Jews and Christians United for Israel® (JACUFI)

 Martin M. van Brauman

           Jacob, who was about to die in Egypt, said to Joseph, Behold! – I am about to die; God will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your fathers. Genesis 48:21. More than two hundred years later, Jacob’s remains were brought back for burial in the Land of Israel, when God brought the Jewish people out of bondage in Egypt.

Then Jacob called for his sons and said, ‘Assemble yourselves and I will tell you what will befall you in the End of Days. Gather yourselves and listen, O sons of Jacob, and listen to Israel your father. Genesis 49:1-2.

The “in the End of Days” is the ultimate conclusion of all the exiles of the Jewish people, not just the Egyptian captivity.  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion. Isaiah 35:10.  Jacob was saying whatever future events may occur that it must be understood as a call from God for everything has a purpose with God.

However, Jacob could not tell his sons what will befall them in the End of Days, because God’s presence departed from him so that he could not make this revelation. Although “what will befall you in the End of Days,” or the Messianic time, was unknown, Israel would discover comfort in faith and performance of God’s commandments.

Judah received the spiritual blessing of the scepter of messianic leadership with the ultimate ingathering of all of the nations to Jerusalem and the world being at peace.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a scholar from among his descendants, until Shiloh shall arrive and his will be an assemblage of nations. Genesis 49:10.

The scriptures indicate that the kingship, which is represented by the rod, will remain with Judah’s descendants until the one to whom “the rod” belongs will appear.  Shiloh is the Messiah for the kingship is his.  The word Shiloh is a composite of the words “a gift to him,” a reference to the Messiah to whom all nations will bring gifts.  The “scholar” refers to the descendants of Judah who will teach the Word of God to the people.

. . . for the earth will be as filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covering the sea bed. Isaiah 11:9.

The coming of the Messiah and the ingathering of the exiles will cause the assemblage of nations, in which the people of the world will seek out the Messiah.

It shall be on that day that the descendant of Jesse who stands as a banner for the peoples, nations will seek him, and his resting place will be glorious.  It shall be on that day that the Lord will once again show His hand, to acquire the remnant of His people, who will have remained, from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.  He will raise a banner for the nations and assemble the castaways of Israel; and He will gather in the dispersed ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth. Isaiah 11:10-12.

Although Jacob was not able to reveal the “End of Days” to his sons, he did provide them with a glimpse of Israel towards the Messianic Days.

He will tie his donkey to the vine; to the vine branch his donkey’s foal; he will launder his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes. Red eyed from wine, and white toothed from milk. Genesis 49: 11-12.

The “vine” represents Israel.  Israel shall be productive and flow with wine like a fountain.  So lush shall the vineyards be that a farmer will tie his donkey to a single vine, for it will produce as many grapes as a donkey can carry.  The scripture continues with another illustration of the productivity of Israel by an abundance of milk, implying not just good pastures for flocks of sheep but the desert blooming.  The Messiah is associated with a donkey rather than a horse ready for battle, because he is depicted not as a warrior but as a man of peace who represents prosperity with the image of the vineyard and that the final war will be won by God.

O Israel, that art saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Isaiah 45:17.

Martin M. van Brauman

When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’  And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’  You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. Matthew 16:2-4.

 Jesus was referring to the blindness of the religious leaders to the signs of the times and today modern Israel is the prophetic reality that is unfolding before our eyes and yet is unrecognized by the mainline Christian churches.  The sign of Jonah is the symbol of resurrection.  The resurrection of the Land of Israel by the ingathering of the Jewish people is that sign today. Such churches, which demonize Israel and attack its legitimacy, deny God and the Words of His prophets.

And I have loved you with an eternal love, therefore I have extended kindness to you. I shall yet rebuild you and you shall be rebuilt, O Maiden of Israel . . . You will yet plant vineyards in the mountains of Samaria . . . For there will be a day when watchmen will call out on Mount Ephraim, Arise, let us ascend to Zion, to the Lord our God . . . Behold, I will bring them from the land of the North and gather them from the ends of the earth. Jeremiah 31:2-7.

 For you are a holy people to the Lord, your God; the Lord, your God, has chosen you to be for Him a treasured people above all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. Not because you are more numerous than all the peoples did the Lord desire you and choose you, for you are the fewest of all the peoples. Rather, because of the Lord’s love for you and because He observes the oath that He swore to your forefathers did He take you out with a strong hand and redeem you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.  You must know that the Lord, your God – He is the God, the faithful God, Who safeguards the covenant and the kindness for those who love Him and for those who observe His commandments, for a thousand generations. Deuteronomy 7:6-9.

 He remembered His covenant forever – the Word He commanded for a thousand generations – that He made with Abraham and His vow to Isaac. Then He established it for Jacob as a statute, for Israel as an everlasting covenant, ‘To you I shall give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.’ Psalms 105:8-11. 

 On the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, Peter addressed the crowd and spoke the words of the prophet Joel (Acts 2:14-21):

And it will happen after this [in the End of Days as explained in Joel 4:1] that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy; your elders will dream [prophetic] dreams, and your young men will see visions. Even also the slaves and upon the maidservants in those days I will pour out My spirit. I will set wonders in the heavens and on earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke; the sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood [red], before the coming of the great and awesome Day of the Lord. And it will be that anyone who calls in the Name of the Lord will escape, for on the mountain of Zion and in Jerusalem there will be refuge as the Lord said, and among the survivors whom the Lord summons. Joel 3:1-5.

 For behold, in those days and at that time, when I will bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all of the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat (the Valley of God’s Judgment) and I will contend with them there concerning My people and My possession, Israel, that they dispersed among the nations, and they divided up My land  . . . Joel 4:1-2.

Beware to those governments and world organizations who try to divide up My Land, Israel, for the rebirth of Israel has been revealed by all the prophets from Moses to Malachi.  Redemption means the actual, physical liberation of Israel from persecution and humiliation and the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.  Israel is entering a time of material prosperity, fertile lands, great wealth, high birth rates, long life and good health and the world religions cannot interpret the signs of the times.

Martin M. van Brauman

Do not rely on nobles, nor on a human being, for he holds no salvation. When his spirit departs he returns to his earth, on that day his plans all perish. Praiseworthy is one whose help is Jacob’s God, whose hope is in the Lord, his God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them; He safeguards truth forever; He does justice for the exploited, He gives bread to the hungry . . . the Lord shall reign forever; your God, O Zion; from generation to generation. Psalms 146:3-10.

The Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor Raul Hilberg said from the 4^th century the powerful Christian church said to the Jews “You may not live among us as Jews.”[1]  The Christian European rulers from the late Middle Ages said “You may not live among us” and the Nazis and their collaborators decreed “You may not live.”[2]   Thus, the “Jewish problem” was solved first by conversion, then by expulsion and finally by death.[3]

The Jewish problem is the eternal annoyance that arose with the questions asked of God to Adam of where are you and your soul and to Cain where is your brother and what have you done.[4]  The Jew in his historic existence is a witness who, with the highest authority possible to man, says to mankind: “Behold, your God! Your God, He is here.”[5]

The religious foundation of the Christian Church was based and still today on the traditional church dogma of replacement theology, in which the Jewish people’s rejection of Jesus resulted in the loss of their covenantal link to God and in their eternal damnation.  Christian anti-Semitism was derived from three primary causes: the rejection of Jesus as the messiah, the doctrine of chosenness (the “Chosen People”) and the accusation of deicide (“Christ-killers”).[6]  The mainline Protestant churches still preach that the church replaced the nation of Israel as God’s people on earth, inheriting all the promised blessings.  Replacement or supersessionist theology calls Christians the “true Jews” and the church the “New Israel,” so how can God bring back the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.

The anti-Semitism of Christian replacement theology fights against the legitimacy of an independent Jewish political existence in Israel as a Jewish state and resents the Jew no longer being subordinate to but rather a master of his fate.[7]   Christian leaders of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Lutheran churches campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel and betray the Jewish people’s right to defend themselves against the threats of Palestinian terrorists who seek Jewish extermination.  These same church leaders call Palestinian suicide bombers, who murder innocent women and children, “freedom fighters.”   Today, this delegitimization and demonization of Israel has become the most effective and dangerous form of anti-Semitism.

The mainline Christian churches lost their moral authority long ago by their apathy and indifference to Jewish suffering and their moral decline is reflected in their dwindling members.  For these churches, the Holy Bible is read through the prism of church dogma and cannons.  Christians have long preferred a spiritualized “Judaism,” instead of having to deal with the Jewish people[8] and of understanding what is Judaism.

Judaism is not a religion of legalism and “works righteousness,” or even a religion, but a relationship to God under grace.  The Bible is not about religion, but about relationship to God.  The election of Israel is based upon grace.  Jews do not follow the laws of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, in order to earn Divine love and redemption/salvation. Divine love is already present, it is not earned.  “All Israel have a portion in the World to Come, for it is written: ‘Your people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I be glorified’” (Isaiah 60:21).  Mishnah (m. Sanh 10.1).  Grace is all part of the Covenant of Abraham.

It will be that when all these things come upon you – the blessing and the curse that I have presented before you – then you will take it to your heart among all the nations where the Lord, your God, has dispersed you; and you will return unto the Lord, your God, and listen to His voice, according to everything that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and all your soul.  Then the Lord, your God, will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you, and He will gather you in from all the peoples to which the Lord, your God, has scattered you. If your dispersed will be at the ends of heaven, from there the Lord, your God, will gather you in and from there He will take you.  The Lord, your God, will bring you to the Land that your forefathers possessed and you shall possess it; He will do good to you and make you more numerous than your forefathers.  The Lord, your God, will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. Deuteronomy 30:1-6.

These passages in Deuteronomy are not speaking about God bringing the Jewish people out from their recent captivity in Egypt, but in the future when God will bring them back from their captivity among all the nations where the Lord will disperse the Jews after the future destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D.  The passages speak of the future ingathering of the Jewish exiles from the ends of the world back to the Land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and writing on their hearts the Word of God.  That day of the ingathering has arrived.  The Ramban[9] commented that those promises in Deuteronomy 30:1-6 of return to the Land and redemption have not been fulfilled yet, but will happen with the coming of the Messiah.[10]

Israel alone of all the nations that exist and ever existed in the world has a special relationship with God, a covenant that promises its eternity and defines its mission as God’s witness to all of humanity.  The rebirth of the State of Israel is the beginning realization of the Torah’s ultimate goal for the redemption of the world, as stated by the Jewish prophets.

The Jews are to be the “light to the world” by their survival as God’s witnesses on earth.  Through the teachings of the Bible, “all the families of the Earth will be blessed.”  Genesis 12:3. The Torah will go forth from Zion and the Word of God from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3).

Fortunate are you, O Israel: Who is like you! O people delivered by the Lord, the Shield of your help, Who is the Sword of your grandeur; your foes will try to deceive you, but you will trample their haughty ones. Deuteronomy 33:29.

 The true Christian church bears witness to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  In its witness to God, the Christian church owes its existence to Israel and the Jewish people.  The foundation stone upon which Christianity is built is the covenantal election of the Jewish people, Israel, (Romans 9:4-5) and Jesus could only be recognized as a revelation by Jews operating out of Jewish expectation and promise.[11]

The history of Israel and Judaism did not end with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, but rabbinical Judaism was born into the numerous Diaspora, permitting Israel to carry to the world a witness of its faith to the one God while preserving the memory of the Land in their hearts.  The Covenant of Abraham is being written on the hearts of the Jewish people.  Judaism has a fundamental stake in Christianity’s achievements in advancing the Word of the God of Israel that will circumcise peoples’ hearts “to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live.” Deuteronomy 30:6.  By “circumcision,” God will help remove humanity’s natural desire to sin and Evil Inclination, the spiritual barrier to final redemption.

The Jewish people under rabbinical Judaism are fellow travelers with the followers of Jesus on the way to the Kingdom of God.  The two faiths must understand that they are aspects of a Divine strategy of redemption, although in their own distinctive ways.[12]

Is God the God of Jews only?  Is he not the God of Gentiles too?  Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.  Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith?  Not at all!  Rather, we uphold the law. Romans 3:29-31.

Martin M. van Brauman

In early August of 2013, Israeli President Shimon Peres delivered an address at the Valley of Slaughter in the Ponar Forest outside Vilnius, Lithuania, where the Germans and the Lithuanians murdered over 70,000 Jews.  He began with the words of Abba Kovner, the Lithuanian Jewish poet, writer and WWII partisan leader.

 We shall remember . . .

The city houses and the country houses.

The aged man and the features of his face.

The mother in her kerchief.

The young girl with her braids.

The child, The child,

The entire assembly of Jews

Brought down to slaughter on the soil of Europe

By the Nazi destroyer,

The man who suddenly screamed.

And while screaming died.

 President Peres continued his address at the Ponar Memorial Ceremony:

Ponar, from where thousands of our fathers and mothers, our little boys and girls, were murdered.

They will never return.

They will never die in our hearts.

Seventy thousands of them were Jewish.

And thousands were others.

Why? What for?

The pastoral scenery surrounding us here is misleading.

Its color remains green. But the ground is red.

The screams of the victims detonating from the damp soil will remain a disgrace to humanity.

Vilnius was considered the Jerusalem of Lithuania, where hopeful and vibrant Jewish communities built a life of their own.

And suddenly, a third of Lithuania’s Jewish people were slaughtered in these fields.

Only a mass grave remains in front of us.

Innocent men and women, babies and children were stripped and then pushed and thrown to the cold bottom of this pit.

Their bodies were tortured and burned at the sound of a short-range burst of fire.

In the massacre valley of Ponar, there were no gas chambers.

Just direct murder.

Physical.

Precise.

Just by pressing the trigger.

One after another.

Day in, day out.

Five hundred a day.

No interruptions.

No regrets.

No second thought.

No thought at all.

Killers.

Killing was their vocation.

History had known no such atrocities, ever.

Just few survived.

From the scorched bodies, only the spirit remained.

An eternal spirit. Facing evil. Our people remained humane.

The spirit of our moral call, Tikkun Olam – to better the world – was molded from the lead of the bullets.

Ponar is a warning.

For us all.

For the generations to come.

Never again.

Never, not even for a moment, may we weaken in our common mission against racism, anti-Semitism and mass destruction.

In Vilnius, there were 200 churches and 110 synagogues. Yet there is just one Lord in heaven.

 Why and what for – the persecution and hatred, if “there is just one Lord in heaven.”  I am a remnant of Israel, seeking answers from God, and so should all.  My grandfather’s older brother, Josel Brauman, was a tradesman who was married and lived in Panevezys (Ponevezh), Lithuania when he died on January 13, 1940.  Fortunately, he was buried in the Panevezys Jewish Cemetery before the Germans came with their killing pits outside of town, but his wife and sons Chaim Ber (age 33), Itsik and Eliokim (both age 20) died an unknown death when the Germans arrived.  Sholem Brauman once lived as a merchant, who was born in 1877 and lived in Zarasai (NovoAleksandrovsk District), Lithuania, also my grandfather’s place of birth, and was married to Zelda Kaufman.  From the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names at Yad Vashem, all that is known is of their deaths in their home town. Nothing more is known of their children and grandchildren that they must have had. There once lived Khaim Brauman, who was from and died in Rakishok, Lithuania, in 1941.  There once lived Ferentz Brauman (prisoner number 92818) from Lithuania (native language German) who died from disease in the camp at Muehldorf Mettenheim in January of 1945 at age 51.

On June 26, 1942, Szmul Zygielbojm, a member of the Polish government-in-exile, broadcasted on the BBC a report on the Nazis’ extermination of the Jews of Europe by gassing.[1]  He could not persuade any government to intervene on behalf of the Jews.  On May 10, 1943, Arthur Goldberg told him that the United States government rejected his request to bomb Auschwitz and the Warsaw Ghetto.[2]  On May 12, Zygielbojm committed suicide in London saying:

The responsibility for this crime of murdering the entire Jewish community of Poland falls in the first instance on the perpetrators, but indirectly also it weighs on the whole of humanity, the peoples and the governments of the Allied States, which have so far made no effort towards a concrete action for the purpose of curtailing this crime.  By passive observation of this murder of defenseless millions and of the maltreatment of children, women, and old men, these countries have become the criminal’s accomplices.[3]

 Nothing has changed since European and world governments shut off the historic Jewish homeland as a place of refuge for the Jews fleeing Nazi extermination during the 30’s and 40’s.  Today, European and EU ministers still are dictating whether Jews have the right to live in their historic homeland of Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem itself, as they pamper to the Muslim mobs in their own territories.  They continue the “disgrace to humanity.”

Israel’s very existence ignites Muslim anger, not the borders of Israel itself.  For the Muslims want a judenrein Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.  The EU and the world want Israel to return to the 1949 armistice lines of Israel’s War of Independence.  The 9-mile-wide 1949 armistice lines that even the ultra-dove Abba Eban called “the Auschwitz lines” would move Hamas and the Palestinian Authority/PLO closer to their goal of their judenrein Palestine and to continue the legacy of Adolf Hitler.

During the Arab invasion of 1967, Israel was forced to defend its existence against another Holocaust and pushed out the occupying armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria from the land originally set aside for the Jewish homeland during the British Mandate period as established by the League of Nations, following the break-up of the Ottoman Empire.  The British Mandate granted Jews rights to all the land west of the Jordan River as the Jewish homeland and the Arabs received the Transjordan.

The world is infuriated that the Jews did not die after 2,000 years of persecution, pogroms, the Holocaust and finally the Arab invasions of genocide against the Jews in Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973.

I raise my eyes upon the mountains; whence will come my help? My help is from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to falter; your Guardian will not slumber. Behold, He neither slumbers nor sleeps, the Guardian of Israel. The Lord is your Guardian; the Lord is your protective Shade at your right hand. By day the sun will not harm you, nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from every evil; He will guard your soul. The Lord will guard your departure and your arrival, from this time and forever. Psalm 121:1-8.

Martin M. van Brauman

 I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah; and though he tarry, none the less do I believe. [The 12^th of the 13 Principles of Faith outlined by Rabbi Moses Maimonides, 12^th century Jewish philosopher and sage][1]

The 12^th “I believe” [principle] under the Principles of Faith is the complete belief in the coming of the Messiah.  Jews on their journey to Treblinka and Birkenau sung Ani Ma’amin, the Song Lost and Found Again, the song about the coming of the Messiah who will deliver us, and showed that the dead at the moment of dying had maintained their faith.[2]

Prime Minister Menachem Begin once related how his father, the secretary of the Brisk Jewish community in Belarus, walked to his death leading 500 fellow Jews in singing Hatikva, the anthem of Jewish resistance, and Ani Ma’amin as the Germans drove them into the River Bug while machine guns turned the river into blood.[3]  The melody for Ani Ma’amin was composed in Auschwitz and it spread throughout the camps and Nazi occupied Eastern Europe.

Ani Ma’amin (I Believe)

I believe with complete faith

In the Coming of the Messiah, I believe 

Believe in the coming of the Messiah

In the coming of the Messiah, I believe

Believe in the coming of the Messiah

And even though he may tarry

Nonetheless I will wait for him

And even though he may tarry

Nonetheless I will wait for him

Nonetheless, I will wait for him

I will wait every day for him to come

Nonetheless, I will wait for him

I will wait every day for him to come.

I believe

Jewish faith is a faith of expectation, a waiting for God, a waiting for the Davidic Messiah’s arrival and the coming of the promised day of the Lord, a day of judgment followed by salvation when evil is consumed.[4]  For the Jew, the coming of the Messiah represents the promise of the Exodus and the Revelation at Sinai being fulfilled.

A staff will emerge from the stump of Jesse (David) and a shoot will sprout from his roots.  The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him – a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord . . . He will strike [the wicked of] the world with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.  Righteousness will be the girdle round his loins, and faith will be the girdle round his waist. Isaiah 11:1-5.

Behold, a day is coming for the Lord, . . . the Lord will go out and wage war with those nations, as He waged war on the day of battle.  His feet will stand on that day on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east . . Zechariah 14: 1-4.

Under Deuteronomy 6:4 (The Shema), the Torah says that God is the One and Only as “an inner harmony for all that He does, though human intelligence cannot comprehend what it is . . .  [but] . . . will be understood at the End of Days, when God’s ways are illuminated.”[5]  This concept of God’s ways is like a ray of light seen through a prism in which, though the viewer sees a myriad of different colors, it is a single ray of light.  Likewise, God’s many manifestations are truly One and the Jew bears witness to God’s Oneness by the recitation of The Shema.

The term for martyr in Hebrew means “to sanctify the Name” that is to die with the words of the Shema on one’s lips.[6]  With the Shema, a person acknowledges his acceptance of the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.

THE SHEMA – Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is the One.  You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your possessions.  And these words that I command you today shall be upon your heart.  You shall teach them to your sons and you shall speak of them while you sit in your home and while you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you rise.  Bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be ornaments between your eyes.  And write them on the doorposts of your house and upon your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

This primary article of Jewish faith, Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is the One.  You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your possessions, is the prayer for the morning, evening and bedtime.  When the Pharisees asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Law, from Deuteronomy 6:5 Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:35-40).

In Genesis 1:3 when God said, “Let there be light,” the “light” was not natural light, but the Divine utterance, the “commanded emanation of light from the light of Torah,”[7] which also points to the coming of the Messiah, the “Light” to the world in the End of Times.

Franz Rosenzweig considered Jewish history as the history of the Remnant of Israel:

From Israel to the Messiah, from the people that stood on Sinai to the day when the Temple in Jerusalem ‘shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,’ [Isaiah 56:7] a concept can be traced that originated with the prophets and has been governing our inner history ever since: the concept of the remnant. The remnant of Israel, of those who remained faithful, of the true people within the people, guarantees at every moment that there is a bridge between the two poles.  Though in all other instances Jewish consciousness may fluctuate wildly between the two poles of life established in the first inner turning of the pagan man into man open to and resolved upon revelation, the pole of the inner-most experience of divine love and that of a devoted activation of love in holy living, the idea of the remnant represents both together: acceptance of the ‘yoke of the commandments’ and acceptance of the ‘yoke of the kingdom of God.’[8]

Balaam spoke about seeing Jacob’s glory and his greatness at a later time.  I see it, but not now; I view it, but it is not near. Numbers 24:17.   Balaam further spoke that Jacob’s fortunes will rise and the Messiah shall come and rule from sea to sea and there shall be no remnant of the house of Esau, all the children of Seth, all of the nations, shall be conquered for Israel and the remnant of the city of Edom, Rome, shall be destroyed.

Martin M. van Brauman

Politicians and the major media outlets are paralyzed by fear to raise the issue of Muslim extremism in their countries.  They suffer from a form of the Stockholm Syndrome, which corrodes a country’s democracy with mob rule or the threat of mob rule prevailing over the rule of law.  The Syndrome represents the irrational empathy of a frightened hostage for his captor and his subservient gratitude for not being further degraded. In 1973, a bank robbery situation with hostages in Stockholm created the concept of victims bonding with their violent abusers, even as their personal freedoms are denied. Political Correctness is the religion of the Western politicians and the major media outlets today. Political Correctness is the buying into the Palestinian lies of denying the right for Israel and the Jewish people to exit in the world for fear of violent attacks by Muslim terrorists.

For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me [Israel and the Jewish people], they have spoken to me the language of falsehood.  And with words of hatred they have encircled me, and attacked me without cause. Psalms 109:2-3.

Over the last 2,000 years of persecution and massacres, the European powers drove Jews from one European area or country to another, dictating where Jews could live or not exist in Europe.  Still, the European powers, the EU, has the audacity to dictate where in the ancient homeland of Israel Jews can live by threats of economic and other sanctions in Judea, Samaria, the Golan and parts of even Jerusalem.

Over the last several years, there has been a mass exodus of millions of Christians in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Mali and even European Bosnia is experiencing Christian discrimination.  The remaining Jews, who survived the Muslim pogroms, were long ago driven out of these countries.  Mainline church organizations refuse to hold Muslim religious leaders accountable for preaching hatred and genocide against Christians and Jews, but only offer meaningless prattle.  Meanwhile, the church continues down the road of moral irrelevance, as Christians all over the Muslim world are being persecuted like the Jews before them.

I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. Yet you have still a few persons in Sardis [a wealthy city and an immoral congregation] who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life; I will confess your name before my Father and before his angels. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. Revelations 3:1-6.

Wherever Muslims are in power or dominate an area, churches are outlawed, burned and bombed and Bibles and religious objects are destroyed.  Freedom of speech to speak clearly about Christianity or critically of Islam is met with the death sentence.

Thus said the Lord: Behold, I am returning the captivity of the tents of Jacob [the Jewish people] and I will have mercy on his abodes, and the City [Jerusalem] will be built upon its hill, and the Palace will sit in its proper place [the Temple] . . . I will multiply them, and they will not be diminished . . . and I shall deal with all his oppressors . . . You will be a people unto Me, and I will be a God unto you. Jeremiah 30:18-21.

The Muslims to deny any legitimacy of the Land of Israel to the Jewish people must destroy the Bible and especially the first five books, the Torah.  The first quarter of the Torah provides the legal, moral and theological validation for Jewish ownership of Eretz Yisrael.  Christian New Testament faith is built upon the Torah and the prophets.  Muslims cannot kill the Bible, but they can kill the Jews who brought the Word of God into the world.  The Bible is not about religion, but about relationship to God.  Biblical faith in God is more than knowing He exists, but knowing God’s faithfulness and His Truth and that Judgment is coming.

Then I saw heaven opened, (Ezek. 1:1) and there was a white horse (Zech. 1:8) and the One Who sits on it, called Faithful and True, and He judges in righteousness (Isa. 11:4, Ps. 96:13) and He makes war.  And His eyes are like a flame of fire, (Dan. 10:6) and upon His head many crowns.  He has a name written which no one knows except Himself, and is clothed in a garment dyed in blood, (Gen. 49:11, Isa. 63:1-3) and His name has been called the Word of God.  And the troops in heaven were following Him on white horses, being clothed in pure fine white linen. And a large sharp sword was going out of His mouth, (Isa. 49:2) so that with it He could slaughter the heathens, and He will shepherd them with an iron rod, (Ps. 2:9) and He treads the wine press (Isa. 63:3, Jl. 3:13, Lam. 1:15) of the wine of the burning wrath of the God of Hosts. Revelation 19:11-15.

Martin M. van Brauman 

In those days it will happen that ten men, of all the [different] languages of the nations, will take hold, they will take hold of the corner of the garment of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you!’ Zechariah 8:23.

The nation of Israel has not been brought into existence as an end itself, but as a means to an end – the salvation of the world.  Jesus said that “salvation is of the Jews.” John 4:22.  The Jewish people are the means by which God delivers His redemptive gift to the world.  Jesus came to “confirm the promises made to the fathers (Patriarchs)” Romans 15:8 and that Jesus came so “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles.” Galatians 3:14.

Scriptures affirm that Israel will exist forever as a nation before God and He will not cut her off because of all that she has done. Jeremiah 31:35-37; Romans 11:25-27.  The Abrahamic Covenant is affirmed by Romans 3:3-4; 11:11, 29.

Christians can trust God and His promises because He is completely faithful to His promises made in the Abrahamic Covenant. Hebrews 6:13-20.  Since God is hidden in the world, the continued existence of the Jewish people testifies to the world of God’s existence. God is known to the world through the Jewish people and the building of a Jewish society in Israel and affirming Jewish identity testify to the existence of God. Judaism means bearing witness to God.

The Jewish historic nation dedicated to the Torah is the immortal nation of the Covenant.  As the individual participates in the study of Torah, the individual participates in eternity.  At Mount Sinai, God said to Moses So shall you say to the Children of Israel, you have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. Exodus 20:19.  The entire Jewish nation received a direct revelation from God.

Has a people ever heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire as you have heard, and survived? Deuteronomy 4:33.

All Jews ever born stood at Sinai for their souls were there when revelation took place and God revealed Himself and Spoke to all Israel. Exodus 19. All Jews saw sounds and the fire and accepted and today stand at Sinai again twice daily repeating the ancient vow of their ancestors, the Shema.

Hear; O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your possessions. Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

The Shema acknowledges acceptance of God’s sovereignty and acceptance of the responsibility for living according to God’s commands. Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do! Exodus 19:8.  When the Pharisees asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Law, from the Shema Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Matthew 22:35-40.

Today, anti-Semitic NGO campaigns have revived ancient theological hatreds, as reflected by the activities of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Church of Scotland, mainline church organizations in general, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movements (“BDS”) and others. Such hatred directed at Jews and the Jewish state is accepted by the world, which would be unthinkable directed at any other racial, ethnic, or religious community.  These groups employ a combination of historic anti-Semitism and double standards, targeting Israel and Jewish existence.

The United Nations and other human rights organizations should begin living up to their principles and properly place Muslim anti-Semitism on the human rights agenda. These groups and especially the BDS movements are about Israel’s destruction, and not about any negotiated peace with the Arabs.

The drivel coming from these groups and especially the BDS movements are based upon lies and they survive on lies in the spirit of Dr. Joseph Goebbels.  For 2,000 years people have been persecuted and killed for being Jewish, along with the tradition of the world ignoring, condoning, or justifying its perpetrators. So what is new!

Anti-Israel is a transgression against God. I will bless those who bless you (Abraham), and him who curses you I will curse; and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you. Genesis 12:3.

Martin M. van Brauman

We delude ourselves in thinking that the world has achieved an intrinsic goodness of the human spirit, moral maturity, and social progress and has learned the valuable lessons of the Holocaust, but we still witness ideological hatred through war, revolution, famine, repression and genocide in this world.  The ideological forces of the world have not ignored the Holocaust, but have used it as a guidepost to dehumanize their enemy in the name of “religion,” or an “ism.”  The Holocaust has become the blueprint for the targeted destruction of an entire people and its culture through demonization, dehumanization and delegitimization.

However, this hatred has existed since the Jewish people brought the Word of God into the world at Mount Sinai with His commandments for man’s relationship to God and man’s relationship to his fellow man.  At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people accepted the yoke of God’s sovereignty and accepted the yoke of the responsibility for living according to God’s commandments.  The Jewish historic nation dedicated to the Word of God is the immortal nation of the Covenant.  Twice daily the Jewish people stand again at Sinai repeating the ancient vow of their ancestors with the Shema, the acceptance of God’s sovereignty and commands.  The central teaching of Judaism is the redemption of man, as witnessed by the survival of the Covenant between the Jewish people and God, and the movement to a messianic end times.

The ancient anti-Semitism remains today as when Haman said to King Ahasuerus:

‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm.  Their laws are different from every other people’s and they do not observe the king’s laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them.  If it pleases the king, let it be recorded that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand silver talents into the hands of those who perform the duties, for deposit in the king’s treasuries.’  So the king removed his signet ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, enemy of the Jews. Then the king said to Haman,’ The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with as you see fit.’ Esther 3:8-11.

The petroleum wealth of the Muslim world has paid the silver talents into the hands of foreign governments, world NGOs and mainline church organizations to be blinded and to participate in the raging Muslim anti-Semitism that is demonizing and dehumanizing the Jewish people and delegitimizing the State of Israel.  The sinister nature of Islamic anti-Semitism is confronting Western liberalism, which through its misguided multiculturalism is ignoring or minimizing the growing threat to Western civilization and culture and destroying the future of true democracy around the world.  No anti-Semitic government or political movement has ever been sensible or tolerant and yet Western liberalism continues to ignore, minimize, or make excuses for Muslim Holocaust behavior.

Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand  . . . You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing, but never perceiving.  For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Matthew 13:13-14.

Martin M. van Brauman

The Scriptures are an open-ended, intellectual search for truth, righteousness and justice concerning the human condition and for dialogue with God.  Jewish ethics and Divine truth have permeated Western thought for over 2,000 years through Christianity.  For the Jewish people, the purpose of the history of Israel in the Scriptures is to build a nation in exile and to maintain its peoplehood and repeatedly bringing it back to the Land after each exile to demonstrate redemption.  The mission of the Jewish people is to sanctify the Name of God in the world and to spread it throughout humanity.  The peoples [nations] will acknowledge You, O God; the people [nations] will acknowledge You – all of them. Psalms 67:4.

During the years of exile, the Jewish nationhood and resistance to assimilation into foreign cultures and foreign gods were maintained because the Jewish people had faith in the redemption back to the Land and that through them God would bless all the families of the earth.  The Scriptures command You shall walk in His Ways. Deuteronomy 28:9.  God said of Abraham I have loved him because he will instruct his children and his household after him that they keep the way of God, to do righteousness and justice. Genesis 18:19.

The recognition of Israel by the United Nations, followed by the victories of the War of Independence in 1948, the 1967 War and the 1973 War, was God knocking at the door of the world and inviting Israel to enter into Redemption.  Behold, I am with you; I will guard you wherever you go, and I will return you to this soil; for I will not forsake you . .  Genesis 28:15.

The radical “intellectual” left find it intolerable the success of Israel as a thriving Western-style democracy and high-tech economy in an ocean of brutal Arab dictatorships that produce tyrants, regression, ethnic conflicts, religious hatred and genocide.  The radical left cannot tolerate the Jews becoming the sovereign masters of their own fate and Jewish national self-determination after Jewish exile for 2,000 years of powerlessness.

. . . although they see, they do not see, and although they hear, they do not hear, and they do not understand . . . Matthew 13:13.

God gave the Jewish people three promises: (1) the seed of Abraham will never disappear, (2) the Jews will eventually return to Israel (Leviticus 26:42, 44, 45) and (3) all of the nations of the world will ultimately learn from the Jews the ideal of ethical monotheism and world peace (Isaiah 2, Micah 4).

Martin M. van Brauman

In March of 2008, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks wrote these words to a dedication for a series of songs about Israel as part of the Front Page publication by the Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, Israel.  I want to share Rabbi Sacks’ great words for they are inspiring words for me and are worth repeating to a more general audience.

Israel is the Jewish home of hope, the place where our people were born in the age of Abraham and where, after the longest exile ever endured by a people, it was reborn in our time.

 Proclaiming the State, on 14 May 1948, 5 Iyar 5708, David Ben Gurion said: ‘The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. Exiled from the Land of Israel the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom.’

 We pray for it still, for there has hardly been a day in sixty years when the people of Israel have not lived without war or the fear of war, terror or the fear of terror.

 Israel, brought into being three years after the Jewish people stood eyeball to eyeball with the angel of death during the Holocaust, is the Jewish people’s collective affirmation of life. Its existence and achievements are living testimony to one of Judaism’s greatest message to humankind: the principled defeat of tragedy by the power of hope.

 And though Israel was built by human hands, it is impossible not to sense beneath its history, the hand of heaven. One sentence reverberated in my mind throughout this project, a line from Hallel: ‘This is the Lord’s doing. It is wondrous in our eyes.’