Jim Denison is the founder and CEO of the Denison Forum, a nonprofit Christian media organization that comments on current issues through a biblical lens. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of BCNN1.
Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players in basketball history, died yesterday in a helicopter crash along with his thirteen-year-old daughter Gianna.
Bryant played twenty seasons for the Los Angeles Lakers, winning five NBA titles. He was forty-one years old. For more, see my website article, “The death of Kobe Bryant and the urgency of legacy.”
As the sports world follows this terrible tragedy, the world’s attention is focused on another tragedy of global significance.
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The United Nations General Assembly designated January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as this annual day of commemoration.
Today is the seventy-fifth anniversary of that liberation. More than 1.1 million men, women, and children lost their lives at Auschwitz-Birkenau. However, this was just one of more than forty-four thousand incarceration sites operated by the Third Reich.
The Jewish people comprise only 0.2 percent of the global population. Despite their tiny demographic size, they have been the victims of systemic persecution and oppression for millennia, beginning with their enslavement in Egypt (Exodus 1:12-15) and continuing today.
The UN urged every member state not only to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism, but also to develop educational programs to prevent future genocides.
In that context, I’d like to ask today: Why do so many people hate the Jews? Let’s consider three factors.
In Genesis 26, Isaac is in conflict with the Philistines. The heart of the dispute was that “he had possessions of flocks and herds and many servants, so that the Philistines envied him” (v. 14). As a result, they stopped his water wells, threatening his future, and urged him to abandon land he had cultivated (vv. 15–16).
From then to today, jealousy of Jewish achievements has been a tragic factor in anti-Semitism.
The Jews’ passion for literacy, centered in their love for the Torah and commitment to teach it to their children (Deuteronomy 6:4-7), made them unique across centuries when literacy was in decline and positioned them for success in business and commerce. And their commitments to family and to family traditions and values have enabled them to survive and thrive in the most challenging of times and places.
Today, 44 percent of Jewish households in America have an income exceeding $100,000. This is 50 percent higher than the US average. Though Jews constitute only 2.1 percent of America’s population, they comprise 37 percent of our Nobel laureates.
Jealousy contributes to a second factor: fear of Jewish uniqueness and success.
Source: Baptist Press
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