Red Alert: Does Remembering the Holocaust Help Today’s Jews?

By Amy Zewe

This is a question I keep asking myself.

This Labor Day weekend, I was looking at Facebook and a classmate from my high school posted about a visit to Dachau and how moved he was by it.

I appreciated that he was able to connect it with a substitute teacher we had in NY back in the 1980s who would tearfully recall to us how he was personally a part of a regiment that liberated Jews from camps. The comments were thoughtful and aghast in reply to photos of gas chambers, how barbaric the people were, and how they could live with themselves as perpetrators or participants. I replied that this history is more than history; it is recent memory and with that, we must keep an eye on the rampant antisemitism that is still ongoing today.

This brings me to a JNS (Jewish News Syndicate: Cleveland Jewish News) article I found on Sept. 4. 

My goal here as a Christian Zionist is to reveal to our entire audience that antisemitism is now overtly part of the entire political spectrum, and we cannot simply lament the vile outcome of Nazi fascism and address the neo-Nazi or far-right fringes as the only source of antisemitism in the world today.

Antisemitism is firmly entrenched in the Progressive Left camp and its foothold in universities, curriculum down to the elementary level, and as a result, bubbling up into our mainstream media, entertainment, press and journalism, corporate worlds, and our political halls.

At The Jerusalem Connection, we are dedicated to informing and educating about where antisemitism and anti-Zionism are found so that we can combat it effectively to stand up for Israel as well as Jews worldwide. We will call it out wherever we find it, from the pulpits of Christian churches to the politicians on any side of the political spectrum. 

Each of us has a voice, a pen, a computer, a vote, a community—we can share this insidious hate to quell its effectiveness. 

I have heard too many times that antisemitism has not been a problem since WWII. That Israel was formed because of the Holocaust, and that Jews are just another sector of privileged white people.

Armed with facts, armed with accurate history, and armed with the full armor of God we must speak and share the truth and stand up for all kinds of hate and bigotry—all of which are abhorrent to the Lord. But antisemitism, in my opinion, is a form of hate with roots far deeper than human narrow-mindedness. It is demonic. And, the gates of Hell will not prevail. We know this. But we are still tasked with engaging in the battle, even if we already know who wins.

The ADL has reported that antisemitism is as high as it has ever been in the 80 years since the Holocaust.

Henry Kopel released an enlightening if not lamenting article just three days ago to the JNS:

“American Jewish Leaders’ Silence and Appeasement”

Kopel writes about the soft bigotry of post-WWII antisemitism, the “no Jews need apply” approach, often from right-leaning organizations, and the violent episodes often perpetrated by the KKK. This was easy to call out and combat. Especially since most Jews leaned to the left—so the voice was clear and unified.

But now the evidence is overwhelming that antisemitism is deeply rooted in the left.  Henry Kopel notes four specific trends in antisemitism that are identifiable from the political left and he calls out his colleagues to identify it, name it, and call it out:

1. First, David Bernstein has called “Woke antisemitism.” Grounded in Critical Race Theory and promoted by the diversity industry, it depicts Jews as “white adjacent” and unfairly privileged. Thus, Jews are deemed complicit in a system of “structural racism.” This mindset is hegemonic in most university administrations. K-12 schools now promote it through such initiatives as California’s “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum.
2. Second, highly influential campus-based anti-Israelism is going viral. Embraced by Middle East studies departments, this ideology brands Israel an illegitimate “settler-colonial” enterprise. The Jewish state, it is claimed, committed an attempted genocide against indigenous Palestinian Arabs in 1948.
3. The third new form of antisemitism flows from the more radicalized sectors of the Muslim community. Though far from a majority view among American Muslims, a number of mosques have embraced annihilationist anti-Israelism and Jew-hatred.

4 . The Last form comes from a small but violent subgroup in the black community, mainly radicalized by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s Jew-hating propaganda.

 As summed up by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser in their 2023 book Betrayal: 

The Jewish community is under siege. … According to the FBI, Jews are the primary targets of hate crimes in America. … Jews are being beaten in the streets of New York City, murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jersey City, stabbed in Boston, taken hostage in Texas, and harassed and bullied on college campuses across the country. … Most Jewish buildings require security. Israel … is defamed and demonized by mainstream media, and maligned in both … Congress and the United Nations.

The US’s education on Holocaust studies, scarce as it is, only addresses the 20th Century right-wing niche of antisemitism. While this niche is vital to know and understand, and its continued trends are important to expose and combat, it is the current leaching of antisemitism into the left that leads to our schools, entertainment, businesses, and political leaders, which is going unchallenged and unchecked—even by many within Jewish leadership.

We must engage as the front line against these trends in support of our Jewish brothers and sisters. At barely 2% of the population, the Jewish community mustn’t stand alone.  It is the job of Bible-believing Christians and all citizens with a sense of justice and fairness to expose and combat the very trends and ideas that lay in wait in the early part of the 20^th Century. Fascism was not the only force of antisemitism in Europe, Communism and its Marxist ideals that Hitler often shared, are also a bedrock of antisemitic rhetoric and led to much bloodshed of innocents (often overlooked in history courses). 

I encourage you to read the entire JNS article. 

Check out the statistics. 

And explore important books and essays on these topics.

And then prayfully take action. These issues are not political or  about being right or left. These issues are about right and wrong: good versus evil. 

Shavua Tov, have a great week.