Isaac concludes Jesus and Israel with the following, haunting statement of his thesis:
The glow of the Auschwitz crematorium is the beacon that lights, that guides all my thoughts. Oh my Jewish brothers, and you as well, my Christian brothers, do you not think that it mingles with another glow, that of the Cross?(5)
Although he condemned the Christian teaching of contempt for the Jews, Jules Isaac never condemned Christianity. Despite all he suffered, Isaac persisted in the optimistic belief that if it would only end this teaching of contempt, the church would produce Christians who would save Jews, not kill them. On this point he did not rely upon mere conjecture. For much of the time he was writing Jesus and Israel, Jules Isaac was hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic home. His rescuer, a woman named Germaine Bocquet, received her Catholic education from a teacher who had purposely removed anti-Semitism from his lesson plan.(6) When asked why she risked her life and that of her husband to save the life of a Jew, Germaine Bocquet replied:
The religious education I had received had instilled in me respect for the Jewish people, and gratitude that they have given us the prophets, the virgin Mary, Christ, and the apostles. Jews were for me people of the Covenant, of God’s promises. Jesus, the Messiah, was a faithful son of the Law, which he had come to bring to perfection, not to abolish. I had never heard the Jews spoken of as Christ-killers; I had been taught that our sins crucified Jesus.(7)
Tragically, Mrs. Bocquet’s religious education was not the standard catechism in the churches of Europe. While she believed that the Jews were still beloved of God and the beneficiaries of God’s holy covenant, the Christian majority embraced the teaching of contempt and a “replacement theology,” which held that the church had superceded the Jews as God’s chosen people. While Mrs. Bocquet saw the Jews as the family and followers of Christ, most Christians viewed the Jews as the enemies and murderers of Christ. While Mrs. Bocquet risked her life to save a Jew, an entire continent of Christians was killing Jews or standing by and letting it happen. By removing the Jews from God’s love, the dominant Christian theology of the day left them vulnerable to man’s hate.
Thirty-five years after the Holocaust, the Israeli air force destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, outside of Baghdad. The Israelis had determined that Iraq was using the reactor to develop a nuclear bomb, a weapon this implacable enemy might one day use against them. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin justified the action to the world by declaring that he would not permit “another Holocaust in the history of the Jewish people.”(8) Israel was universally condemned for the Osirak raid, including by its ally the United States.
In San Antonio, Texas, a pastor named John Hagee was dismayed by the loud outcry against Israel’s action. He decided to counter the chorus of criticism with a public show of support. (continued on next page)
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