HOUSES OF ABRAHAM: SHELTER IN THE STORM

Jewish neighbors who sought shelter during the Holocaust were often met with indifference, hostility, extortion, and betrayal. As Jewish families were forced from their homes, they were vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, and murder. Very few Gentiles were willing to hide Jews in their homes, businesses, farms, and churches.

The majority of Catholic, Protestant, & Lutheran churches in the 1930s and 1940s supported the Nazi regime and persecution of the Jews. As a result, Jewish adults and their children were forced to find unlikely and confined places to hide, often running from Gentile neighbors who sought to expose them to the authorities.

After ghettos were liquidated, some Jews hid in forests and rural areas. Jew hunts, or Judenjagd, were organized or spontaneously initiated by Gentiles to hunt for Jews. Bounties were even offered for Jews, and orders to shoot Jews on sight were issued by the Nazis, especially in occupied Russia and Poland where many Jews were hiding.

When found, Jews were often murdered on the spot. Women, babies, and children were also slaughtered, sometimes by their own neighbors. Other Jews were extorted for money or possessions, or promised safety in Gentile homes, but then turned over to local authorities to be murdered after their “rescuers” received payment.

Gentile informants, both individuals and groups, collaborated with the Nazis. Gentiles turned in their Jewish neighbors, although the scope of this betrayal varied from community to community. Gentiles were often paid for turning in Jews, sometimes with rewards as measly as alcohol, a few pounds of sugar, or clothing.

Jewish families did their best to hide. Unfortunately, nearly all of Europe became a prison for Jews during the Holocaust. Although Jewish partisan groups and some Gentile homes and businesses provided shelter for Jews and their children, most Jews were helpless and vulnerable. Often, Gentiles were threatened with death if they helped Jews. Under the law, helping a Jew was illegal. The Golden Rule of the Shema and the New Testament Scriptures, love your neighbor as yourself, was turned upside down. Hating your Jewish neighbors became the twisted law of the land.

Many Jews had nowhere to hide, other than fleeing into forests and rural farms.  Sadly, there were few safe places offered to shelter them from the storm of Naziism.  Gestapo-planted informants also sought information about where Jews were hiding.  Being caught meant certain death in pits and gas chambers, or starvation in forced labor camps.  The only option for Jews was either immediate painful death by extermination, or slow painful death by slave labor.

Other Jewish adults and children were able to hide in confined and unusual places, such as in caves, sewers, chimneys, ovens, barrels, cabinets, cupboards, attics, cellars, closets, tunnels, and wells, as well as between double walls and other confined spaces. Jews also hid under floor boards, garbage cans, and animal stalls.

These creative hiding places were called “malinas,” a prewar term used for criminal hide outs.  In the case of Jews, however, this colloquial term was used to describe the many ingenious places Jews & Gentiles prepared to hide Jews.  Although these secret places were often undetected, children and adults who hid in malinas lived in constant fear of being found by the authorities. The confined spaces were often suffocating, dark, and uncomfortable. The occupants had to be quiet during the day to avoid detection.

Providing shelter to our Jewish neighbors, which is the focus of Houses of Abraham, is a Christian duty. The royal law of love includes providing shelter and hospitality. This is well documented throughout the Tanakh and the New Testament.  The prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 58:7:

Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the wanderer with shelter.

The New Testament divides humanity into sheep and goats. During the Holocaust, the true sheep of God were willing to risk their lives to provide for their Jewish neighbors, while the goats were unwilling to help. Goats maintained complicit silence, arrogant judgment, or hateful betrayal.

Another metaphor in the New Testament is tares and wheat.  The tares among the wheat look like followers of Jesus Christ, but inwardly they are religious hypocrites and ravenous wolves.  The wheat are God’s true followers who are evident by their righteous fruit.

In Genesis 18:1-8, Abraham hosted three strangers in his household. He treated these men as if they were members of his own family, demonstrating the Shema, his love for God, by loving foreigners with shelter and practical assistance.  Later, after the Jewish people were released from slavery in Egypt, God commanded them to treat strangers with justice, hospitality, and love.  Exodus 23:9 states:

You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

The same commands are found in the New Testament.  All of us are sojourners to some extent on planet earth.  But Jewish people have been sojourners on earth because of the “oldest hatred,” antisemitism.  Hebrews 13:1-2 reminds followers of Jesus Christ that practicing hospitality to strangers is an expression of holiness and love. Those who provide shelter and care to aliens are instructed to:

Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it.

In Matthew 25: 35-36, Jesus Christ makes it clear that Gentiles are to help the “least of these,” which some theologians believe refers to the Jewish people, although the application of this heavenly principle can certainly be applied to the entire human family:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Luke 10:27 repeats the Shema in Deuteronomy 6 verbatim, extending the love of God to our thoughts and neighbors:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your strength, and all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

Romans 13:8 and 10 reminds us to:

Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law…Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Love one another in deed and truth, as 1 John 3:17 commands:

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God remain in him?

During the Holocaust, very few Christians provided shelter, food, water, and protection to Jews. The unloving and hard-hearted response of many professing Christians was a testimony of hate and complicit silence.  What would we do in similar circumstances?  Will I ignore, marginalize, or despise my Jewish neighbors?  Will I stand with groups or authorities?  Will I follow laws that demand exclusion and hate?  Or will I open my home, business, church, and community to vulnerable strangers?   

Houses of Abraham is a movement of the Holy Spirit in America and across the world.  He is convicting the hearts of followers of Jesus Christ to love and serve the Jewish people, wherever they may be found.  It is not an organized group, movement, church, ministry, or plan, but a moving of the hearts of true believers guided by the wind of the Spirit of Truth.  Houses of Abraham is an expression of God’s love for the Jewish people and the purpose of His will-that His followers act faithfully and righteously toward our Jewish neighbors. 

In our present age of Jew hatred and antisemitism, it is essential for Christian believers to pray, prepare, and be positioned to serve in ways that would provide shelter and safety to our Jewish neighbors. Opening your home, business, church, and community to Jewish people is one way to serve.

Other ways to serve are listed below, although the Holy Spirit will guide each of us in our actions and reactions to the Jew hatred in the United States of America. During the Holocaust, the United States did far too little to help Europeans Jews who were trapped in the murderous storm of Naziism. In Europe, also, ordinary people, some of them Christians, helped Jews during the hour of great need.  What will your testimony be in this current age?

What if “never again” became “once again?”  Human beings do not learn from history because our human nature does not change.  We remain fallen beings who are selfish, indifferent, blaming, self-righteous, deceived, and hateful in our inner persons.  The future will look like the past if we do not upstand for Jews who are currently living in fear and hatred around the world.  Justice and mercy are what the Lord seeks, not empty words, religious acts, and cold hearts.

I have spent the last 4 years studying and writing about the Holocaust.  But I believe the word HaShoah is a more accurate and appropriate term to refer to the genocide of six million Jewish children and their parents.  I am appalled by the level Jew hatred in the United States. Jewish survivors of HaShoah have noted the ominous similarities between Europe in the 1930s, during the rise of Nazism, and the Jew hatred we are now seeing around the world.

Jew hatred has no place in a democratic society.  More importantly, it will never be promoted by those who are born again followers of Jesus Christ.  To do so is to renounce the instruction and salvation provided by Jesus Christ, the Jew of Jews.  God is separating the tares from the wheat by our own words and actions.  

God is testing the professing church in America, as well as individual believers.  He has warned us that He will tear out Gentile branches grafted into the Tree of Israel, whose Jewish descendants are the roots of Abraham and David.  Will you be one of the branches torn out?  Will your congregation be one of the branches torn out?  Dead branches will be pulled off and burned in the fire of Judgment on the Appointed day, the last day, the final day, that day, someday, one day soon.

Until the Lord returns, love your Jewish neighbors.  Love all your neighbors, near and far, as the Shema given by YHWH (YAHWEH) commands. There are many ways Gentiles can provide shelter to our Jewish neighbors, including, but not limited to, the following:

Read about the 3,000+ year history of the Jewish nation, Israel, & Jerusalem, Israel’s capital.
Read the Tanakh/Old Testament.
Study the Jewish roots & ancestry of Jesus Christ
Prepare safe spaces for Jews in your home, business, & church.
Support the Jewish people’s historical, ethnic, cultural, spiritual, Biblical, archeological, & legal right to their homeland, Israel.
Purchase products made in Israel.
Pray for the Jewish people/Israel.
Meet & provide hospitality to your Jewish neighbors.
Support a charity in Israel.
Learn about Jewish festivals & holidays.
Speak up against all antisemitism.
Upstand for God’s chosen people, the Jewish people.
Pray for Palestian’s & Muslims to stop hating their Jewish neighbors.
Pray for Israel to love their Palestinian and Muslim neighbors.
Study Jewish children in the Holocaust.
Study Sinti, Roma, & Slavic children in the Holocaust.
Write your Congressman/congresswoman & Senator about antisemitism.
Write or meet with your mayor about antisemitism.
Write or meet with your governor about antisemitism.
Attend a Jewish event to meet your Jewish neighbors.
Oppose antisemitic sociopolitical movements on the right & left of the political spectrum.
Plan a trip to Israel.
Visit a Holocaust museum.
Support a Jewish college organization.
Write to Deans of colleges & universities about antisemitism.
Write to businesses & corporations about antisemitism.
Donate your time to a Jewish organization.
Organize a pro-Israel/Jewish rally.
Talk to your pastor, priest, or reverend about antisemitism.
Preach a sermon about antisemitism & God’s Word.
Talk to a rabbi.
Never condone or tell Jewish “jokes” that are meant to demean or demonize your Jewish neighbors.
Follow antisemitism in the news.
Study Romans 9, 10, & 11 in the New Testament.
Pray for peace in the Middle East, especially in Israel, Gaza, & the West Bank.
Study the Jewish roots of the Christian faith.

It is time to upstand, to stand up for our Jewish neighbors.  I ask you to join us. Together, as Gentiles and followers of Christ Jesus, we can live out the Shema as Good Samaritans.