HaRav Shmuel Elyiahu is Chief Rabbi of Tzfat.
Anti-Semitism in Our Time
This year, the words “in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us" receive a very special meaning. We are in a military campaign against Iran, which denies the existence of the State of Israel and has invested trillions of dollars to obtain an atomic bomb. It has also invested greatly in the production of thousands of surface-to-surface missiles at a high rate of production and fires them at the citizens of Israel. Iran creates proxies in the Middle East and supplies them with weapons systems and armaments. They spread false hopes amongst our enemies that there exists a real possibility of our destruction in the future, may their plans explode in their faces.
The cruel regime of Iran is not only an enemy of Israel. They have sent ballistic missiles and UAVs also to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Cyprus. Recently they launched a ballistic missile to Lebanon, which returned the Iranian ambassador. Every country that does not submit to them is a target for killing, destruction, and ruin. Their declared goal is to subjugate the world under Islam.
If we judge by the way they slaughtered tens of thousands of Iranian civilians, we will understand that a world under their Islamic rule would be governed with great cruelty. Not honor and not freedom, not peace and not brotherhood. If they have nuclear weapons-it is a global disaster. When Israel and the United States destroy the ballistic missiles and the nuclear weapons facilities, they are protecting the entire world from these violent forces of darkness.
The Charter of Hamas and Hezbollah
One of the proxies is Hamas, whose charter states that every centimeter of the State of Israel belongs to them. In another clause they call to destroy every Jew. Hezbollah is another proxy that writes in its charter to remove the State of Israel from the map. The struggle against Israel will not end until their complete annihilation, with the total rejection of any agreement with them. Following suit are the demonstrators who shout in a hoarse voice to “free Palestine from the river to the sea."
The UN - the greatest anti-Semitic institution in the world. The antisemitism of the Iranians receives backing from the UN, which cooperates with the haters of Israel. About 35% of the decisions adopted by the UN Human Rights Council condemn Israel. 60% of the emergency sessions held by the General Assembly were convened against Israel. 70% of the “regular" resolutions of the Assembly in 2013, which were directed at specific countries for violations of human rights, focused on Israel.
Academia in the United States - legitimizing anti-Semitism.
Two months after the massacre on Simchat Torah, the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S. House of Representatives convened. There, Congresswoman Virginia Foxx conducted a hearing in which Claudine Gay, Elizabeth Magill, and Sally Kornbluth (the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) were required to testify. All three said that a call for the murder of all Jews is not necessarily against the ethical code of the university, “because it depends on context." These universities educate generations of leaders who will determine what is of value and what is moral. In their eyes, the desire to destroy the Jewish people can sometimes sound moral.
Anti-Semitism in Spain
This affliction also reaches countries in Europe. In the León district in northern Spain, a festival takes place every year in which tens of thousands of people participate. During the “holy" week, Semana Santa, there is a festival called “Matar Judíos" which means “to kill Jews." As part of the celebrations, they create figures of Jews and burn them. About a month ago they placed a doll of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and burned it. Catholic Spain sees this festival as a respectable cultural custom that is not simply canceled. The León district is not the only district in Spain that practices this anti-Semitic custom. From where does all the anti-Semitism of Europe emerge? Our Sages said, “It is a halachah that Esau hates Jacob," and therefore we see the personification of Esau in Europe.
Pope Leo XIV Defends the Iranian Tyrant
One of the centers of global anti-Semitism is found in the Vatican, which for generations has preached hatred of Israel. In our time, Pope Leo XIV said about the war of Israel and the United States against the Iranian nuclear program that it is “a disgrace to the entire human family." The Pope apparently forgot that Iran wants to destroy the State of Israel. For this purpose they develop ballistic missiles and yearn to create nuclear weapons. If they had not been stopped now, they would have had weapons capable of carrying out their dreams and much more than that.
Should We Wait for the Nations of Europe to Save Us?
We do not understand how the Pope can stand aside and be silent in the face of a state that openly declares that it wants to destroy the State of Israel. How does he expect us to sit quietly when they want to annihilate? Should we rely on the Vatican to protect us? Perhaps we will rely on the nations of Europe to protect us from the new Nazis. After all, under the inspiration of the Pope, they treated Hitler with excessive leniency and enabled the growth of a monster that slaughtered tens of millions of human beings with terrible cruelty.
Despite the Pope’s Silence the People of Israel Survived.
In that war, Pope Pius XII was silent when six-million Jews were slaughtered. The Pope did not think that the Holocaust was “a moral disgrace to the human family." The Vatican must erase the disgrace of the silence of Pius XII. The Vatican must fight the cruel evil that seeks to take over the world today. But in truth, Israel does not rely on the Vatican.
The People of Israel trust in the Divine Promise that saved us from total destruction in those days. God promised:
“And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them nor will I abhor them to destroy them, to break My covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God."
God has fulfilled this promise, and even today He gives strength to the People of Israel to fight against their enemies, and we listen to God and not to the Pope.
The Silence of Pope Paul VI
We want to remind the current Pope that the same Pius XII was also silent when the Arabs threatened in 1948 to invade the State of Israel and throw all the Jews into the sea. He was followed by Pope Paul VI, who was silent when Nasser removed the UN forces from the Sinai Desert in 1967 in violation of the armistice agreements. At that time, the Egyptian president Nasser threatened to destroy the State of Israel. Where was the moral voice of the Pope? Where was the moral voice of all the senior clergy who did not enlighten him?
The Pope’s Opposition to the Building of Jerusalem
In the Six-Day War, the People of Israel liberated Jerusalem and returned to rule over it, as stated by God through all His servants the prophets. Only then did Pope Paul VI awaken and say that it is forbidden for the People of Israel to rule Jerusalem. We apologize that we did not listen to the moral preaching of Paul. The word of God is far more significant. God said that He will build Jerusalem and gather the People of Israel into it: “The Lord builds Jerusalem; He gathers the dispersed of Israel." It is a pity that the popes throughout the generations do not listen to the word of God.
Pius X Threatens to Convert the Jews
Paul VI continued the corrupt tradition of Pius X, who told Herzl that Jerusalem must not pass into Jewish control. The fact that Jerusalem was ruined and humiliated under Turkish rule did not bother him at all. That same Pope also refused to help Jews who were persecuted at that time in a series of riots by incited Christian mobs across Europe and Russia. He threatened Herzl:
“If you come to the Land of Israel and settle your people there, there will be churches and clergy ready to baptize all of you."
Opposition to the Balfour Declaration - Pope Benedict XV
Popes are supposed to believe in the word of God and not go against it. God promised Moses that the People of Israel would return to the Land of Israel and conquer it: “And the Lord your God will return your captivity and have compassion upon you, and will return and gather you from all the nations… even if your outcasts are at the ends of the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you… and He will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed…"
This is such a fundamental promise that God repeats it dozens of times through all the prophets. Despite this promise, Pius X opposed the return of Jews to the Promised Land. Similarly, Benedict XV opposed the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate whose purpose was to establish a Jewish State for the People of Israel in the Land of Israel. It is a pity that they do not understand that they have no chance against the word of God.
The People of Israel Defeat Their Enemies
The opposition of these popes does not help them. God fulfills all His promises, and thus God gives Israel strength to pursue those who seek to destroy them in the Land of Israel. The Divine Promise is fulfilled through them: “And you shall pursue your enemies and they shall fall before you by the sword… five of you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you shall pursue ten thousand…"
It is not natural that five defeat a hundred, and a hundred ten thousand. The Vatican must understand that without the help of God, the State of Israel would not have been established, nor would we have defeated all the Arab states that rose up against us to destroy us: “Had not the Lord been for us when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive…"
The Crusades - Shedders of Blood
The truth is that it is a tradition among the popes not to listen to the word of God. The popes desired the Land of Israel for themselves. For about two-hundred years, they initiated eight Crusades of tens of thousands of Christians in order to conquer the Holy Land. This entire group ignored the word of God that said that no nation would succeed in settling the land except the Jews: “And I will make the land desolate, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it."
In the end, the word of God prevailed, and they failed and returned to their lands. Until the Crusaders came to their senses, they raped, looted, and murdered entire Jewish communities with terrible cruelty. Where were all those popes? Why were they silent? This indeed is “a moral disgrace to the human family."
Burning People Alive in the Name of the Cross
After the bloody Crusades came the Inquisition, carried out under the direction of Pope Lucius III. In this Inquisition, Jews who did not want to believe in the religion of “kindness and love" were burned. Fathers with their children and wives were burned before an incited bloodthirsty mob. Their property was seized by the Church, and they were tortured with horrific tortures until death. Thus tens of thousands of unfortunate Jews were executed over 350 years. How can a person who sits on the throne of Pope Lucius III preach morality to anyone in the world? Where is the shame?
The Expulsion from Spain and Portugal - Pope Alexander VI
Those same priests under the same cross expelled hundreds of Jewish communities in Europe from place to place. They plundered their property and expelled them into the unknown -all in the name of their god of kindness, love, and mercy. Thus the Jews of Spain were expelled with cruelty more than 500 years ago. Thus the Jews of Portugal were expelled. Thus Jews were expelled dozens of times in the name of justice and law. Thus men of blood and deceit murdered Jews and permitted themselves to rob, murder, and rape in the name of God. Pope Alexander VI, who saw all this, was silent as were dozens of other popes during the expulsions in their times. We do not forgive them, not in this world and not in the next.
The Chmielnicki Massacres - Pope Innocent X
So too Pope Innocent X was silent when the Cossacks of Chmielnicki murdered the Jews of Ukraine. There it was not only murder. There the Cossacks abused the Jews in ways that Satan himself did not create. They cruelly erased entire communities from the face of the earth, and the Pope, the supposed representative of God on earth, is silent. He and his fellow popes transgressed the word of God that said: “Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow." They violated the commandment that says regarding any suffering and injustice: “You shall not ignore." There was not one religious figure who stood up and told them that they were transgressing the word of God. If there is anyone deserving of the title “a disgrace to the entire human family," it is the Catholic Church, at the head of which stands the Pope.
God Fulfills His Promises
In 2015 it was published by the Pope and the Council of Cardinals that God fulfills His promises and His prophecies, which cannot be annulled: “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should repent. Has He said and will He not do? Has He spoken and will He not fulfill?"
You awakened too late. We are already in the Land of Israel and defending our lives. But if you have already recognized that God is above you, remember that the Divine Promise will continue to be fulfilled constantly. Thus says the Prophet Isaiah:
“Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery? says the Lord; shall I who cause to bring forth shut the womb? says your God."
Hashem neither slumbers nor sleeps. He does not tire nor grow weary. He does not retract and does not regret. No one can stop Him: “For He spoke and it came to be; He commanded and it stood… The Lord nullifies the counsel of nations… the counsel of the Lord stands forever… Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose as His inheritance." And anyone who stands against Him will not survive.
The Moral Position of the Vatican Toward the World
It is very important to note that the Church stood on the dark side of humanity even when it came to other nations. When humanity awakened to remove from itself the yoke of tyrannical kings in order to grant basic human rights to people, Pope Pius VI allied himself with the tyrants and strongly opposed the French Revolution, which brought justice and uprightness to all humanity. The revered Pope saw this revolution as a rebellion against the authority of God, against the Christian social order, and as an expression of dangerous ideas such as religious freedom and equality.
Rebellion Against Tyrants is Obedience to God
Fortunately, the French revolutionaries did not listen to the word of God as spoken by the popes. They, and those who came after them, believed the words of Moses who said to Pharaoh that rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God. This slogan was established by Thomas Jefferson in the American Revolution, which preceded the French Revolution by several years. Because they did not listen to the Pope, the world was saved from the rule of tyrannical and exploitative kings. Thanks to them, the world is far more corrected and just. This is the true will of God: “He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the kindness of the Lord" - and not what the Pope sitting in the Vatican held up as truth.
Support for a Tyrant Drug Trafficker
The support for tyrants continues even today. Nicolás Maduro was the president of Venezuela. Under his failed leadership, Venezuela collapsed in a terrible economic collapse, while the president amassed immense wealth for himself. During his time, the citizens suffered from hunger and extreme poverty. He oppressed and imprisoned without trial those who opposed him. In his prisons, demonstrators and civilians who resisted his illegal activity were punished with severe tortures. In order to increase his wealth, he smuggled to the United States 250 tons of cocaine, a terrible drug that destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
When the United States arrested this tyrant, the current Pope Leo XIV stood at his side. He condemned the President of the United States who arrested Nicolás Maduro and thereby saved an entire country from a cruel tyrant. It is astonishing how these popes always manage to stand on the side of the forces of evil and not on the side of the forces of justice.
There is no doubt that if the popes had existed at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, they would have taken the side of Egypt. They would have preached their false morality to Moses who struck Pharaoh with the ten plagues, and would have said to him that he is “a moral disgrace to the human family." The good fortune of humanity is that Moses did not listen to moralists like the “popes" who existed even in his days. The good fortune of humanity is that Moses listened to the word of God and not to self-appointed moralists who always go against the Divine Process.
Hatred of Israel - A Diaspora Phenomenon
The truth is that there is no real “anti-Semitism." No one harbored hatred for the ancient Phoenicians, for the Arabs, for the Babylonians, for the Arameans, or for the Ethiopians who are also Semites and descendants of Shem. They were not exterminated as a people in gas chambers and burned in crematoria. “Anti-Semitism" is a polite, easily digestible term that fits well with the rules of politically correct discourse. It contains no real description of facts. If one wishes to adhere to truth, the phenomenon must be called by its real name - hatred of Israel.
Hatred of Israel from Different and Opposing Causes
Many have tried to explain anti-Semitism. Some argue that the reason for hatred is that Jews are separatist and refrain from assimilation among the nations. But it is known that hatred in Germany before the rise of the Nazis began precisely against those Jews who called themselves Germans of the Mosaic faith and who took pride in their belonging and involvement in German culture. Others tried to explain the phenomenon as natural hatred toward the weak, and others described the Jew as possessing too much power and controlling the world. They pointed to Jews who were heads of states, economists, bankers, scientists, writers, and intellectuals as proof.
At one time, Jews are hated for being capitalists, and at another time for being bearers of the banner of communism. Sometimes the hatred is explained by the primitiveness of their persecutors, and at other times the hatred emerges from the most cultured and developed nations. In the end, Jews were persecuted in the East and persecuted in the West by drunkards and by intellectuals alike, by believers and by heretics, by idol worshippers and by Christians of the “religion of kindness and love," by fascists and by socialists. This phenomena is something hidden that must be understood.
Hatred Rooted in Exile
We read about all the future phenomena of anti-Semitism in the books of the Torah and the Prophets. The Torah says that this hatred is found mainly in exile among the nations: “For the Egyptians could not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians" (Genesis 43:32). Also, “And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples to which the Lord will lead you" (Deuteronomy 28:37). So says the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations: “You have made us refuse and despised in the midst of the nations" (Lamentations 3:45).
This hatred leads to the oppression of the Jewish people:
“And you shall be only oppressed and robbed all the days, and there shall be no one to save you" (Deuteronomy 28:29). And further: “The fruit of your Land and all your labor shall a nation which you do not know eat, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed all the days" (ibid. 33). It is a hatred that brings the terrible cruelty of the gentiles against us: “A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old nor show favor to the young" and in Lamentations: “Princes are hanged by their hands; the faces of elders are not honored" (Lamentations 5).
Thus they seized children for the army in Russia and abducted Jewish orphans in Yemen: “Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail for them all the day" (Deuteronomy 28:32). Thus they abused young and old women: “Women in Zion were violated, virgins in the cities of Judah" (Lamentations 5). Thus they hunted Jews like animals: “They hunted me like a bird, my enemies without cause" (Lamentations 3:52). Thus they exploited their labor power until they died from overwork: “Young men bore the mill, and youths stumbled under wood."
The Great Wonder - Prophecy Fulfilled
The great wonder of the exile is that everything that happened in it is written explicitly in the Torah. The Torah writes that we would be scattered throughout the entire world - and so it happened. The Torah writes that they would persecute us and afflict us but would not succeed in destroying us - and so it came to pass. All of the prophecies written about exile in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings were fulfilled word for word. Nothing is lacking. All this explains that all the sufferings of exile were known in advance and are not random events.
“She Dwells Among the Nations - She Found No Rest"
An explanation for this is found in the verse: “And among those nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot" (Deuteronomy 28:65).
The Sages say in the Midrash: “She dwells among the nations; she found no rest" (Lamentations 1).
Rabbi Yudan in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: If she had found rest, she would not have returned. Likewise:
“And the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot" (Genesis 8), and likewise: “And among those nations you shall find no rest…" for had she found rest, they would not have returned.
This Teaching is Extremely Precious
In the book Torah Temimah (Lamentations 1:3), Rabbi Epstein, of blessed memory, wrote that the reason for the sufferings of exile must echo before us in all generations: “The meaning is that ‘she dwells’ willingly ‘among the nations’ and did not give thought to return (to the Land of Israel). But it did not succeed for her because ‘she found no rest’ (in the lands of exile). And this teaching is extremely precious in its clear outlook, and its echo is heard in every generation until this very day."
Will the People of Israel Be Hated Forever?
Humanity will not hate the People of Israel forever. In the past, in former, good periods of redemption, the nations loved the People of Israel. One period was in the days of King Solomon:
“And all the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart. And they brought every man his gift, vessels of silver and vessels of gold, garments and weapons and spices, horses and mules, a rate year by year" (I Kings 10:24).
A second period was in the days of the Second Temple, about which it is said: “And I will shake all the nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of Hosts." This glory will be greater than it was in the days of the First Temple in the time of Solomon: “Greater shall be the glory of this latter house than of the former, says the Lord of Hosts; and in this place I will give peace, says the Lord of Hosts" (Haggai 2 and Rashi there).
“Instead of your being forsaken and hated, with none passing through, I will make you an eternal pride."
From here you learn that in the future all the peoples of the world will come to learn wisdom in Jerusalem, as it was in the First and Second Temples, and more than this. Thus it is written in Chapter 60 of Isaiah, important things of which we will cite but a few: “And nations shall walk by your light, and kings by the brightness of your rising." And also: “And the sons of those who afflicted you shall come bowing to you, and all those who despised you shall kneel at the soles of your feet, and they shall call you the City of the Lord, Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Instead of your being forsaken and hated, with none passing through, I will make you an eternal pride, a joy from generation to generation" (Isaiah 60).
And we have learned that in the future it will be fulfilled in us: “And nations shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall designate" (Isaiah 62).
In our days, we see these prophecies gradually being fulfilled.
We already know that nothing of the word of God returns empty. We pray that we will merit to see all the prophecies fulfilled before our eyes, speedily, Amen and Amen.