Cross Currents Of The Diaspora

Of an estimated seventeen million Jews in the world today, more than twelve million live in countries other than Israel. The term "Diaspora" (meaning "dispersion") is commonly used to describe those living among Gentile nations. Scripture's prediction of Jewish dispersion (e.g. Deut. 28:64; Luke 21:24) is one of the noteworthy features of the pattern of judgement resulting from disobedience to God's law and rejection of His Christ. Today there is a mosaic of widely differing situations among dispersed Jewry, from affluence and power to oppression and servitude.

Given equality of opportunity most Jewish minorities exert an influence out of all proportion to their numbers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in North America where their ability has brought them to the fore in business, finance, the academic world and in government. Although only two-and-a-half percent of the population they are reported to hold fifty-nine percent of the key executive posts in the media. On the Canadian and American TV networks it is estimated that Jewish interests, including Israel and world-wide Jewry, command between ten and a hundred times as much attention as their numbers would normally warrant. They have achieved a similar prominence in the newspaper field, many of the top writers in the cosmopolitan press being Jewish.

Many conservative evangelicals who accept scriptural prophecy about the restored nation of Israel are strongly supportive of Jewish interests generally and the nation of Israel in particular. A writer in the Canadian Jewish News described these evangelicals as "the truest non-Jewish friends that Israel has in the world today". There is of course the difficult problem of Orthodox Jewry's hostility to the Messiahship of the Lord Jesus. As one rabbi has expressed it: "Jesus is at the heart of the problem - not Jesus the Jew, but Jesus the Christ".

As disciples of the Lord Jesus we should indeed respect the Jew, remembering the debt owed to the people to whom were entrusted the oracles of God (Rom. 3:2), and "of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever" (Rom. 9:5). Our deepest concern and supplication to God for them should be like Paul's - "that they may be saved", for "at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (Rom. 10:1; 11:5). Political aspects are outside the sphere of our responsibility as disciples of Christ, but we have the privilege of prayer for their relief from oppression where this obtains.

Even in North America Israel is not exempt from some hostility. The Moderator of the world's largest Presbyterian church is quoted as saying:

"Israel is an oppressive, aggressive, militaristic country whose foreign policy won't lead to peace; the Israeli lobby in the USA pretty much creates US foreign policy in the Mideast". This viewpoint is not here under discussion, but it illustrates alternative attitudes to USA's present pro-Israel stance.

More sinister are certain anti-semitic groups, relatively small, but extremely vocal. Among these is the "Christian Identity" movement with its hatred of black people and Jews. The movement adopts the "British Israel" notion that white Americans of British or North European stock are descendants of the "lost" tribes of Israel. "The Jews have no part in this household", they assert.

It is among Jews of the Diaspora in USSR, however, that we find a sharp contrast to the freedom and opportunity enjoyed in North America. For several years oppression has been increased, causing many Jews to apply

for permission to emigrate. The Kremlin has resisted this demand, and emigration dropped steeply from over 50,000 in 1979 to 1,117 in 1985. During 1986 Gorbachev tried to improve the Soviet image on human rights by releasing two well known activists, Anatoli Shcharansky and Yuri Orlov. The famous physicist Andrei Sakharov and his wife Bonner were also allowed to return to Moscow after seven years' internal exile in Gorki. Since his release Yuri Orlov has described the "terrible rigours" to which his fellow Jewish dissidents in Siberian labour camps were subjected. Shcharansky and Sakharov have also spoken out on behalf of the great numbers still detained. Their suffering continues despite the publicity exercise of releasing a few "high profile" dissidents.

A covenant-keeping God still watches over His word to perform it:

"The days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, As the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, As the LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from... all the countries whither He had driven them ... For Mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from My face" (Jer. 16:14-17).

unknown | May 1987
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