http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11449#.T3OXvdkkifU
China, Israel and the Jewish People
Interview series: Dr. S. Wald of JPPPI, "They see the Jews as an old people with a long history and view Israel as its center. One often hears from Chinese that theirs and the Jewish civilization are the oldest surviving ones."
From Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
China is largely uncharted territory for Israel and the Jewish people.
Jews have lived in China since a remote past and there is proof of some Jews having lived or traveled there as much as one thousand years ago. Before the Second World War, there was a Jewish community of Russian refugees Harbin. Twenty thousand European Jews found refuge in Shanghai shortly before the war, fleeing Germany. They left China after the war.
At present, there are thousands of Jewish and Israeli businessmen in various Chinese cities, mainly Shanghai and Beijing.
“Until the early 20th century, the Chinese slate was virtually blank with regard to Jews. There are no holy books where the Jews are condemned for
killing God’s son or rejecting Allah’s prophet. The Chinese word youtai (Jew) has no negative connotation. Besides the Hindu world, this is the only major civilization where the Jewish people can start from a neutral position.”
Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald worked with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris from 1964 to 2001. He joined the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) in Jerusalem at its founding in 2002. In 2004, he published a book titled China and the Jewish People: Old Civilizations in a New Era.
Wald observes: “How can we know what ‘the Chinese’ think about Israel and Jews? The country has 1.4 billion citizens and offers conflicting experiences. A large number of Chinese know that there is a state called Israel, Islele, in the Middle East.
"During the Second Intifada, Chinese Central Television , which is watched by hundreds of millions of people, sometimes showed Israel in a negative way. Last year, however, CCTV showed a whole series of movies about Jewish culture and history.
“In the cultural field, Amos Oz is currently the most popular Jewish or Israeli writer in China. His book A Tale of Love and Darkness is in its second edition in Chinese. The book is ranked as one of the ten most important translated into Chinese. Tens of Chinese newspapers reviewed it positively, saying they had learned things about Israel they hadn’t known before.
“There are Chinese intellectuals who have studied Israel and the Jewish people as well as Chinese policymakers who are interested in us. For the Chinese, Jews and Israel are the same. They see the Jews as an old people with a long history and view Israel as its center. One often hears from Chinese that theirs and the Jewish civilization are the oldest surviving ones.
"This expresses respect for the continuity of the Jewish people.
“Relations between the countries are increasing and continue to improve. Culture is one aspect. Trade and investment links are increasing fast. In 2011 Ehud Barak, the Minister of Defense was invited to visit China, while China’s Chief of Staff visited Israel – the first such visit, and the only one to a Middle Eastern country. Persistent rumors say that Prime Minister Netanyahu has also been invited to visit China.
“I would venture to say that a substantial portion of the Chinese political and intellectual elites have superficial positive feelings toward the Jewish people and Israel. This could change. The oil-rich Middle Eastern countries have huge sums to spend in China. Far more Chinese know the Arab world than Israel.
“
The oil-rich Middle Eastern countries have huge sums to spend in China. Far more Chinese know the Arab world than Israel.
Those who will rule China twenty years from now are presently studying in elite universities. If someone teaches them about Judaism and Israel, this will be good for the Jewish people. Eventually, when some of these students are in important positions, they are likely to advise their country’s leaders on Jewish and Middle Eastern issues.
“Middle Eastern stability and Israel’s role in it are increasingly important for China. For the first time in history, China will directly influence the fate of
the Jews and particularly Israel. Since this influence will grow very quickly, it is important to keep China’s attitude toward Israel well-informed and
positive.
“Israel and the Jewish people should build bridges of friendship with China and develop a strategic concept on how to strengthen our links. A few Israeli
NGOs are active in this field.
SIGNAL, for example, is organizing academic and other exchange visits and helps funding Israel Study Centers in Chinese Universities. The Jewish people are hampered by the fact that they are not a coherent unit. Major Jewish organizations should however, try to develop a coordinated policy toward China, and Israel should encourage such efforts and cooperate with them.”
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11447#.T3OYPNkkifU
How Deep is the Christian-Jewish Abyss?
Denying Christian anti-Judaism will never bring peace between Jews and Christians. Pope Benedict and Protestant leaders must atone for what Christianity has done to the Jewish people by recognizing the unique place of the Jews and Israel.
From Giulio Meotti
As Jews prepare to celebrate Pessah, Christians are ready for Easter.
Tragically, there is no time on the Christian calendar more associated with anti-Semitism than Easter.
In the year 1144, in Norwich, England, 19 Jews were hanged without a trial. This marked the first time that Jews were accused of the blood libel - murdering Christians to use their blood in rituals. Then the libel crossed the channel into France: 32 Jews were burned at the stake in Blois.
Over the next centuries, Easter became a time of fear for the Jewish people. In 1497, Passover coincided with a cruel decree issued by King Manuel of Portugal, who ordered all Jewish children to be forcibly converted to Catholicism. Countless thousands of Jewish youngsters were baptized and then handed over to be raised by Catholic families.
With traumatic memories of deicide charges and pogroms, Easter is the most challenging time of the year for Christian-Jewish discourse.
A few days ago in a special interview with Die Tagespost, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, a “moderate” cleric named by Pope Benedict to represent the Catholic communities in the Jewish State, declared that “Israel’s existence as such has nothing to do with the Bible”.
Twal then compared Christians’ condition in today’s Jerusalem with Jesus’ Passion: “We Christians never forget that even our Lord himself suffered and was mocked in Jerusalem”. The Catholic Archbishop encouraged anti-Semitism by employing deicide imagery.
Denial of Israel’s religious and historical claims to the land is not new in the Catholic hierarchy. In a 2010’s Vatican synod on the Middle East, the most important event in a decade for the Holy See, bishops declared that “we Christians cannot speak about the Promised Land for the Jewish people”.
Elias Chacour, the Catholic Archbishop of Israel, said that “we do not believe anymore that the Jews are the Chosen People”.
“There is no longer a chosen people”, said Archbishop Cyrille Salim Bustros, chosen by the Pope to draft the synod’s conclusions. He resurrected the ancient calumny that the Jews are damned as cosmic exiles. “The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians”.
This is the same delusional lexicon of medieval Jew-hatred of Norwich. The Archbishop’s attack on Israel was not a single incident, but was reinforced in the final message of the synod which, under the heading “Cooperation and Dialogue with the Jews”, argued that “recourse to theological and biblical positions, which use the Word of God to wrongly justify injustices, is not acceptable”.
The malignant use of the expression “chosen Jews” inspired the pogroms, the expulsion of the Spanish Jews and Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism (the founder of Protestantism argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people, but instead “the Devil’s people”).
Orthodox Eastern Christianity is also imbued with theological enmity for the Jews. “Modern-day Jews are not God’s chosen people”, the former head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, recently declared in a meeting with former US President Jimmy Carter. “Do not believe their claims that they are God’s chosen people, because it is not true”.
Today the Christian arena is divided among the mainline Protestant churches, which are prominently anti-Israel; the Vatican, which embraced a new aggressiveness against Israel; the US Evangelicals, which are pro-Israel, and independent Protestant groups based in Europe, like Christians for Israel.
It is true that some Evangelicals did not show a real tendency to curtail their missionary activities among Jews, but the hostility toward Israel and the Jews encouraged by institutionalized global Christians, such as the World Council of Churches and the Vatican, poses a much greater near-term threat to Jews.
Professor Paul Merkley’s wonderful book, “Those That Bless You, I Will Bless” (Mantua Books), sheds light on these anti-Israel Churches. Merkley’s book is the most significant work about the current religious ditch, told from a Christian perspective.
The Church of England reviewed its investments in companies with ties to Israel’s presence in the territories.
The Methodist Church of Britain recently launched a boycott against goods emanating from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
All five of the mainline denominations in the United States – Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Lutheran and United Church of Christ – have debated and adopted policies intended to divest or boycott Israel. During the upcoming General Conference of the United Methodist Church scheduled for April 25 in Tampa, Florida, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (June 30 in Pittsburgh), anti-Israel actions in the form of boycott, divestment or sanctions are expected to be brought to the floor for a vote.
The World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization of Protestants claiming a membership of 580 million worshippers, produced the “Amman Call”, which denies Israel’s right to continue to exist as a Jewish State.
While the United States is home to millions of Christian supporters of Israel, these are anti-Jewish Churches which are more closely attached to public opinion, the media industry, the United Nations and global legal forums.
The World Council of Churches, an umbrella organization of Protestants claiming a membership of 580 million worshippers, produced the “Amman Call”, which denies Israel’s right to continue to exist as a Jewish State.
Serge Duss, Director of the New Century Evangelicals Project, is one of the Protestant leaders who claim that modern Israelis are not descended from Biblical Jews.
Often identified as strong supporters of Israel, Pentecostal Christians are also being targeted by anti-Israel activists from the Evangelical camp. The Society for Pentecostal Studies just gathered in Virginia, where it screened “Little Town of Bethlehem”, a film with a virulent anti-Israel message.
“World Week for Peace in Palestine”, an initiative of the World Council of Churches, will be observed May 28 to June 3. “Focus this year is on the growing dispossession and displacement of Palestinians”.
It seems that the Churches are breathing new life into that kind of Easter’s demonology which criminalized the Jews for centuries. Denying Christian anti-Judaism will never bring peace between Jews and Christians. It is incumbent upon Pope Benedict and Protestant leaders to atone for what Christianity has done to the Jewish people through the centuries by recognizing the unique role and place of the Jews and Israel in this world.
There is an urgent Christian necessity to change Jewish-Christian history for the sake of the future by taking few simple steps: don’t proselytize the Jews, don’t slander them, don’t preach their conversion, avoid any theological topic, proclaim the uniqueness of the Jewish covenant, fight the apocalyptic cults, recognize Jews’ right to Judea and Samaria, defend a united Jewish Jerusalem, support Israel’s right to defend itself, and stop spiritualize the Bible, as if the promises to Abraham were not about a specific land for a specific people but about some heavenly domain.
Unless these steps are taken, any Jewish-Christian reapproachment would be not only futile, but dangerous.
Or to use old iniquities’ words, Jews will remain “odium humani generis”. Hated by humanity.
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