Why should we have a "Holocaust Remembrance Day?"

[Ben Avraham]

Holocaust Remembrance Day. Why?

Last week, From April 26 to 27, The world celebrated "Yom HaShoah" (Holocaust Remembrance Day) People celebrated the remembrance of the Holocaust, commonly known as "Shoah". It was (and still is) a time to remember with sadness the time that more than 6,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered without mercy by the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler between the years 1933 and 1945.

We might ask what is 6,000,000 like? Imagine the state of Massachusetts or the country of El Salvador void of people? You walk from North to South, from East to West without finding one living soul. That is what a loss of 6,000,000 people would be like. Both places have a population of a bit over that, but not more than 7,000,000.

January 30, 1933, was when Adolf Hitler came to power and already had in his mind to wipe out a certain unwanted and inferior "race" called the "Jews" Interesting to note that there is only "one race" in this world which God created, and that race is the "human race". Within the "human race" there are many, many "people groups" with different physical characteristics like skin color, eye, and nose shapes, language, and social-religious customs, yet still only "one race". May 8th, 1945 we can say was when the Holocaust ended when the allied forces won the war against Nazi Germany and liberated the death camps, and rescued the remaining occupants of those camps.

Yet we need to also remember that the Holocaust was not the first time violence had played a cruel role against the "Chosen People." The Inquisition of Europe also took millions of innocent lives, not only Jewish but anyone opposed to the Catholic Church between the years 1184 and 1834. So, how many millions of innocent lives were lost during these times? only God knows for sure the exact number. He maintains an accurate record and will have "payback" during the Great White Throne Judgment of the future.

Some may ask; "But why the Jewish people?" Why did God allow this to happen to His chosen people? There is not a simple answer. We might have several answers, but how accurate would those answers be? Whatever the answers, they might stir up hornet nests and high winds with rough seas.

One very wrong answer is; "The Jews were punished for crucifying Jesus on the cross!" The reason that this is very wrong is that it was the plan of the Father since the beginning of the world. When Adam sinned, the Creator would have to send a "Second Adam" to pay the price of sin. The only way would be to send a "Second Adam" who would be sinless and perfect. This could only be "God in the flesh" or the "Son of God". He would be the "Lamb of God" who would take away the sin of the world. He would bring "Yeshuah" (Salvation) to the whole world who would trust in His one-time-only sacrifice.

Yeshua/Jesus said that "No man takes my life, I give it up freely" (John 10:18) So, no one "Killed Jesus" really. However, we can look at this in the following way; A group of religious Jewish leaders brought false accusations against Yeshua, they brought him to the Roman leaders. The Roman soldiers drove the nails into his hands and feet, yet our SINS held him fast to the cross. So, why have the Jews suffered so much since then? if this was part of the plan of God?

The people cried out when Pilate wished to set Yeshua free, "Let his blood be upon us and on our children" (Matt 27:25). We can take this in two ways. Some believe that this statement brought not so much punishment and vengeance, as it brought reconciliation. The blood of Yeshua brought reconciliation, yes, to all who would believe. Yet the shed blood of innocent Abel asked for vengeance.

The other belief is that because of rejection and unbelief of Yeshua as chosen Messiah, the departing of the Way of the Torah, of the Truth, and following of ways of the world and sin, this would bring perilous times and "times of trouble" upon the chosen people. A blessed people can not be cursed unless those same people bring a curse upon themselves. Could that be a meaning of Matt 27:25?

Satan wanted so much for the Jewish people to be extinguished so that Messiah Yeshua could not be born. Yet he failed, because Yeshua came into the world to pay the price of sin, yet he still instigates the lost world to attack the people of God in many ways. There will come a day when ALL followers of our One True God will suffer persecution. Will we be ready? to endure?

We must also understand that there is always a remnant of believers even among the Jewish People, those who accept and embrace Yeshua as Messiah and LORD. Elijah was not alone, God told him that there were still 7000 people who were still faithful to Him, and had not bowed the knee to Ba'al.

So, at this time, we should lift up our voices to the KING of kings and LORD of Lords and say: "Never Again should this happen" That there should never again be such a Holocaust against God's chosen people, nor against "any" people group.


Shalom

Ben Avraham

 

[Northman]

The Inquisition of Europe also took millions of innocent lives, not only Jewish but anyone opposed to the Catholic Church between the years 1184 and 1834.

How do you expect someone to take anything in the post seriously when lies like this get dropped?

 

[andy pandy]

As I understand the Jewish way of life, they are noted for having remembrance days for many things i.e. the Passover to remember their deliverance from Egypt. That being the case, it would be logical for them to have a Holocaust Remembrance Day as their treatment by Hitler was abominable, never to be forgotten.

 

[D-D-W]

How do you expect someone to take anything in the post seriously when lies like this get dropped?

The Inquisition was a lie?

 

[Vinny37]

Why do we have any memorial days? Reminders can be helpful, besides being ways of expressing solidarity. Why Holocaust Day? In a powerful and poignant way, it reminds us of mindsets like Hitler’s, and of what can happen when good people don’t speak loudly enough and in time enough. (Would Ukraine have happened if we had listened a bit more to Putin and a bit less to Velensky?) Hitler’s madness extended of course beyond the Jewish Question. He welcomed evolution but not the imago dei, and focused on a certain part of Darwin’s idea of the fittest, as well as Nietzsche. But it can also remind us of sinfully subjugating others—Germany was under the heel, so willing to heed Hitler as saviour.

I’d deny that ethno-Jews are God’s people. I do not believe that any ethnicity is more (or less) sacred than any other. Sadly, historic suppression of them as an insular people, had squeezed them into specialising in finance, which hacked off Hitler as he reflected on Germany’s finances. Did he think himself a Robin Hood?

Hysterical or historical? Some put Inquisition deaths at more like 3,000—for 1550–1800—and I frankly doubt the ‘millions’ idea: I’ve seen hyper-inflation concerning anti-witchcraft purges. We could debate the figures, but surely the wrongness is more in the killings per se than in the amounts. Any killing because of the victim's race or religion, is wrong per se. I consider Canaan to have been a different rule, not an exception to this rule.

I doubt the payback idea, incidentally, whether at the Great White Throne, or because geo-Jerusalem had sided against messiah: Galilee I think wasn’t in the frame. (Incidentally, for differentiating the ethno-Jewish people from their leadership, the NLT is the one to beat.) Mt.27:25 was, IMO, neither a blessing nor a curse, simply a folly as risible to God as it should be (but hasn’t always been) to us, and some otherwise good and powerful Christian leaders have fallen for it big time.

There is of course no one ‘true’ god (if philosophy trumps poetry), though there is one who is truly God. We don’t have a choice of deities, merely of deity or not.

Whether or not by [Yeshua as Messiah and LORD] you mean that Yeshua is Yahweh (LORD), I don’t know. I would argue that Jesus is the permanent temporal mode of the uncreated eternal second person of deity, thus denying any simplistic Jesus-is-God, or Yeshua-is-Yahweh, statement. Yahweh is eternal; there was a time when Yeshua was not.

Shalom

 

[D-D-W]

I’d deny that ethno-Jews are God’s people.

Well, you have a lot of scripture to get thru and discredit to justify that point.

 

[Northman]

The Inquisition was a lie?

The millions part is.

 

[T. E. Smith]

The Inquisition was a lie?

According to historian Brian P. Levack, around 150,000 people were persecuted, but only 3,000-5,000 executed.

If we estimate it to be 4,000, and if we take Ben Avraham's "millions" as low as possible and say 2 million (he must mean at least two million, since he used the plural), then 4,000 makes up only 0.2% of 2 million. In other words, he inflated his numbers at least 50,000 times.

If Ben Avraham perhaps meant something more like 4 million, then 4,000 makes up only 0.1% of 4 million. Thus, 4 million would be an inflation of 100,000 times.

So yeah, that's a little inaccurate.

 

[D-D-W]

According to historian Brian P. Levack, around 150,000 people were persecuted, but only 3,000-5,000 executed.

I have seen that figure estimate myself. But it was only for the SPANISH inquisition; and several years worth of data was missing. (lost or never kept records) Most other Catholic European countries also had their own inquisitions and I have never heard any estimates of those.

And even for the Spanish I., the figures only go into the 1800s and it was still on-going past WW1 in South America.

 

[T. E. Smith]

The Jewish term for the Holocaust is the Shoah. הַשׁוֹאָה

"the catastrophe"

I have seen that figure estimate myself. But it was only for the SPANISH inquisition; and several years worth of data was missing. (lost or never kept records) Most other Catholic European countries also had their own inquisitions and I have never heard any estimates of those.

And even for the Spanish I., the figures only go into the 1800s and it was still on-going past WW1 in South America.

William Monter, historian, estimated there were 1000 executions between 1530 and 1630 and 250 between 1630 and 1730. Even granting the other inquisitions, there's no way the other inquisitions and any missing data can account for an inflation of 50,000 times. Absolutely no way. And the Spanish Inquisition is most famous 'cause it's the largest, and it was only 3,000-5,000 executions.

 

[jasonc]

Shoah ,great suffering .it's not the only one

Tish ma bav also a shoah .

 

[D-D-W]

Shoah ,great suffering .it's not the only one
Tish ma bav also a shoah .

Tisha b'av. More like a repeated string of catastrophes spanning more than a millennium. From the destruction of the first temple to the start of WW1.

 

[jasonc]

Tisha b'av. More like a repeated string of catastrophes spanning more than a millennium. From the destruction of the first temple to the start of WW1.

Third temple as zerubabel temple was razed and herods temple built over it .

I hate WW1,history

 

[jasonc]

The Balfour declaration,the great white lie ,Palestine territory .that started after WW1 when what was left of the ottoman empire was given to the u.k. and Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and isreal came out of that.

 

[Vinny37]

Well, you have a lot of scripture to get thru and discredit to justify that point.

True D-D-W. I've gone thru a lot of Scripture without discrediting any (only ethno-Zionist interpretations!), in my 90,000+ word, Israel's Gone Global.

 

[daninthelionsden]

Well, you have a lot of scripture to get thru and discredit to justify that point.

The Jews are indeed God's people and suffer the seething jealousy driven hatred of the world because of it. It is us mongrel mutts who are the adopted and grafted in. We should know our place with humility and eternal gratitude. If Christ had laid Himself down to be sacrificed by any other religion in any other nation, our salvation would be null and void.

 

[Vinny37]

The Jews are indeed God's people and suffer the seething jealousy driven hatred of the world because of it. It is us mongrel mutts who are the adopted and grafted in. We should know our place with humility and eternal gratitude. If Christ had laid Himself down to be sacrificed by any other religion in any other nation, our salvation would be null and void.

Well, my take on Rm.11 is a bit too much for this thread in time and depth, but briefly it sees how rabbinic talk limited the term ‘all Israel’ to some Israelites/Jews, and that Paul’s emphasis was not on the branches but on the root/core (ριζα). I draw more a picture of the ethnic people’s covenant (Level 2) annulled (as Yahweh the suzerain had every right to do) and so that people’s spiritual status levelled down to the common level (Level 1; Gal.3:24-5 = spiritually Hagar—all begin as ‘mongrel mutts’ (your term)), while Yahweh continued the root/core plan (Israel) through Yeshua (himself Israel), and Paul underlining that although without feet in the true kingdom (Nicodemus had never been in that kingdom: Level 3), yet by travelling the way he had entered (spiritual birth: Jhn.3:3), all Israel (the remnant—an interactive category of chosen/choosing as Paul had been) would be saved into Christianity. Others of ethnic-Israel/Judah would be excluded; hardened by God’s design, even as ethnic Gentiles had been hardened previously by his design. Such hardening was for a purpose, but did/does not prevent any from ultimate salvation (Level 4).

To postulate that messiah ‘could’ have chosen a different scenario, but that had he done so his choice would have been ineffective, offers a Christology I don’t think I’d buy, BTW.

 

[daninthelionsden]

Well, my take on Rm.11 is a bit too much for this thread in time and depth, but briefly it sees how rabbinic talk limited the term ‘all Israel’ to some Israelites/Jews, and that Paul’s emphasis was not on the branches but on the root/core (ριζα). I draw more a picture of the ethnic people’s covenant (Level 2) annulled (as Yahweh the suzerain had every right to do) and so that people’s spiritual status levelled down to the common level (Level 1; Gal.3:24-5 = spiritually Hagar—all begin as ‘mongrel mutts’ (your term)), while Yahweh continued the root/core plan (Israel) through Yeshua (himself Israel), and Paul underlining that although without feet in the true kingdom (Nicodemus had never been in that kingdom: Level 3), yet by travelling the way he had entered (spiritual birth: Jhn.3:3), all Israel (the remnant—an interactive category of chosen/choosing as Paul had been) would be saved into Christianity. Others of ethnic-Israel/Judah would be excluded; hardened by God’s design, even as ethnic Gentiles had been hardened previously by his design. Such hardening was for a purpose, but did/does not prevent any from ultimate salvation (Level 4).

To postulate that messiah ‘could’ have chosen a different scenario, but that had he done so his choice would have been ineffective, offers a Christology I don’t think I’d buy, BTW.

Christ is the Word and the Word prophesized His own sacrifice at the hands of the Jews. Any other way (nation, religion, civilization) would be null and void concerning our salvation. The spiritually immature blame the Jews for His death, but this was the plan of God to open the Kingdom to all mankind. The Jews are the people of God and the Temple worship was the access point to the Kingdom. There is no Replacement Theology concerning Jews. There is only the replacement of access limitations of the Temple.

 

[Vinny37]

Christ is the Word and the Word prophesized His own sacrifice at the hands of the Jews. Any other way (nation, religion, civilization) would be null and void concerning our salvation. The spiritually immature blame the Jews for His death, but this was the plan of God to open the Kingdom to all mankind. The Jews are the people of God and the Temple worship was the access point to the Kingdom. There is no Replacement Theology concerning Jews. There is only the replacement of access limitations of the Temple.

We shall disagree with quite a number of points, here. Even “Christ is the Word” I would dispute. Eg I’d suggest that either [the word (logos) incarnated is Christ] or [Christ is the Word incarnated] to keep noncarnationalism (Jhn.1:1) and incarnationalism (Jhn.1:14) as distinct circles, the latter within the former. Again, I would differentiate between ethnic Jews and spiritual Jews (q.v. ‘Galatians’). The former can be in the latter camp, even as two overlapping circle have an intersection. John spoke of αληθινος/alēthinos (like Matthew’s fulfilment motif), that the physical temple wasn’t false, but wasn’t the ‘true/genuine/prophesied’ temple either (Jhn.2). Thus Jesus was Israel (Stage 3) to Israel (Stage 2), and the church is now True Israel (Stage 4): Ac.13:47. (In my reckoning, Jacob/Israel was Stage 1, BTW.)

The terms ‘Jew/Israel’ are critical, IMO. Some folk even assert that Moses was a Jew! Superficially we could agree that true Jews are the people of God, but you’d define ‘true’ by ethnicity (ISV: Gal.6:16), and I as spiritually/prophetically (NLT: Gal.6:16).

I agree your past tense re. the ethnic temple, although I’d look to tease out more from ‘access point’. Sinai was something born into (entrance point). Thus Nicodemus, knowing that he was born into God’s kingdom, found Yeshua puzzling in speaking about a different entrance point. The explanation is that Jesus proleptically spoke of a different entrance point to a different kingdom (Level 3 began by the cross), in which we access the father by the spirit (Eph.2:18). At the Sinai level, as kingdom members accessing Yahweh, the Levitical temple indeed played a big part, though the synagogue system tried to compensate for times when the temple was inaccessible. The psalms show that personal access was always possible, even while shepherding sheep. (BTW, with John Sanders I’d moreover argue that the ethnic Goyim (spiritually pagans) were unable to access God as Yahweh but able to access God as God.) Anyway, we might agree that under Sinai, its temple “was an access point within the kingdom”.

On your concluding assertions, I have previously sketched out my position with some reasoning, I think. Brought up under Dispensationalism, I’ve found that about-facing can take reflective decades, not just a forum discussion, and that our positions can be, like an inheritance, difficult for other than an Esau to toss away for a different pot of message—too mush emotional investment. I accept that ‘reflective decades’ can sustain truth, lead to truth, or lead from truth: it’s not magic but it is human. As the Bereans (not all believed), let us be careful to check for ourselves—even if it takes a long lifetime. As Socrates, let us follow the evidence.

 

[miamited]

One very wrong answer is; "The Jews were punished for crucifying Jesus on the cross!" The reason that this is very wrong is that it was the plan of the Father since the beginning of the world.

Hi Ben Avraham

I agree with you that God didn't punish His people for carrying out their assigned task. Yes, Jesus had to die for the sins of mankind and God had always intended to use His people to carry out that necessary task.

However, as to why Israel has been so tormented over the years by many of the nations and peoples of the earth, I believe that is twofold. In the middle east there is torment because of the promise of God that the people of the lost brother would always be at odds with the people of the chosen brother. Secondly, the torment brought on the Jewish people by the rest of the world is fulfillment of God's law.

Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul. (Deuteronomy 28:64-65)

But if in spite of all this you do not obey Me, but continue to walk in hostility toward Me, then I will walk in fury against you, and I, even I, will punish you sevenfold for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless remains of your idols; and My soul will despise you. (Leviticus 26:27)

God bless,
Ted