Weekly Update: Remembering the Holocaust is not enough

Today is Yom HaShoah – the day appointed by Israel to commemorate the “Shoah”, the Holocaust that took place only one generation ago.

Less than 80 years ago, six million Jews were slaughtered in the heart of Europe. Men, women and children were taken from their homes, and transported to their deaths in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Dachau, and so on. Their fellow citizens watched as this was happening.

Of course there were many who risked their lives to save Jews – they are recognized by Israel as the “Righteous among the nations”.

But the tragic truth is that the majority were silent witnesses, and too many were actively complicit in the worst possible crime against humanity.

All of this happened in Europe – the centre of the civilized world. It says a lot about Christianity and our so-called “Judeo-Christian civilization”. It is arguable that the silence of the church over the preceding centuries enabled the Nazi’s to build their anti-Semitic machinery in Germany that would be unleashed on the Jewish people throughout Europe. It caused the leaders of several nations of Europe to be deceived by Hitler’s charms, and the ordinary people of Europe to be blind and deaf to what was really happening.

Since the Holocaust the State of Israel has been established. The Jewish people have a homeland. The dry bones of Ezekiel 37 have been given life and been brought back to the land.

But anti-Semitism has not disappeared, it is a grim reality.

Today the church of Christ cannot and must not remain silent to the threats posed to the Jewish State of Israel, and to the Jewish people worldwide. Yom HaShoah reminds us we must not only remember the past, we must understand the times we are living in now, and raise our voices.

The Editorial team
Israel & Christians Today