Israel

Attended church this morning, and the preacher had a very insightful sermon. She started by highlighting the confusion surrounding the name Israel. We know it as a political state in the Middle East, founded in 1948 by people professing the Jewish faith. However, in a Biblical context, Israel stands for something different to a political entity. It stands for a tenet of faith, not exclusively Jewish either. It is a pity that the current climate, in which the name Israel stands for something that is politically divisive, something that claims to represent one branch of Christian religion, and within that a very narrow scion, Zionism. It is deplorable that these narrow viewpoints are used to tar all Jews with the one brush, whereas quite a few of them do not agree with what the state of Israel stands for (or claims to do so); but do profess the faith in what the biblical Israel represents. There are people who use the actions of the Jewish state to justify their (alleged) anti-semitism; a recent discussion in the British Labour Party is a good example of that. It was profoundly saddening that one of the two main parties in the British political spectrum had to even think of discussing the adoption of the definition of anti-semitism. Why? Because of the way the Palestinians had (allegedly) been treated by the modern state of Israel. Again, to tar all Jews with the one brush is at best deplorable. Some would go even further, and say that the Holocaust never happened. In certain countries, denying the Holocaust is a criminal offence. It is all a far cry from the Israel, depicted in the Bible. It is all a far cry from what Christianity, as a faith, stands for.

Let me close this post by including the flame I post on the anniversary of the Reichskristallnacht, on November 9th. It will be 80 years ago this year since that Germany-wide pogrom of the Jews. Because? They were Jews.