During the week covered by this review, we received 8 articles on the following subjects:
Political Issues
Christians in Israel
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes concerning Christians/Christianity
Jewish-Christian Relations
Political Issues
Haaretz, November 4, 2022
This was an interview with Kevin Francis Gray, an Irish artist, on the opening night of his exhibition at a Tel Aviv gallery. Gray spoke of his childhood in the seventies and eighties, as a Catholic boy in a small village in Northern Ireland, during “The Troubles” – the name given to the prolonged conflict between religious factions in Northern Ireland, in which the Catholic majority wanted to become a part of a “United Ireland,” and the Protestants wanted to remain a part of Great Britain. “The area where we lived was one of the most disturbed areas in Northern Ireland,” recalled Gray. “I was a scared child and a scared teenager. Every day something terrible happened at school because someone was Catholic or … Protestant. You couldn’t ride your bike through a certain road… [or] walk down the street after a certain hour… My mother taught me the words of the national anthem… so I wouldn’t get beaten up.” Gray’s connection to Israel started with his father, a construction worker who often worked in Israel, however, “the ties also exist to some extent on an ideological level,” stated Gray and explained that “the Catholic people of Northern Ireland identify with the Palestinian struggle for independence. I remember that in all the Catholic neighborhoods you could see the Palestinian flag hanging on the balconies of the houses alongside the Irish flag. The Protestants, on the other hand, hung the Israeli flags in their houses. It is largely like this to this day, and whenever there is a discussion on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both sides fight each other with the same fervor with which they defended their positions regarding Ireland.” When asked about the influence of BDS on his decision to come to Israel, Gray replied that he had never heard of BDS before.
Haaretz, November 7, 2022; Haaretz, November 8, 2022
These two articles discussed certain Republican candidates in the latest American gubernatorial elections, some of which were described as being “conspiracy theorists” who “spread racist theories and refuse to acknowledge the results of the 2020 elections.” The first article dealt solely with Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, who was “elected to the local senate in Pennsylvania in 2019 with a promise to restore the values of Christianity.” According to the article, Mastriano “denies the results of the 2020 elections, and relies on anti-Semitic votes,” and his movement, New Apostolic Restoration, which according to the article “mixes Christianity with American nationalism, is a magnet for the far-right in the USA; its members are convinced that prophecy was given to them to restore the values of Christianity in the USA”. For his campaign, Mastriano hired the founder of the far-right social media platform, Gab, who is known for his anti-Jewish video, in which he announced that, “this is a Christian nation, and you are two percent… we will not bend our knees before people who hate Jesus.” The second article mentioned several other Republican candidates who are associated with far-right movements and political controversies.
Ma’ariv, November 8, 2022
This article was an opinion piece regarding the current political atmosphere in the USA. The writer argued that ”since the Civil War between the South and the North, [the USA] has not been hit by social, cultural, political and economic earthquakes, including violent outbreaks, as in recent years. Voices are heard today that even warn of a new civil war.” The writer expressed concern for the American Jewish community, mentioning an article, “American Jews start to think the unthinkable: Leaving” written by Dana Milbank, an opinion columnist for The Washington Post. The writer paraphrased Milbank’s words, stating that “the Jews consider the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of Christian nationalism and the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel sentiments on the far-left a danger to their existence.”
Christians in Israel
Yediot Tel-Aviv, November 4, 2022; Yediot Ramat-Gan, November 4, 2022
Representatives of sixteen Christian communities from south Tel Aviv have come together to fight the local municipality, who, according to them, is deliberately causing them difficulties by way of huge fines, power cuts and legal charges, while delaying the process of providing building permits for their churches. The communities belong to an Evangelical Protestant movement. Many of its members came as migrant workers from Africa, and are now Israeli citizens, with sons and daughters who serve in the IDF. The Tel Aviv municipality denied the allegations, claiming that they are “vigilant in maintaining the freedom of religion” in the city and that they “recognize the importance of the various houses of worship that operate in its area.”
Israeli/Jewish Attitudes concerning Christians/Christianity
B’Sheva, November 3, 2022
This article complained at length about “the Christian Halloween” which is “celebrated … in many places around Israel… in schools and other municipal institutes.” According to the article “quite a few secular parents rebel against the education system that floods the children with holidays and information about Christianity, and completely lacks lessons on the traditions of the nation of Israel and on the Jewish holidays.” Roni Sassover, CEO of the Meirim social welfare organization, said in an interview that she was “surprised by the widespread celebration in the neighbourhood where she lives in North Tel Aviv, but what her eldest son told her amazed her even more. It turns out that at school… the teacher talked about how much fun it was to participate in the Halloween celebration and how they should partake in it. She also told them about a Christian couple who tried for years to get pregnant and failed, and only after they were baptized did they have a child. Indeed, conversion classes… this is very serious… these holidays must not be allowed.”
Jewish-Christian Relations
Ma’ariv, November 9, 2022
Eighty-four years after Kristallnacht, which symbolized a clear manifestation of anti-Semitism, an inauguration of a Torah scroll ceremony was held in a synagogue of Holocaust survivors in Herzliya, announced this article. The ceremony was the highlight of recent activities of Keren HaYesod organization, which raised the funds for the Torah scroll through crowdfunding. The money was successfully raised through many German donors, the most significant being the March of Life organization, many of whose members are descendants of German Wehrmacht soldiers and SS officers. The fundraising project attracted the attention of many Christian organizations, some of which even sent representatives to the ceremony in Herzliya.