U.N. name – under the U.N. logo – without consulting the competent departments and even himself.”

So ended – and with a far better conclusion than might have been expected – the latest dishonest attempt to depict the Jewish State as a racist, discriminatory nation in which Arabs and/or Muslims are treated like second-class citizens: an apartheid state.

But of course the question remains whether this effort to disgrace the Jewish State will be the final challenge of its kind. We can only hope so.

However, just in case the libel reemerges, perhaps it is worth revisiting a couple of lessons I learned about the apartheid accusations when I was seeking answers of my own about it. Following is an (adapted) passage from my book Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.

❖

I was about to have brunch with a friend at Jerusalem’s Mamilla Mall; we were waiting to be seated on a terrace where tables overlooking the Old City were in great demand. All at once, the spot we had our eye on was snapped up by two chic young Arab women. Their heads were covered in designer scarves and their well-fitted jeans and accessories were upscale. They were seated at table next to an “ultra-Orthodox” Jewish family in their own distinctive attire. And next to them was a table full of middle-aged American tourists in cargo shorts, souvenir t-shirts, and a clutter of cameras, GPS gadgets and fanny-packs.

I glanced around and saw that no one was paying attention to the Muslim women or to the many Arab shoppers passing by on their way to the shops. Nor did anyone stare at the ultra-Orthodox Jews – men in black hats or black yarmulkes, women in long skirts, wearing wigs or with scarves covering their hair.

In Jerusalem, like nowhere else, you can figure out what people believe in by the way they dress. But no one around us seemed to notice or care what anyone else was wearing – or believing. For obvious reasons, Jimmy Carter’s pejorative phrase for Israel, the “Apartheid State,” flashed into my mind.

It so happened that on that same night I was scheduled to have dinner with my South African friends Malcolm and Cheryl Hedding, their daughter Charmaine and her son Ethan. It had been a few years since my Jerusalem Post interview with Malcolm – about apartheid – had been published. I reminded him of it, and then described the scene at Mamilla. “So could that have happened in South Africa during the apartheid years?” I asked him.

“No way,” he laughed. “Everything was separate. The blacks had separate toilets. Separate drinking fountains. Separate benches. In some places there was a curfew so they had to get out of sight and leave the town to the whites after sundown. It was like the American Deep South used to be.”

“So could blacks eat in the same restaurant as whites?”

“Never! When we traveled with a black man who was part of our church, one of us had to go inside the restaurant and order take-out food so we could all eat together in the car. Otherwise he would have to eat alone.”

On the way home, I suddenly remembered another vignette from Mamilla. I had rushed into the Mac cosmetic store to make a quick purchase before leaving. I was in a hurry and there was only one clerk—a pretty Jerusalem girl wearing rather dramatic makeup. She was assisting two fashion-forward Arab women in silk headscarves, stylish trousers and well-tailored jackets. The three were having an animated discussion—in English—about eye shadow and eyeliner colors. The only disagreement between them had to do with hues: Teal or olive green? Luminescent or matte? There was no way I was going to be waited on anytime soon. The clerk was trying out a new spring palette on one of them, testing the colors on her hands as she applied them. The three of them were chattering non-stop.

As I left, I encountered a group of African pilgrims whose identical yellow caps told me they were from Nigeria. They burst into a Gospel song as they made their way to the Jaffa gate. People smiled and took their picture.

An art display of Bible-story sculptures graced the plaza. Cell phones rang, horns honked on the nearby street, and people of every age and description laughed and talked and celebrated the glorious weather.

And so it was that Spring arrived in the charming and controversial city of Jerusalem, eternal capital of the land of Israel.

Then as now, there are those choose to produce and propagate Fake News about the place, stubbornly refusing to seek out and discover the facts of the matter.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who love Israel and her Jewish people will continue to applaud their courage. To admire their innate goodness and authenticity. And to honor their deep commitment to Truth.

Mar 31, 2017 | American Foreign Policy, Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

During recent years, dramatic political changes have shaken the Middle East. Some have described these events metaphorically as “shifting desert sands.” They have also been defined as dramatic realignments of political seismic plates.

Some of the more terrifying changes have called to mind the proverbial “end of days.” Others look a little like minor miracles, so unlikely are the players and so unexpected their praiseworthy actions.

Who could have predicted, for example, that a young Saudi intellectual would visit Jerusalem and then courageously write an open letter to his generation, expressing both hope and desire for political transformation?

His dream? That Saudi Arabia’s vibrant young Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud will embrace a new vision for Saudi Arabia – including peace with Israel.

Consider the writer’s opening paragraph:

Having read the article in Foreign Affairs about Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and in the wake of publicity following his meeting with President Trump this week, I would like to offer a candid view that speaks for many Saudis of my generation. Like King Talut of the Holy Quran (corresponding to the biblical King Saul), whom the Quran credits with saving the Jewish people from an enemy bent on their destruction, the young prince bears a similar responsibility — addressing many challenges in order to achieve the goal of transforming his people to greater strength. Prince Mohammad bin Salman may well be God’s chosen to help lead Saudi Arabia through the political, economic, and social challenges it faces. This letter offers suggestions he may consider useful in dealing with them.

Yes, it really happened. Abdul-Hameed Hakeem’s open letter was published by the Washington Institute on March 21.

And here’s how it came to pass.

One excellent writer about Middle East realities is Ambassador Dore Gold, who until recently served as director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is now president of the highly regarded Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Gold’s 2003 book, Hatred’s Kingdom, focused on Saudi Arabia and spelled out the precarious balancing act the oil-rich Arab country has been performing for decades – juggling two opposing forces: the secular Western world that buys massive amounts of its oil, and radical Islamism, embodied in Saudi’s Wahabi religious leadership.

In Hatred’s Kingdom, Gold summed up the danger personified by the Saudis:

President Bush asked, after the destruction of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon, whether nations are with the United States or with the terrorists. Despite Saudi Arabia’s insistence to the contrary, the record makes it frighteningly clear that the Saudi kingdom is, at this point, with the terrorists. Indeed, it is Saudi Arabia that has spawned the new global terrorists. Unless the Saudi regime feels pressure to change, the hatred that has motivated a horrifying series of worldwide terrorist attacks – including the attacks of September 11 – will only go on. And as long as the hatred continues, the terror will go on.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s leadership – its enormous royal family – has for decades relied on the West’s consumption of its petroleum resources to support the kingdom’s economy; Western oil purchases also finance the royals’ lavish and sometimes decadent lifestyle. But the royal family is, at the same time, obliged to enforce hardline religious laws established by the severe Wahabist religious system.

Wahabism, a sect that came into being in the 18th century, seeks to return Sunni Islam to its earliest roots – the days of Mohammad and his first followers. It curses both Christians (Crusaders) and Jews (sons of pigs and dogs), as was explicitly declared in several of Osama bin Laden’s pontifications.

Much of the anti-Jewish animus in Saudi Arabia is focused on Israel and Zionism. Israeli passport-bearers are banned from entering the country; even travelers with Israeli visas stamped in their passports are turned away. Obvious Jewish religious attire and symbols, such as Star of David jewelry, and religious books are also forbidden.

In December 2014, the Saudi government opened the door just a crack, declaring that Jews could work inside the kingdom. But they made it clear that their newfound openness to Jews did not include Israelis.

Gold’s book meticulously documents the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s dangerous ideology, which inspired Al-Qaeda and innumerable other Sunni jihadi groups.

These days, however, bin Laden is history; no longer the incarnation of Wahabism. At the same time, several stunning and unforeseen political events have perhaps permanently shifted Middle East politics.

First came the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. Despite its custodianship of Mecca and Medina – sometimes described as “Islam’s Vatican” – Saudi Arabia’s kings and princes have long attracted the ire of Sunni and Shia radicals alike. The Arab Spring perilously increased the likelihood of fanatical revolutionaries spilling across Saudi Arabia’s borders.

At the same time, it became uncomfortably clear that the Obama Administration was taking a hands-off approach to the Middle East turmoil, proving itself unwilling to stand behind its historic allies. This became alarmingly evident across the region after President Barack Obama’s “red line” regarding chemical weapons remained unenforced in the Syrian Civil War.

Then came unmitigated upheaval in Libya, Iraq and Egypt in which America seemed to side with her enemies and turn away from her allies.

Would the kingdom’s betrayal come next?

Meanwhile, the centuries-old Sunni-Shia conflict was edging toward center stage again. The gradual exposure of Obama’s initially secret negotiations with Iran – the avowed archenemy of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia – encouraged and emboldened the Ayatollahs. Would the alleged (and likely) Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapon ever actually be stopped?

On the other hand, there was no denying an impressive array of Israeli achievements: ever-increasing high tech innovation and mastery, cyberwarfare capabilities, natural gas discoveries, a flourishing economy, and thriving international relations. The successful international diplomacy of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu – sometimes at the expense of Obama’s agenda – was reflected in his effective outreach to friends and former foes alike.

It was against this backdrop that an unexpected rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel began. In June 2015, the Times of India reported that the Indian city Lucknow had hosted an unusual meeting between Israel and Saudi Arabia, also attended by prominent Shia intellectuals.

Interestingly, the Israeli team was led by Gold, who had just been named director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. The Saudi delegation was led by a retired Saudi general, Anwar Majed Eshki.

The India conference was the culmination of numerous clandestine meetings that had taken place over nearly two years.

Soon thereafter, Gold and Eshki addressed the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. In the press conference that followed, both speakers drew attention to the serious flaws of the Iran nuclear deal, still being negotiated by the P5+1. And they both identified Iran as the chief threat to regional stability.

The two created a significant media ripple when they publicly shook hands.

In July 2016, an even more dramatic event took place. Eshki led a Saudi delegation to Ramallah, where he had been invited to meet with the Palestinian Authority. One evening, Eshki and his colleagues traveled from Ramallah to Jerusalem to meet Gold and other Israelis at the King David Hotel. The Times of Israel reported,

Eshki … told Israel’s Channel 10 News at the time that he and Gold had sat down together “to call for peace in the Middle East.” He said “Saudis and Israelis could work together when Israel announces that it accepts the Arab Initiative.”

There have been various media reports of clandestine talks between Israel and Arab powers, who have come to see the Jewish state as a possible ally against what they consider to be a far greater threat — Iran and its regional aspirations.

Netanyahu too has often spoken of growing secret ties with Arab nations, though experts have warned that the prospects of normalization of ties before peace with the Palestinians is achieved are dim.

The Jerusalem Post interviewed another member of the entourage, the young Saudi intellectual Abdul-Hameed Hakeem. He told BBC Arabic, “In Arab societies, the picture of Israeli society is that it embraces a culture of death, wants to spill blood, and does not believe in peace. That [picture] is not correct.” He continued, “The Israeli society that I encountered embraces a culture of peace, has accomplishments it wants to [protect], wants coexistence, and wants peace.”

Hakeem was amazed by what he saw and heard during his visit to Israel, and was moved by the evident freedom and the peaceable nature of the Israeli people he met.

He made the courageous decision to publish his open letter to young Saudis, who are represented by the 32-year-old deputy crown prince. Hakeem believes that alongside Prince Salman and others, he represents a new generation of Saudis who can see far beyond the present kingdom’s scope.

As for his own view of Israel, in his letter, Hakeem went on to say,

I would like to address a message to the Israeli people and to Jews around the world. Our Holy Quran confirms that you are an integral part of this region. Your civilization and the history of your ancestors was and still is part of our region’s history. Your State is a product of your civilization as well. You have also left a mark in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as in Najran and Khaibar and Medina, which remains visible to this day.

The policies of the Iranian regime are alarmingly similar to the Nazi policies that aimed to exterminate your people. Thus, the Iranian and Nazi regimes are two faces of the same coin in their enmity and hatred of you and the danger they pose. Nevertheless, please be assured that peace can be achieved, and your historical role in our region secured, within the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative. This process would also promote the achievement of peace with Israel within the framework of the Saudi (Arab) Peace Initiative. If achieved, it will save the region from the flames fueled by the Iranian regime, and also allow Saudi Arabia to openly partner with the many technological advances Israel offers.

Israel sees the Saudi peace proposal as flawed, due to its call for complete withdrawal to the 1967 border, or “Green Line.” But it is also viewed as a potentially viable starting point for negotiations.

Time will tell whether the seismic tremors that have so shaken the Middle East in recent years will expose new and lasting opportunities for alliance and cooperation.

One seasoned observer put it this way: “While speculations about secret Saudi-Israeli counter-terrorism and intelligence exchanges cannot be confirmed, it would be naïve to believe that the two countries have no contacts, especially given their mutuality of interest vis-à-vis Iran and defeating terror. There is no doubt that concerns in both Israel and Saudi Arabia about Iran’s ambitions and growing influence in the Middle East have brought these two adversaries of Iran closer.

“Secondly, although the Palestinian issue is highly important as is evident from Eshki’s statement during his visits … his public, even if unofficial, visit shows that Saudi Arabia is willing to take the risk of provoking domestic and Arab public anger by engaging with Israel.”

Few would have foreseen the quiet but consistent diplomatic conversations that are taking place between Israel and a number of Muslim states.

Meanwhile, the author of Hatred’s Kingdom is courageously pursuing a course that could transform hatred into hope.

A delegation of brave and visionary Saudi Arabians have made their way into the heart of Jerusalem to listen and learn.

And a young Saudi scholar has openly offered his dream of peace between two dangerously estranged nations.

Are these simply political machinations? Or do they amount modern-day minor miracles? They are clearly more than “shifting desert sands.” And miraculous or not, such brave efforts kindle a flicker of hope in our dark and troubled world.

Apr 10, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Perspectives, Religious Freedom and Dialogue

Holidays in Israel are interwoven into daily life so beautifully that to me, after just a few years, they seemed to ebb and flow like the tide. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Purim. And, of course, Passover – Pesach – which is about to begin, marking both the beginning of spring, and more importantly the great miracle of deliverance, freedom and the Exodus.

As a Christian sojourner in Jerusalem, my earliest awareness of Passover’s annual approach usually takes place, of all places, at the grocery store. I begin to notice that several products are not located where they’re supposed to be: The cookies or bread rolls or cereal items I came to buy seem to have disappeared.

Then I remember. They contain yeast, or chametz.

No leavened foods are supposed to be eaten during the eight-day Passover festival. Matzo crackers famously replace bread. And (depending on the level of orthodoxy that’s being observed) not a trace of chametz should be found in the house. For a similar reason, the foods in the market that contain yeast are hidden beneath a curtain or sheet.

And that leads to another sign of the arriving holiday: exhausted women (mostly) who are engaged in rigorous housecleaning. This climaxes the night before Passover in the symbolic burning of any chametz found on the family premises. That, of course, includes cookie and bread crumbs. And needless to say, the more small children there are in the family, the more intensive the cleaning.

But, like most matters of Jewish tradition, it’s not just about the physical world – in this case, the presence of yeast. The symbolic burning has its own spiritual meaning as well. It represents that removal from our lives any remnants of unholiness that may be polluting our souls.

As the sunlit days grow longer, the anticipated evening finally arrives. The chametz has been burned, enormous amounts of food have been prepared and special tablecloths, plates and cutlery have made their annual appearance. And across Jerusalem, throughout the land of Israel, the feast – the Seder – begins.

In my book Saturday People, Sunday People, I described a memorable Seder at which I was a guest, and what I learned that night.

The Seder focuses on Exodus 12, which teaches us about the Jews’ plight, God’s calling and ordination of Moses, Moses’ confrontations with a stone-hearted Pharaoh, the 10 plagues that were visited upon the Egyptians and – the most horrifying judgment of all – the death of Egypt’s firstborn. These plagues eventually changed the mind of Pharaoh, at least temporarily.

But as soon as the huge procession of Jews headed toward Egypt’s borderlands, Pharaoh had second thoughts. Why should he give up his invaluable work force? Disastrously, he ordered his army to pursue the fleeing slaves. The frantic soldiers tried to catch up with the Jews in the midst of the Red Sea, which had been supernaturally parted to provide dry land for the Israelites’ hurrying feet. The Egyptian soldiers were not so blessed; they were swept away and drowned when the parted waters suddenly broke over them like a tidal wave.

The epic Exodus tale of faith and freedom is recounted in the Haggadah – the “Telling” – which is the Seder’s liturgy. The “telling” is based on the commandment, “And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying: It is because of that which the LORD did for me when I came forth out of Egypt” (Ex. 13:8). Each Seder guest is provided with a copy of the Haggadah. And every child old enough to understand participates in the reading and ritual.

When I arrived at my first Seder, I had of course heard the Exodus story, but had little understanding of Passover’s traditions. That dinner was held in the home of a scholarly and revered rabbi.

It was easy to “disappear” into that room and be a silent spectator. The lengthy dinner reflected the hosts’ devotion to the Haggadah and thus to the biblical tale. In a sense, as the rabbi’s wife and daughters cooked the meal (the amount of work they had done was almost unimaginable), they brought to life, in the form of food, the oral and biblical tradition of the Israelites’ harried flight from their oppressors.

We tasted of the bitterness of Egypt in the form of bitter herbs; we recalled the suddenness of the departure from Egypt with the matzos (as the Jews fled, there was no time for bread made with yeast to rise). We ate a paste of apples and nuts that represented the mortar that had once set in place the bricks with which the Jews labored. We drank four cups of blessed, sweet wine. At the end, everyone sang together.

As I pointed out, every food on the Seder plate has a distinct meaning.

The shank bone, zeroa` – a lamb or roasted chicken leg bone – represents the Paschal lamb that was hurriedly eaten on the eve of the Israelites’ departure from Egypt, when the blood of the lamb was used to mark their houses, protecting their firstborn from the 10th and final plague.

Charoset is a mixture of nuts, fruit, wine and spices. As I mentioned, this symbolizes the mortar with which the enslaved Jews labored.

Maror, bitter herbs, is usually horseradish, recalling the bitterness of slavery.

Karpas – parsley or any other green vegetable – embodies the flourishing of the Jewish people when they first arrived in Egypt during a deadly drought (it may also have other interpretations).

Beitzah – a roasted egg – illustrates not only an ancient temple ritual, but also the coming of spring and new life.

A covered plate holds three pieces of matzo.

Also on the table is a bowl of salt water (representing tears), a wine glass for each guest, and an extra wine glass for Elijah the Prophet.

Jews from different parts of the world have their own unique traditions, but these foods specifically represent the deliverance of the Jews from slavery, and their Exodus into the Land of Promise.

And, no matter where on earth they come from, they all end their feast with the same phrase: Next year in Jerusalem.

In the rest of the world, this expresses a hope of return to the ancient homeland. To Israelis, it is a prayer that the Lord who delivered them from Egypt will continue to protect not only Jerusalem, but the entire land of Israel, surrounded as it is by enemies.

One of the most compelling aspects of Passover, as well as the other Jewish holidays, is Judaism’s commitment to remembrance. In the case of Passover, it isn’t simply the miraculous deliverance by God’s hand that is recalled. Jews also reflect upon the agony of enslavement, slavery’s harsh labor and abuses, and their bitter tears.

In my view, it is this communal memory that inspires an exceptional nature of compassion in the Jewish people. Remembering their own painful history, Jews almost reflexively seek ways to alleviate suffering whenever and wherever they are confronted by it – whether injustice, murder, enslavement or other cruelties.

For example, for several years I’ve spoken to audiences about the persecution of Christians, and particularly about the genocide taking place in Iraq, Syria and of course Egypt – nation states where the Jews themselves were mistreated, murdered or expelled not so many years go.

When questions are invited, someone from the Jewish community invariably raises a hand and asks, “Why aren’t Christians doing more to stop the persecution of their people?”

That is, to put it mildly, a disturbingly difficult question. If only I knew the answer.

But this much is indisputable: The Jewish people are reminded, year in and year out, of their long and painful history as they observe their holy holidays – particularly Passover. They have managed to remain a people “set apart” – through faith, tradition, scholarship and ethnicity – for millennia. And tragically, during the last 2,000 years or so, much of their suffering came at the hands of “Christians.”

Not only do the Jewish people care for their own, but Israel’s outreach to the rest of the world is astonishing. When disaster strikes, an Israeli field hospital appears on the ground in some inhospitable location within less than 48 hours. The stories of medical care for enemy combatants during the Syrian war are astounding. And the medical research that emanates from Israel offers lifesaving options to those who suffer from innumerable illnesses – all around the globe.

Perhaps it’s no wonder. I found this Pesach passage in a prayer book I was given decades ago by a beloved California rabbi – now deceased –named Chaim Asa. He embodied the kindness and compassion for all people that is articulated so beautifully in the prayer:

Great was our people’s joy
After generations of bondage
to be free!

Now we, their children,
Triumph in our heritage of freedom.

Exultant and awed
They sang and wept:
The people in chains were free!

Now we, their children
Hear their song
Resounding in the heart.

Oh God, blessed Source of freedom,
Let the time come speedily
When all the oppressed shall find deliverance.

Let the yoke of bondage be dissolved
And all people serve You in freedom.

May this Passover feast
Bring us new understanding
Of the holiness of freedom.

Then we will rejoice before You,
With festive gladness, O God.

This is the day the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.