During the week covered by this review, we received 5 articles on the following subjects:
Christian Sites
Anti-Missionary Activity
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes Towards Christians/Christianity
Christians and the Holocaust
Christian Sites
Zman Maale, November 14, 2019
Students majoring in tourism management at the Branco Weiss “Ofek” school in Maale Adumim travelled around the Sea of Galilee, visiting various Christian sites and churches. The purpose of the trip was to acquaint students with the life of Jesus, and to teach them about the importance of the sites to the Christian faith.
Anti-Missionary Activity
Yahadut BaSharon, November 13, 2019
Both Yad L’Achim and Or L’Achim have warned that missionaries identifying as Jehovah’s Witnesses were going from door to door in Netanya in an attempt to convert Jews. The missionaries comprised both foreigners and locals. The missionaries managed to join a Netanya WhatsApp group, to which they sent out missionary materials under such headings as “The End Times”.
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes Towards Christians/Christianity
Magazine Orot Akiva, November 19, 2019
This was an article that alleged a “spiritual battle” is taking place between Christians and Jews over the territory above David’s Tomb in the Old City of Jerusalem. The piece included an interview with Rabbi Yaakov Sevilla, who has for the past few years been active in protecting the tomb. Sevilla said he originally became interested in the tomb when another rabbi told him he would devote his life to Mount Zion, where the tomb is located. While spending his time there, Sevilla learned that the Israeli Government was planning to allow the Vatican to build a church over the site. Sevilla went on the air to oppose the plans, causing an uproar. In the interview, Sevilla said that Mount Zion is important to Christians because they believe it is the location to which Jesus will return. He claimed that Christians also believe God has made a new covenant with them. However, Sevilla argued, the fact that the people of Israel have returned to the land proves that the whole foundation of Christianity is false, and that Christianity is a form of “foreign worship”. As such, allowing for a church to be built on a holy Jewish site is a matter of desecration. Knesset Minister Miri Regev toured the area and established that only one Christian Mass a year would be allowed to be performed over the site. However, despite this, the site continues to be “overrun by Christians”, who are taken there by Israeli tour guides. On some days, said Sevilla, 10,000-15,000 Christian pilgrims arrive for a visit.
Christians and the Holocaust
Gimlaton, November 13, 2019; Haaretz, November 22, 2019
The first article was about Varian Fry, an American Protestant journalist who was sent to Berlin in 1935 to report about the Third Reich’s ban on non-Aryan participation in the military. While in Berlin, Fry saw Jews being beaten and treated poorly. He stayed throughout the war, and managed to smuggle 1,000 Jews out of occupied France, including such prominent Jews as Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt. In response to the American government tightening its immigration laws to prevent Jewish refugees from entering the United States, Fry lobbied for more lenient laws. In 1940, Fry travelled to Marseille, France, where in collaboration with the American Embassy, he provided 4,000 Jews with immigration papers. When he returned to the US, he was received with suspicion by the government, which was not interested in listening to his calls to relax immigration laws. Fry died in 1967, and was not recognized by Yad Vashem as a “Righteous Among the Nations” until after his death. Julie Orringer’s book, Lies That Tell the Truth, tells Fry’s story.
The second article was about Dutch Holocaust survivor, Max Leons, who pretended to be a Protestant, escaped to the country, and joined the Resistance organized by the son of a priest. There, Leons took on a largescale rescue of Jews. Leons and his peers convinced Dutch families to hide Jews, and convinced Jews to escape the city and hide in the countryside. After the war, Leons married one of the women he had rescued, and moved to Israel. He died in 1999.