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It’s Time to Bring Them Home!

June 1, 2008

Last month, Israel held their annual memorial of the Holocaust, honoring the six million Jews who died. Sixty years ago, Hitler’s anti-Semitic regime was crushed, but anti-Semitism is far from dead. Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe recently wrote, “The fires of anti-Semitism are sweeping across Europe today as it did just prior to the dreadful Holocaust years.”

On April 30, 2008, Israeli news agency Ynetnews headlined an article, “Major anti-Semitic attacks triple in 2007.” It reported the following: “A 6.6% rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks has been registered across the world in 2007, a report published…by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at the Tel Aviv University revealed. Furthermore, the number of severe violent attacks rose threefold in 2007…Fifty-seven percent of the attacks in 2007 have been classified as ‘major attacks’―three times higher than in 2006…Meanwhile, in Germany, Canada, and Britain the number of anti-Semitics assaults…grew in 2007.”

Jacoby was more specific and reported (in part) these incidents:

In Britain: The cover of the New Statesman, a left-wing magazine depicted a large Star of David stabbing the Union Jack. Oxford professor Tom Paulin, a noted poet, told an Egyptian interviewer that American Jews who move to the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and Gaza “should be shot dead.” A Jewish yeshivah [religious school] student reading the Psalms was stabbed 27 times on a London bus.

“Anti-Semitism,” wrote a columnist in the Spectator, “has become respectable at London dinner tables.”  She quoted one member of the House of Lords: “The Jews have been asking for it, and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last.”

In Germany: Graffiti appeared on a synagogue in Herford: “Six million were not enough.”

In Holland: An anti-Israel demonstration featured swastikas, photos of Hitler, and chants of “Sieg Heil” and “Jews into the sea.”

In France: According to police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day since Easter of 2001.

“At the start of the 21^st century,” writes a well-known French social scientist in a new book, “we are discovering that Jews are once again select targets of violence…Hatred of the Jews has returned to France.”

A Race against Time

Bridges for Peace has been rescuing Jewish people for years and to date has helped over 30,350 come home to Israel through our Project Rescue program. We provide funds to help them obtain the proper documentation and passports, pay transportation costs, and even give money for food and rent while they wait to come. We work closely with The Ezra Foundation a group headquartered in the Ukraine, who live much closer to this rising European anti-Semitism. They recently wrote, “On top of the anti-Semitism, many nations may soon close their borders, meaning all immigration will come to a halt! So we are in a race against time to get this suffering Jewish people to Israel―to a place of safety and the promise of a better life.” How much longer do we have? No one knows, but the signs say not much longer.

Most of the people we help would not make it to Israel without our assistance. In a thank you letter, Esther, an immigrant we helped, wrote:

I would like to express my gratefulness for the welfare that was so necessary for me. I am lonely pensioner, and beside pension, I don’t have other sources of earnings. You helped me to register foreign passport and to visit consul in Odessa twice. You paid for all necessary documents. Thank you so much! As my sister was sick, all money was spent on her treatment; I don’t have savings of my own. So when I decided to move to Israel, I had to borrow money for the trip. I appreciate everything you have done to me. You are doing great job helping people to return to their ancestors.

Giving Them a Better Life

It is so hard for those of us who live a good life with a majority of luxuries and amenities to understand how difficult life is for Jewish people in mostly third-world countries. Besides living meagerly, they often have to also withstand some degree of persecution. Such is Irina’s story.

Irina is from Kiev. As a first-grader, she had to not only introduce herself to the class by telling her name but telling her mother and father’s names, both very recognizably Jewish. Thus, from day one, school was a miserable experience as her classmates mercilessly teased her. All her parents could say was, “Be good and be patient. Study well, because your country needs you.” She made good marks but to no avail because, as a Jew, she was barred from attending university. At that time, Jewish students had to bribe a teacher to obtain a passing grade.

She married a man with an ordinary last name and began work at a factory, but it wasn’t a safe environment. After her son was only one, he was diagnosed with a mental disease that doctors attributed to her work environment. Irina also became ill, and her face was paralyzed. At 24 years old, her son was never awarded disability because it required a bribe, which Irina could not pay. Her husband, not able to handle two sick family members, left them. Thankfully, because of faithful donors, we were blessed to help Irina and her son find a better life in Israel.

You may be wondering, “How can I help? It must be very expensive to rescue a Jewish person.” For some, it might be, but we do not pay for the actual travel to Israel. Other agencies provide that. We do the ground work to meet legal requirements and provide for their needs before they leave. We only ask US $400 to help one Jewish person “return to their ancestors.” But if you can’t give that amount, any amount will help. Now is the time! Won’t you partner with God in helping to fulfill His desire to see His people come home?

“The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob. Nations will take them and bring them to their own place” (Isaiah 14:1–2a, NIV).

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Rebecca J. Brimmer

International President and CEO