Robert Nicholson
American Christians must organize in defense of their Jewish neighbors. If not now, when? A massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Another in Poway, Calif. A shootout at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City. Ten anti-Semitic attacks just last week, topped off by Saturday night’s grisly machete attack in Monsey.
Anti-Semitism is a reliable bellwether of the moral health of a nation, and its spread signals something is very wrong, indeed. America’s Christian majority needs to nip it in the bud.
Yet even as everyone talks about fighting anti-Semitism, it isn’t clear that anyone knows how. Most of the discussion tends toward superficial clichés.
To fight anti-Semitism, we need to understand its spiritual sources. This isn’t just any old hatred or racism. It is a grand anti-myth that turns Jewish chosenness on its head and assigns to the people of Israel responsibility for all the world’s ills.
Anti-Semitism is a perversion of Christianity. Portraying the Jews as uniquely sinful, this upside-down gospel has spurred frequent outbursts of anti-Semitic violence in Christian and post-Christian societies. For this reason, many Jews implicitly associate the Cross with pogroms and persecution.
Which is why America’s Christians must lead the way. Anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians, though different in nature from modern, racial anti-Semitism, nevertheless marred historic Christianity across millennia. With that bitter history in mind, American Christians today are best poised to combat anti-Semitism in both white and black society, on the left and right sides of the aisle. Only American Christians have the numbers.
The best response to anti-Semitism isn’t anti-anti-Semitism. It is philo-Semitism, love of the Jewish people. But a philo-Semitism of words will do nothing; it must be incarnated and turned to action.
Pastors and priests around the country should dedicate one sermon, just one homily, to explaining the tragic history of Jewish-Christian relations and expounding on a proper view of the Jewish people based on a careful reading of New Testament texts and church documents. Leaders with platforms on radio and television can do even more.
Every church should appoint a liaison to the local Jewish community whose job is to establish rapport and build friendships for no other purpose than to show solidarity. The message is simple: You aren’t alone.
But American Christians can go even further by resolving to protect — physically protect — local Jewish institutions and individuals. It is impossible to ensure the safety of every Jew at every moment, but the massive size of the American Christian community allows more than enough bandwidth to provide the comparatively minuscule Jewish population an extra layer of security.
An all-volunteer, grassroots neighborhood-watch network manned by Christians and deployed to stand guard at local Jewish synagogues and community centers, especially during periods of worship, would do more for Jewish-Christian relations than doctrinal debates ever could. It would showcase what Christian love means in action.
The idea sounds complicated, but it can start small. Even one Christian standing outside the door of a synagogue with cell phone in hand will send a message to people inside and outside that this community has friends. Christian veterans and off-duty police officers can turn a neighborhood-watch program into a coordinated system of neighborhood defense. In the process, valuable relationships will be formed that could lead to new and unexpected outcomes.
It is time to stop talking and start doing. I for one stand ready to act.
Robert Nicholson is president of the Philos Project, an organization that promotes serious Christian engagement with the Middle East.
