24 April 2025
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel - “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah”, literally the “Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan — a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers).
The choice to situate Yom Hashoah close to Pesach was of course not coincidental. The word "holocaust" originally derived from the Koine Greek word holokauston, meaning "a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering." The Hebrew version of the term – the word “Shoah” - has its biblical root in the term “shoah u-meshoah” (wasteness and desolation) that appears in both the Book of Zephaniah (1:15) and the Book of Job (30:3).
Pesach is, of course, the celebration of the sacrifice of the innocent lamb in order that God’s people would be freed. Thus the Shoah and the Exodus are, for the Jewish people, deeply interconnected.
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"Yom Hashoah holds great meaning for Jews not only in Israel but also worldwide."
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Yom Hashoah holds great meaning for Jews not only in Israel but also worldwide. The overwhelming theme that runs through all observances is the importance of remembering the horrific attempted genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazi regime and its allies — recalling the victims of this catastrophe, and ensuring that such a tragedy never happen again.
It is also a reminder to the nations of the world that the modern State of Israel was born just three years after the horrors of the holocaust in Europe. A nation was born out of destruction.
Just as the Shoah was possible because of the moral corruption in Germany (and beyond), today we are reminded that we must, at all costs, avert the moral decline that underlay the alarming rise of Nazis to power.
Today, we are witnessing a deeply disturbing spiritual decline and moral confusion in the West that refuses to understand the difference between good and evil, between truth and lies. In this moral and political vaccuum, powers of darkness and evil are assuming more and more power.
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"Today, we are witnessing a deeply disturbing spiritual decline and moral confusion in the West."
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It is in this light that we must understand the claim that is often made today – that Israel is committing another holocaust in Gaza. This is of course a totally warped and distorted twisting of the truth. As Israeli jurist Aaron Barak commented, it is “imputing the crime of Cain to Abel”. It is making the victim of violence into an aggressor. Israel is surely not perfect, but it is not attempting to obliterate or destroy either the Palestinians or the people of Gaza. On the contrary, it is fighting a deadly war against an enemy that is committed to Israel’s destruction. Israel’s only choice, if it is to survive, is to obliterate Hamas and its allies. The huge number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is a direct consequence of the sins of the leaders of the people of Gaza – Hamas and its allies, as well as their revolutionary Islamist sponsors in Tehran - who adhere to a devastating religion that has as its core aim the elimination of the Jewish people.
And therefore, both the remembrance day of Yom Shoah and the current tragedy in Gaza are a reminder that all the peoples of the earth will face God’s wrath in the Day of Judgment. God cannot tolerate sin, including the attempts to destroy His chosen covenant people.
But God’s judgment is ultimately not about destruction, but about life. The judgment of the nations is connected with the coming of the Messiah, Son of David, in power and glory, who will also, simultaneously, usher in the birth of the Kingdom of righteousness and peace.
Let us acknowledge that the failure of our nations to support the right of the Jewish people to a secure homeland has contributed to growing antisemitism and attacks on Israel. Let us repent of our own sins, and pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, and the coming of the Prince of Peace.
Then “the Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; He will remove His people’s disgrace from all the earth” (Isaiah 25:8).
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Herzog to lead March of the Living with freed hostages
Israeli President Isaac Herzog will travel to Poland on Thursday to lead the 2025 March of the Living at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, marking 80 years since the liberation of the Nazi death camps and the end of World War II.
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Iran's Endless Rounds of Negotiation: Delay, Deceive, Cheat
Majid Rafizadeh at Gatestone: “Given the devastating costs of war, focusing on negotiation rather than on military intervention is a noble and responsible course of action. The Iranian regime, however, is not new to such diplomatic games of chess. The mullahs have mastered the art of prolonging negotiations: appearing cooperative while covertly advancing their strategic interests, especially developing ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and operating proxies in the region, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, not to mention Iran's own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as well as smaller militias.”
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SCRIPTURE FOR THE WEEK:
Zephaniah 1:14-18
The great day of the Lord is near—near and coming quickly.
The cry on the day of the Lord is bitter; the Mighty Warrior shouts his battle cry.
15 That day will be a day of wrath—a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness—
16 a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers.
17 “I will bring such distress on all people that they will grope about like those who are blind, because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like dung.
18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath.”
In the fire of his jealousy the whole earth will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth.
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Newspaper
Israel & Christians Today
The goal of Israel & Christians Today is to help Christians to take God’s Word seriously, and study current events in the world in the context of the Bible.
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