Haman, the Nazis, and the roots of anti-Semitism

Church leaders adopt anti-Semitic stance against those to whom they owe everything

Fred Wright challenges the view that the Church has replaced Israel.

How the left-wing turned the Jew from hero to villain

How can a self-proclaimed anti-racist and life-long supporter of the underdog find himself encouraging rampant anti-Semitism within his own Party, to the point that it is now splintering apart? Worse, how can he be found guilty of the same behaviour?

Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism problem is poorly understood by most, but it is key to explaining Labour’s current crisis. To understand it properly, we have to go back in time.¹

The Early Years

19^th Century socialism, trade unionism and the Methodist revivals combined to give the British Labour movement quite a different flavour to the revolutionary socialism of continental Europe. Christian Socialists such as Keir Hardie dominated the Labour Party’s leadership in its infancy at the turn of the 20^th Century, promoting the interests of the working class.

Indeed, it was Labour Party principles that undergirded the development of the British welfare state, with Labour campaigns for better working conditions and social reforms such as free education, free medical treatment and aid for society’s most vulnerable. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these policies from a biblical perspective, Labour was marked undeniably in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

Labour was marked in its early years by biblically-inspired concerns: justice for the oppressed, compassion for the vulnerable, mercy and grace for those in need.

In this spirit, Labour gladly took up the Zionist baton from Lloyd George’s Liberals. The romantic idealism of the Zionist dream chimed strongly with classic Labour ideals: a down-trodden, persecuted people uniting in common cause of collaborative self-determination, pursuing lives of hard manual labour and bearing one another up through a populist culture of co-operation, shared ownership and mutual benefit, manifested most obviously in the kibbutz system.

Labour leader Arthur Henderson published his own version of the Balfour Declaration three months before the real thing was published under Lloyd George in 1917. Labour endorsed Zionism through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, opposing the Conservative Government’s White Paper limiting Jewish re-immigration and re-iterating strong support for Jewish settlers during and after the war years. Despite some back-tracking from Clement Attlee’s administration, this general support for Zionism continued well into the 1950s and was extended beyond this by philo-Semitic Labour PM Harold Wilson.

Promises of Freedom

It was during the 1960s, however, that the broader political context began to change dramatically, as a new age of rebellion and revolution swept in. As prosperity boomed, empires disintegrated and technology connected up the world, the old class-based politics was replaced by identity politics and a new pre-occupation with the global. Across the West there was a cultural shift as an entire generation rebelled against all forms of authority, choosing instead to experiment – politically, sexually, spiritually.

Under the banner of ‘liberation’ from the old order, a whole host of new movements and intellectual theories gathered, including but not limited to:

• The sexual liberation movement
  
• The anti-capitalist movement
  
• The anti-war movement
  
• The radical green movement
  
• Moral/cultural relativism (the idea that there are no absolute rights or wrongs)
  
• Post-structuralism (the idea that it is impossible to understand the world through universally applicable concepts or ‘grand meta-narratives’)
  
• Third World ‘liberation’ movements
  
• Post-colonial theories (the corresponding academic movement re-narrating the West’s history of colonialism as an unadulterated evil)
  

What unites all of these profoundly influential movements is their pursuit of freedom – by any means necessary - from the perceived ‘oppression’ of the old order of Western culture, grounded as it was in Judeo-Christian beliefs and principles.^2,3

This has manifested most notably through a revival of atheistic Marxism, which turns Judeo-Christian principles on their head and which has been mobilised systematically – and often intentionally - to undermine and overturn them. But Marxism, as we well know, carries within it an illiberal spirit of subjugation and control – not the ‘freedom’ it promises, but tyranny.

While the Cold War seemingly dealt a death blow to communism, the Marxist concept of life as a power struggle between oppressed and oppressor, resolvable only through radical system-change and the forced imposition of a new order, was being re-fashioned in the halls of the Western intelligentsia as a socio-cultural (cf. economic) theory. This eventually became the new guiding ideology for most Western educators, politicians and journalists – and it remains so today.

It was, therefore, the 1960s, 70s and 80s and the gradual rise to prominence of ‘cultural Marxism’ under the guise of social ‘progressivism’, that gave us victim culture and identity politics, the doctrine of multi-culturalism, political correctness and the policing of speech and thought, and the extension of coercive state power into every sphere of life, for ‘the greater good’ of enforced equality.

This era saw the re-organising of Western political and legal systems around a new morality marked by permissiveness, boundary-pushing and a lack of respect for the sanctity of human life. It also saw the entry of Jeremy Corbyn into left-wing activism and politics.

The Marxist concept of power struggle was re-fashioned as a socio-cultural theory which eventually became the new guiding ideology for Western educators, politicians and journalists.

Zionism Inverted

Under this new system, Zionism was inverted: it was no longer a socialist dream for the pursuit of national self-determination by an oppressed people fleeing Western persecution (and with every historical and legal right to return to their homeland), but an oppressive outpost of Western colonialism, with the real victims being the Palestinians. Followed through, this thinking has entrenched on the left the belief that the Israeli state is a racist, colonialist, fascist endeavour that has no right to exist.

White Western Jewish immigrants enjoying increasing economic and military success could not (even despite the Holocaust) possibly attain to the level of powerlessness and victimhood claimed for darker-skinned, Muslim Arabs. The former, as oppressive occupiers, could do no right. The latter, as oppressed victims, could do no wrong.

And this is the nub of the problem: because of its a priori ideology, left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of assumed power relationships that dictate who is right and who is wrong, who is righteous and who is evil, before the evidence is even considered. Reality is then contorted to fit this picture.

Appeal to Labour

That the British Labour Party bought into this utterly inverted worldview shouldn’t be entirely surprising. After all, cultural Marxism mobilises emotive, virtuous-sounding concepts that seemingly run close to traditional Labour values, such as the plight of the oppressed and justice for the most vulnerable.

However, concepts of oppression, vulnerability, freedom and equality here are twisted and inverted to serve a very different ideology than the one which motivated Keir Hardie – one which strips God, his boundaries and ethics, from the picture entirely.

And it is this secular humanist, ‘progressive’ version of social justice (really the French Revolution in new clothes), to which Jeremy Corbyn subscribes more ardently and consistently than most of his colleagues.

From Anti-Zionism to Anti-Semitism

Palestinian flags at the 2018 Labour Party Conference. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images.

And so we arrive at today’s situation, where the current Labour leader’s antics place fourth on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s ‘Top Ten Global Anti-Semitic Incidents’ of 2018. Corbyn makes common cause with Islamist terrorists who overtly seek Jewish genocide while refusing to meet with Israelis, defends and celebrates terror attacks on Israeli Jews and allows anti-Semitic chants to be sung at the Labour Party Conference.

He fails to defend Jewish MPs in his own party as they are singled out for torrents of verbal abuse and death threats, and targeted internally for unseating. He also refuses to recognise that the Party even has an anti-Semitism problem (let alone apologise for it), while his supporters dismiss the allegations as a vicious smear.

Rife within Momentum are Holocaust denials and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that seem more at home on the far-right (indeed, the far-left is blind to them for this very reason). References to ‘Zio-Nazis’ or to ‘apartheid’ Israel degenerate quickly into age-old anti-Semitic tropes, from blood-sucking, baby-killing Jews to Jews as evil masterminds manipulating the world. Israel is singled out uniquely and disproportionately for distorted, ideologically-motivated criticism.

Fuller accounts of Labour’s anti-Semitism problem can be found easily elsewhere. Suffice to say that, in the span of a generation, the Labour Party has completely inverted its position on Israel, and that this has triggered a drastic rise in anti-Semitic attitudes. The inevitability of this slide into anti-Semitism can be argued from both a biblical/spiritual and a philosophical perspective (though many would undoubtedly disagree).

Left-wing progressives see the world and its problems through a particular grid of power relationships that dictate who is righteous and who is evil before the evidence is even considered.

Conclusions

With the whole of the 20^th Century in view, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn is not a freak accident, but an extreme, outlying example of a general trend: the shift of British politics towards the extreme secular left, in rebellion against our former commitment to biblical ethics and ideals. In the words of Melanie Phillips, “Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate – he’s the result”.⁴

The roots of this issue lie in our cutting ourselves loose from our spiritual and ethical moorings in the Judeo-Christian scriptures, a move being described by some as cultural suicide. It is no coincidence that this has brought with it a volte-face regarding Israel and, from there, the Jewish people.

From a biblical perspective, the situation is quite simple. An embrace of God’s word produces not only a love of God’s ethics, but also a respect for all that he has marked as his own – whether land or people. Rejection of his word induces a hatred of all who are connected to it - all who bear his name.

This hatred, in turn, results in a cursing (Gen 12:3) which the Labour Party – despite its honourable beginnings – may even now be experiencing, and from which it may never recover.

Notes

1 What follows is a necessarily potted history. For a lengthier comment on this whole topic, I recommend ‘The Left’s Jewish Problem’ by Dave Rich (2016, Biteback Publishing). Also 'It backed Israel before Balfour: Corbyn stance is stark shift from early Labour' by Robert Philpot for The Times of Israel, 17 April 2018.

2 These movements gained a lot of momentum by piggy-backing on worthier causes, such as the civil rights movement in the USA and the anti-apartheid movement for South Africa (though both of these also had their more violent, revolutionary elements).

3 Read more about this in Melanie Phillips’ book ‘The World Turned Upside-Down’. That these movements cohere around a reaction against the Judeo-Christian West means they find common cause with a variety of other movements with the same agenda (e.g. radical Islam).

4 Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of left-wing Jew hate, he’s the result. Melanie Phillips, 21 October 2018.

The ‘Truth and Clarity’ series seeks to shed light on difficult issues.

This ‘Truth and Clarity’ series of short booklets on interesting topics may be of use to study groups which like to discuss issues that are often ignored or deemed controversial. As a former police detective, Michael Fryer’s aim is to present us with the evidence - not only to support his points, but to help us make our own minds up.

Study group leaders may want to supplement the information in the booklets by looking at other sources - but the booklets nevertheless provide useful starting points for a lively debate and further investigation.

The Truth about Food

The author provides a full and clear explanation of all the main biblical texts on the interesting topic of what the Bible has to say about food. Fryer’s aim is to answer the related questions of what Christians should eat and what they shouldn’t. This he achieves in an unambiguous way, steering a clear path through the equally thorny territory of how Christians should regard Torah today.

His starting point (based upon Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14) is to regard the phrases ‘clean and unclean’ when referring to creatures as ‘animals which are and are not food’. There is plenty in the rest of the booklet to stimulate much discussion and, possibly, to encourage people towards a healthier and Godlier lifestyle. This is a topic we have covered on Prophecy Today before, recommending other good resources, but here is a useful starter based upon a sound exposition of Scripture.

Legalism: Whose Sabbath Laws Do We Keep?

This booklet should provoke a lot of discussion (and argument!) on the issue of the Sabbath. However, be aware that it does not cover legalism more generally - only within the context of this particular topic.

Fryer asks all the right questions regarding how Christian freedom sits alongside honouring God through his unchanging requirements concerning the Sabbath and the Feasts. However, somehow the answers never seem to fully emerge. Fryer does provide a comprehensive survey on the various laws that have been in place throughout history concerning Sunday (and Saturday), but there is not the thorough biblical investigation into what God requires today that would help us work our way through this thorny issue.

I wasn’t sure I was any further forward by the end of the booklet, and any group leader would certainly need to find other material to make the discussion more worthwhile.

Anti-Zionism: The New Anti-Semitism

He begins with a working definition of anti-Semitism (basically, Jew-hatred in its various manifestations) and then shows how it is often linked to the State of Israel in an attempt to justify anti-Semitic activities under a new guise.This booklet arose from Fryer’s concern that Christian anti-Zionism is being portrayed as an accepted and approved theology based on social justice for the Palestinian people, when in reality it is a new form of anti-Semitism.

Fryer asks how anti-Zionism is connected to anti-Semitism and concludes that they are without doubt bedfellows that cannot be cleanly separated. Further key questions include whether Christians can (or should) be anti-Zionist and how we can identify anti-Semitic trends operating among Christians today.

This is a huge topic which is also well-explored in many other writings, but once more the author has done us a service by opening up a debate that might otherwise be regarded as taboo.

The Truth about Kabbalah

The author is concerned that elements of the Kabbalah can be identified within some strands of the charismatic prophetic movement. Without naming names, he asserts that ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’ have entered the Body of Christ with deceptive teachings which are largely based upon the mystical, meditative and magical teachings of the Kabbalah. These so-called paths to spiritual enlightenment are highly dangerous and will lead Christians astray.

Whatever we conclude from his arguments, the booklet provides a very useful explanation of what the Kabbalah is, what the Kabbalistic texts are like and what Kabbalists teach. It also alerts us to the need to keep our eyes open for false teaching and to make discernment a key feature of our Christian lives.

Buy the booklets: Each of the above booklets are available from the Father’s House website, priced at £2.50 each + P&P.

About the author: Michael Fryer is a retired police detective and now a pastor in North Wales. Click here to read more about him.

Jews teach the Church what is really important

With anti-Semitism on the rise, and Jews under threat as never before, it is astonishing that the Government is again allowing the staging in London of Sunday’s annual Iranian-backed Al Quds parade.

What sense does it make that, in a country where ‘hate speech’ is supposedly illegal, a march fronted by the Hezbollah terrorist group – committed to the destruction of Israel – is free to spread its poison?

Among the cheerleaders, and one of the speakers down to address the rally, is Rev Stephen Sizer, who has already been severely reprimanded for his anti-Semitic views by his own Church of England.¹

The whole scenario is an absolute disgrace. And yet Israel’s greatest need is not protection! Bear with me as I will explain in due course.

Pentecost: Passé?

You will no doubt have heard talk of how we are now said to be living in a post-Christian era, with British society largely having rejected biblical values of the past. But I also detect a very worrying trend in the Western Church towards a kind of post-Pentecost line of thinking that appears to relegate its teaching as ‘passé’.

As the disciples of the Lord Jesus were empowered on the Day of Pentecost to spread the Gospel throughout the world, giving life to what is now known as the Church, does this mean that the body of Christ is now in its death-throes?

I detect a very worrying trend in the Western Church towards a kind of post-Pentecost line of thinking.

I have just reviewed the most brilliant book I have ever had the pleasure to read – RT Kendall’s Whatever Happened to the Gospel? – and hereby offer this piece as a brief postscript to the much-beloved preacher’s latest volume.

Whatever happened to Pentecost? Many British churches seem to have stopped celebrating the day, or even mentioning it, although it’s much more than a day anyway – it’s an experience. Even Pentecostals and charismatics, who supposedly base much of their theology on this vitally important feast, seem largely to have abandoned it.

The need for believers to be emboldened with power from on high, for which the resurrected Christ commanded his disciples to wait in Jerusalem, is rarely discussed. And we wonder why there is a lack of power in our witness.

The Meaning of Pentecost

The Bible feasts, which include Passover and Pentecost (also known as Shavuot), are meant to be celebrated to remind us of key truths and of God’s great bounty and deliverance. Pentecost comes 50 days (or seven weeks) after Passover, is also known as the Feast of Weeks, and is a celebration of the first fruits of the harvest – specifically wheat, the main ingredient of bread.

Jews also mark the occasion to celebrate the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai. And Jesus, the ‘bread of life’ born in Bethlehem (literally house of bread) is the fulfilment of the Law (Matt 5:17). And thus Pentecost is a fulfilment of Passover. Jesus, who died for our sins of which the Law convicts us (Rom 7:7), sends his Holy Spirit to empower us to keep a Law that is now “written on our hearts” and not just on tablets of stone (Ezek 36:26; Rom 2:15; 2 Cor 3:3), thus enabling us to witness boldly for the Gospel.

And so it was that, on the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 souls were added to the body of believers. We absolutely cannot do without Pentecost. Jesus paid a very high price for it. It cost him everything.

Jews for Jesus

Britain is proud to have produced one of the outstanding preachers of 20^th Century Pentecostalism, Smith Wigglesworth, who was illiterate prior to his conversion and subsequently only ever read the Bible. He took the message of the Gospel around the world and raised 14 people from the dead in the process – a modern-day apostle if ever there was one.

Yet today, Pentecost is largely forgotten and considered almost irrelevant; something of an embarrassment even. To their credit, the Anglicans, who in some ways are leading the march towards apostasy, still hold on to the feast.

The need for believers to be emboldened with power from on high is rarely discussed. And we wonder why there is a lack of power in our witness!

But Jewish believers are doing much more than that. No doubt partly due to their awareness of the festival’s roots going back thousands of years in their history, they are taking Jesus’ words seriously, and literally, as – empowered by the Holy Spirit – they share the good news, beginning in Jerusalem (Acts 1:8).

Jews for Jesus had specifically chosen the feast of Shavuot to preach the Gospel in the streets of Jerusalem, just as the apostles had done 2,000 years ago. And while they are not claiming that 3,000 souls responded, dozens decided to follow Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus) as they learnt how he had fulfilled Messianic prophecies in the Tenach (our Old Testament). And hundreds more were willing to discuss his claims to be the Messiah of Israel.

One woman, when reminded of what happened in Jerusalem with Jesus, was shocked, and said: “I need to read those prophecies about the Messiah as soon as possible, because although I always believed in God, I did not know about them.”

The general openness was apparently profound, as I have experienced myself. David Brickner, of Jews for Jesus, wrote in their June update:

Of course, the key to success for those first disciples who began in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago was the power of the Holy Spirit. That is still true for Jews for Jesus and anyone else who wants to do God’s work in His way…I don’t know how much more time we have before the return of the Lord, but just like those first Jews for Jesus, we cannot just stand gazing up into heaven (referring to Jesus’ ascension).

Israel’s Greatest Need

Al Quds rally in Tehran, Friday 8 June. London's counterpart rally is due to be held on Sunday 10 June. See Photo Credits.

Israel is currently surrounded by implacable enemies who have vowed to bring about their annihilation. This is why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the target of a recent assassination plot, is warning Theresa May and other European leaders of the danger posed by Iran.

Yet their greatest need is not defence. For God, who brought them back to the Promised Land in fulfilment of ancient prophecies, also plans to restore them to a living relationship with him. And when they are back with their Lord, the Lord will come back to the world (Zech 12:10, 14:4).

Indeed, as Israel comes to know that he (Jesus) is the Lord, the nations too will understand this truth (Ezek 36:23). And none of this would happen without Pentecost.

References

1 Anti-Israel vicar, Stephen Sizer, to speak at London’s pro-Hezbollah Al Quds rally. Christians United for Israel, 4 June 2018.

Anti-Semitism threatens to spoil big birthday party

Just as news was coming through of failed talks between Jewish leaders and Britain’s Labour Party chief Jeremy Corbyn, I was watching a TV presenter telling the harrowing story of anti-Semitic butchery in the land of his great-grandparents.

Following yet another debate on the subject in Parliament, during which Jewish Labour MPs received standing ovations after giving testimony to the flak they have had to endure, Mr Corbyn met with representatives of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council.

But they were not happy with the result. In a joint statement, they said he had refused to agree to any of their demands, which included banning MPs from appearing with members under investigation by the party on the issue.

Empty Words

Members of the Board of Deputies feed back to the press after Corbyn's meeting with Jewish leaders. Jonathan Brady/PA Wire/PA ImagesMr Corbyn consistently acts and speaks as though he is the innocent party in all this, committing himself to strong statements of support for the Jewish community without being able to back it up with action.

That is surely because his hard-left agenda has attracted a swathe of followers who are, by definition, natural allies of those who hate Israel which, ironically, also includes far-right extremists and terror groups committed to the Jewish state’s destruction – an unholy alliance, if ever there was one.

Quite a tricky corner from which to extricate himself, really, barring an epiphany of sorts. And we can certainly pray for that.

Television presenter Simon Schama, meanwhile, used some grisly historical facts to illustrate the depravity of anti-Semites who, in the Russian pogrom of 1905, mercilessly decapitated Jewish people and tore their children apart limb from limb.

In the penultimate episode of The Story of the Jews on BBC4, he traced the history of his people in that part of the world; how they were forced to live in rural communities so that they were unable to compete with Gentile city businessmen. But they made the most of life and worked for the benefit of each other while always living in fear of assault – just for being Jewish.

Mr Corbyn consistently acts and speaks as though he is the innocent party, saying he supports the Jewish community but not backing it up with action.

Somewhere…

Fortunately, many were able to escape to America which, with Zion not yet an option, became their New World paradise.

Some 2,500,000 Jews from Eastern Europe sailed to New York from the 1880s to 1920s and, in a substantial way, helped to build modern America – even shaping the emerging film industry in Hollywood and writing ‘the Great American Songbook’. In the latter case, the lyrics often reflected their own longing for peace and safety. In the hit Broadway musical West Side Story, Leonard Bernstein (the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia) and fellow Jew Stephen Sondheim would compose: “There’s a place for us, somewhere a place for us, peace and quiet and open air, wait for us somewhere…”

Over the Rainbow (from The Wizard of Oz) reflected the same sentiment: “Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high; there’s a land that I’ve heard of, once in a lullaby…Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

Yet just as Yip Harburg collected his Oscar for the song in 1940, the Nazi reign of terror was about to be unleashed in Europe with demonic fury.

Action, Not Appeasement

If we claim to be a civilised society, then words from Mr Corbyn are not enough. Action is required. I’m sure he doesn’t want to find himself backing the wrong side in a Middle East conflict that might erupt at any moment.

For just as Jerusalem reverberates to the sound of singing and dancing in celebration of 70 years as a nation, threats to Israel’s existence are as belligerent as ever. They are surrounded by implacable enemies – specifically Hezbollah to the north and Hamas to the south – with sponsors Iran vowing to wipe the Jewish state off the map.

If we claim to be a civilised society, then words from Mr Corbyn are not enough. Action is required.

More worryingly, the Ayatollahs are infuriated by Israeli attacks on military targets in Syria designed to deter any further incursion of Iranian influence in the region.

Adding to the toxic mix is the involvement of Russia. So it could all blow up in our faces. Therefore, cool heads are called for – but not appeasers backing down at every threat of a dictator. That is why President Trump is such a breath of fresh air, insisting that the nuclear deal agreed by his predecessor must not be extended as it will only further encourage Iran to commit genocide against Israel.

Tearing Up the Rule Book

He has also torn up the ‘rule book’ of Middle East diplomacy by ceasing to refer to Judea and Samaria as ‘occupied’ territories, infuriating the Palestinians in the process. As with the reality of recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the President is simply going a step further by bringing down the curtain on the fantasy world of Palestinian claims to the land.

The mountains of Samaria represent the heart of Israel; here is a view of ancient Shechem (now known as Nablus), home of Jacob's Well and Joseph's Tomb. Picture: Charles GardnerThey flatly refused the offer (of these territories) as part of the UN’s Partition Plan in 1947, Jordan then illegally annexed it during the 1948 War of Independence, and Israel took it back in 1967.

The mountains of Judea and Samaria represent the heart of Israel. Far from inflaming the situation, President Trump’s recognition of this disputed territory as belonging to Israel paves the way for practical thinking in the real world. Here is a President who will not buckle under pressure, but does want to see real peace. No amount of compromise over these past 70 years has ultimately done the trick.

Let’s pray for the peace of Jerusalem – and that Israelis will be able to celebrate their 70^th birthday in the perfect safety and unbridled joy that has so long eluded them.

Whilst there are usually other big world issues demanding our attention, anti-Semitism is never far from the front pages of our newspapers.

For the UK, the big issue for the coming months will be the EU referendum, but whilst responding to our personal and national priorities we must be careful not to lose a broader perspective. What else is going on that may bring balance to our understanding and prayers?

Terror Attacks in Paris

In January 2015, world attention was drawn to the terror attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Following this came the assault on a Jewish Kosher supermarket in the east of the city, where four Jews were killed and where the surrounding Jewish neighbourhood was shocked by this act of terror.

These may have seemed like two simultaneous but independent incidents, with Charlie Hebdo taking highest priority in the media. To gain a more balanced perspective, one had to look outside of this and make extra effort to search for other news that would shed biblical light on the overall picture.

Doing this, one would have discovered a growing unease in French Jewish communities. According to the Jewish Agency for Israel, due to growing anti-Semitism about 7,000 French Jews had left the country during 2014 (many emigrating to Israel); double the figure for 2013.¹ The attack on the Paris market was connected to developing anti-Semitism across the nation and not an isolated incident to be sidelined by other news of the day.

Anti-Semitism is never far from the front pages of our newspapers – but it is easily obscured by other big world issues that demand our attention.

Other Recent CasesIsraeli IDs for new immigrants from France.

Anti-Semitic feeling² is erupting in many corners of society and in countries across the world. On Holocaust Memorial Day Martin Schulz, the German head of the European parliament, warned that anti-Semitism was prominent in the whole of Europe, with many European Jews living in fear and afraid to wear their religious garments on the streets of the continent's major cities.³

Anti-Semitism has become so bad in Malmo, the Swedish city where the popular television drama The Bridge is set, that it contributed to actor Kim Bodnia's decision to leave the show.⁴

Another incident in France occurred on Tuesday 12 January, when a Jewish politician was found stabbed and beaten to death at his home in the suburbs of Paris, prompting fears of yet another anti-Semitic attack.⁵

Recently the German head of the European parliament warned that anti-Semitism is rife across Europe, with many European Jews living in fear.

In Britain

Recently there have been anti-Semitic acts in British football.⁶ In London, there was an incident sparked by the sale of t-shirts with slogans designed to provoke Jewish fans of Tottenham. There has also been frequent anti-Semitic chanting from visiting supporters of rival teams.

Only last week an incident was highlighted when Oxford University was ordered by the government to investigate allegations of widespread anti-Semitism. The university's Jewish society had reported eight separate racism allegations levelled against the Oxford University Labour Club. This followed the resignation of co-chairman Alex Chalmers, who said a large proportion of members of OULC "have some kind of problem with Jews".⁷

This was also linked to concerns about trends in the Labour Party, whose leader Jeremy Corbyn has expressed strong sympathy for Hamas and Hezbollah. He failed to apologise for past links to these organisations in his first meeting with representatives of the Jewish community since becoming Labour leader.⁸ Is there a danger of growing anti-Semitism subtly infiltrating the ranks of one of the UK's main political parties?

The Bigger Picture

These examples of continuing anti-Semitism in the world should cause us to consider our world from a biblical perspective. It is so easy to get diverted into the politics of the day and forget what is happening behind the scenes.

Closer to home, anti-Semitic feeling has been noted recently in such diverse arenas as British football, universities and political parties.

Learning from Another Era

I was privileged to be on the staff at the Bible College of Wales during its latter years, when Rev Samuel Howells was Director. I would talk with him in his study and he would tell me something of the war years, when he was part of the team led by his father Rees Howells. In their commitment to prayer through those years they saw clearly that underlying the intent of Hitler to bring in the Nazi regime to dominate both Europe and the world was a spiritual battle for the survival of the Jews.

The account of these years is set out in Rees Howells: Intercessor (2003, Lutterworth Press). Samuel told me of the time when his father came out of the prayer room, ashen faced, saying that the Lord had asked him to take responsibility for the Jews in the Nazi death camps – and he had accepted. The ministry of intercession deepened in the college from that time on, as the deeper issues of the war were understood.

After the war the UN was to vote on the partition plan for Palestine. Dr Kingsley Priddy was Rees Howells' deputy at the time and he told me that they had visions of angels around the UN building as the vote took place. Samuel also said to me once something I still try to understand. Speaking of the intercessory team, he said "We lost six million Jews in the war, but the nation of Israel was reborn." This is perhaps how someone who takes responsibility in intercession will describe the battle and its results.

Samuel also told me that his father, once a strong man, died at a relatively young age in 1950 - strained by those years of spiritual warfare. That indicates the depth of the issues that we will face in future struggles of a similar kind.

During WWII, Rees Howells and his intercessory team saw clearly that underlying Hitler's intent to dominate the world was a spiritual battle for the survival of the Jews.

Same Battle, Different Manifestation

Our spiritual adversary dragged the entire world into a physical conflict in Europe in 1939. There is, similarly, a spiritual dimension to the UK's relation to Europe in our day. The door is now open for us to untangle ourselves from the EU. After that we will have an opportunity to regroup as a nation under God, according to our constitutional position expressed most clearly in the Queen's Coronation Oath.

Now more than ever, we need to understand the spiritual nature of this battle, whilst remembering the central purposes of God's end-time covenant plan. We must take care not to become pre-occupied fighting on one front while neglecting central issues on other, seemingly peripheral fronts.

Growing anti-Semitism is a symptom of an important front of the spiritual battle today, just as it has been through the entire history of Israel. God has a plan for Israel that will be resisted by our spiritual adversary in many ways, erupting in diverse places in what we call anti-Semitism.

Now more than ever, we need to understand the spiritual dimension of the battles we face today, including the UK's relationship with Europe.

One day this battle will be clearer to discern, with an overt turning against Israel stirred up among the rising world coalitions. For now, it may seem a more peripheral issue, but those with understanding will perceive the danger signs and the priorities for our prayers.

Interested in learning more about anti-Semitic trends around the world, or catching up on the latest incidents? You might benefit from looking at the following secular websites:

• The Anti-Defamation League: The ADL has recently produced an index of world anti-Semitism, presented as a useful map. It also catalogues selected anti-Semitic events from 2015.
• The Co-ordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism: the CFCA publishes trend reports, articles and news items (see their website here).

Notes

1 Aliyah Hits Ten-Year High: Approximately 26,500 New Immigrants Arrived in Israel in 2014. Jewish Agency for Israel, 2 January 2015.

2 There are a number of attempts at a precise definition of the term anti-Semitism. This one is useful.

3 See, for example, Sanchez, R, Europe's Jews are 'living in fear', warns head of EU parliament. The Telegraph, 27 January 2016.

4 Danish TV star says anti-Semitism made him uncomfortable in Sweden. Jerusalem Post, 17 February 2016.

5 Samuel, H, Killing of Jewish politician near Paris prompts fears of anti-Semitic attacks. The Telegraph, 13 January 2016.

6 See, for example, Telegraph Sport, Chelsea crack down on sales of abusive Arsene Wenger and Harry Kane T-shirts. The Telegraph, 9 February 2016. 7 Ali, A, Oxford University Labour Club co-chair, Alex Chalmers, resigns amid anti-Semitism row. The Independent, 17 February 2016. 8 See, for example, Riley-Smith, B and McCann, K, Jeremy Corbyn fails to apologise for links to Hamas and Hezbollah in first meeting with Jewish leaders. The Telegraph, 9 February 2016.