The late Lord Rabbi Sacks said:
“Antisemitism is not a unitary phenomenon, a coherent belief or ideology. Jews have been hated because they were rich and because they were poor; because they were capitalists and because they were communists; because they believed in tradition and because they were rootless cosmopolitans; because they kept to themselves and because they penetrated everywhere. Antisemitism is not a belief but a virus. The human body has an immensely sophisticated immune system which develops defences against viruses. It is penetrated, however, because viruses mutate. Antisemitism mutates.”
It is important that we recognise the adaptation of antisemitism. Jew-hatred is evil whether it is spoken of by a tie-wearing politician running for mayor, or demonstrated by a pro-Palestinian thug targeting football fans. The two examples couldn’t seem more far-removed, but this is the antisemitism that Jews in the West face.
We must pray for Jews in New York – the city with the largest Jewish population in the world. The Jewish community is very concerned following the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York mayor. Mamdani wants to “globalise the Intifada’; he refuses to condemn Hamas; he supports the BDS movement; he wants to end Israel’s ‘occupation of Palestine’; and he rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Mamdani’s mayoral election is a threat to Jewish safety, and to America’s safety.
We must also pray for Jews in the United Kingdom. A Hamas-supporting, balaclava-clad anti-Israel protester was one of hundreds of protesters outside Aston Villa’s stadium in Birmingham on Thursday night. These were not football fans; they were violent thugs who support terrorism. It was good to see so many Aston Villa fans stand up to antisemitism. But this pro-Palestinian protester said something deeply worrying – and not just his expletives about ‘Jews’. He said he had been waiting years for Israelis to come to the country. Does he not realise that there are Israelis already here in the country? Does he know that he could be working alongside Jews, or rubbing shoulders with Jews in shops or in the street. This is the terrifying reality that these antisemites present. As Christians, we must stand with the Jewish people and fight antisemitism in every arena. We cannot allow Jew-hatred to win.
