Out of Zion

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Israel Answers Series, connecting Israel, the Bible, and you. Join Susan Michael as she explores timely issues and current events from a scriptural perspective to equip the Christian world with a balanced and biblical response. Be sure to subscribe for future episodes which will ignite your faith and bring the Bible to life in your everyday world. Now, let's join Susan with your Israel Answers.

Dr. Susan Michael: Hey there and welcome to the Out of Zion podcast this week. I'm your host Dr. Susan Michael, and we are in the middle of a series about understanding antisemitism. I hope that you were able to listen to last week's episode about where the antisemitism is coming from that's in America because you need that foundation to understand some of the steps that I'm about to share of things that we can do to combat antisemitism. So, if you haven't yet listened to it afterwards, please go back and listen to last weeks. And it it will really help you to understand the action points for this week.

So, now in the last two episodes, I talked about the explosion of antisemitism in America and around the world. Who is funding it, how they're funding it, and how they're influencing our young people. So, today I want to talk about practical things you can do to push back against the problem in the schools. Then next week, I'll begin talking about the problem from a biblical perspective and what churches can do. But for today, I'm going to speak to you mainly about our schools. I want you to know that you are not alone in this battle.

There are really robust efforts being carried out by the United States government to combat antisemitism. Almost every single agency in the government is working on this and especially the Department of Justice. They are going across America and they are suing universities and colleges if they are allowing antisemitism to be perpetrated on campus. But the US government cannot do this alone. They need your voice at the local level to help back up what they're doing at the federal level. So, the very first thing that we should all do is number one recognize that the first step in combating antisemitism is defining antisemitism.

And so you can have your state or your school or even your church can adopt a definition of antisemitism, and then they have something to enforce. And they can make that school that your state, your school, your church a no-go zone for antisemitism, but first people have to define it. So, I encourage you to lobby your state government to adopt a definition and then based on that they train law enforcement how to enforce it. And they require every state funded school to also adopt it and crack down on it in both the classroom and in their curricula.

So, the most commonly adopted definition of antisemitism was drafted by Ivor. It's I H R A and it stands for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Now, I want to say two things about this definition for my Christian audience. First, the Ivor definition does not limit a victim of antisemitism to be Jewish. So, a Christian who voices a pro-Israel position on campus and then is attacked or ostracized is also suffering from antisemitism. So, this definition doesn't just protect Jewish students. It protects all students that might be the victim of anti-Jew, anti-Israel hatred. The second thing I want you to know about the Ivor definition is that in addition to the definition, it then gives examples of antisemitism.

So, you can learn from the examples what it's talking about. One of the examples that it gives is accusing the Jews of killing Jesus. And there have been some far-right voices in America that have been against the Ivor definition because they say that it outlaws the preaching of the New Testament. And I want to be very clear here. It does not outlaw the New Testament. This phrase is referring to the centuries-long practice of calling Jews Christ killers. In other words, it's blaming Jews of all generations including today of killing Jesus 2,000 years ago. Something, you know, that's just antisemitic.

It's not talking about the historical record found in the New Testament where we read that Jewish leaders turned Jesus over to the Romans to be executed. It is not talking about what happened 2,000 years ago. It's talking about blaming the Jews today for what happened 2,000 years ago. So, I really recommend that you look into the Ivor definition. And as I said, get your church or your school or your state to adopt it. Now, many states have already adopted the Ivor definition. So, do a Google search and you can find out about your state. Call your state rep or senator and ask them if they've adopted it.

Ask them what they're doing about the problem. Have Are they enforcing the Ivor definition? Are they requiring the state funded schools to enforce it? And if they haven't adopted it, ask that senator or that rep to introduce a resolution to adopt the Ivor definition. Secondly, we need to take efforts to stop the foreign funding coming into our schools. So, if you have a young adult in a university or if you went to that university and you're an alumna, then you should contact them and ask them to make public any foreign money that they receive. You have the right to require this if you have ties to that school.

So, we need the universities to disclose publicly if they're receiving foreign money and if so, how much and who it's coming from. And we need to open investigations into the non-reporting of these schools because they are supposed to report and if we suspect that they're not, then refer them to the Department of Justice. But we also need to establish ethics review review boards to review the funding coming into the school and make sure that they don't accept unacceptable money. And and that they are, you know, acting with integrity at the at the university. Now, a second thing that you should call for is that they need to clamp down on the National Students for Justice in Palestine Organization.

I explained last week about this organization. They don't They're not registered as a charity. It's hard to know where their funding is coming from and it 's hard to know where their funding is going, but they openly support Hamas and terrorist organizations. So, universities should clamp down on them and also investigate where their funding is coming from. So, I'll give you one example. I just read about it this week. In the state of Missouri, the University of Missouri did not allow NSJP to participate in the Homecoming Parade. So, now the University of Missouri is being sued by the Muslim Brotherhood organization called Care, c a i r.

But also at the very same time, the attorney general of Missouri is investigating NSJP's finances. They want to know if they raised money from people inside Missouri and where that money went because they want to know did they raise money from Missouri to support terrorism. So, that's just one state. I guarantee you this is happening in other states. So, a quick call, you know, to your state rep or senator, you can find out and you can get involved and add your voice to the mix with these schools. The third thing that we all need to be working on is taking a look at the curricula being taught in these schools and making sure that we keep students safe.

So, call for an independent curricular review board to review curricula for any hints of antisemitism or the red green indoctrination. And I explained last week red green is the Marxist Islamist indoctrination. Believe me, they're doing everything they can to get that into the curricula. So, you need to make sure your school has a curricular review board and put experts on there so that they can discern these things. And we also need to be implementing safeguards to keep our students mentally and psychologically healthy. So, our curricula, we need to be addressing the overuse of social media.

Guard against isolation and paranoia and even violent tendencies in the youth. So, if you or a family member attended that school, you have influence and you should speak up about these matters. And if your school did adopt Ivor or you can get it to adopt Ivor, it just makes it that much more easier to and pressure them to enforce it. Now, I'm going to talk a minute about our Christian campuses because most of what I was just talking about really is about your secular state schools. Our Christian campuses it's a little bit different. There's a different atmosphere and there's some different needs.

So, they're not as big on the issue of foreign funding and and nor even state funding. But we still need to be very watchful. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem is working with Christian colleges and universities to protect Christian students from the influence of antisemitism. The unique atmosphere on Christian campuses campuses is that we have to address Christian antisemitism. And that's when a Christian uses the scripture to espouse antisemitic tropes such as Christ killers. We're painfully aware of the long history of Christian antisemitism and I don't have time to go into it today, but in our resources in our show notes, we link to a free download on antisemitism that you can get.

It's got just a little introduction to the history of Christian antisemitism. And we have determined that protect to protect Christian students, particularly those in theological studies, in seminaries, biblical studies majors. We need to work on their curricula and actually add to it to help address some of the issues around modern Israel, around antisemitism, Jewish Christian relations, etc. Most of this is not ever addressed in the seminary or in theological studies, believe it or not. So, a lot of our young pastors, they graduate from seminary and they don't know the first thing about modern Israel. They don't know how to preach about Israel from the Bible.

They don't know how to grapple with it. They They So, they stay silent. And they pretty well assume a replacement theology position which is they will believe that the Jews are no longer relevant because if they were relevant, somebody would have mentioned them in seminary, right? So, silence means they're irrelevant now and they've been replaced by the church. So, we have resources that talk about all of this if you want more information. I'll share where to find it in our show notes. So, what has the ICEJ done to help our Christian colleges and universities? Well, first we have built a semester-long course called Introduction to Israel.

And we're encouraging campuses to make it available to their students if they want to use the curricula and teach it. It's actually worth three credits. But if they just want to refer their students to our website and have them take it from us and get a little certificate, then they can award them some level of credit. But the unique thing about this course is that it spans everything from Israel of the Bible to modern Israel today and it connects the dots. It fills in the historical gap that they don't get in seminary. And it highlights the biblical calling of the Jewish people and how that is played out in history.

So, this course is really valuable not just for Bible students to connect them to modern Israel, but it's also very valuable for students that may be studying government or history or political science or law, international affairs. And it helps connect them to the Israel of the Bible that they'll understand the spiritual principles at work here in Israel and the calling of Israel as they focus on today's modern Israel. So, it's a really really important course. Now, the second aspect about this course that is so important is that courses in our Christian in our seminaries and Christian colleges when they teach about Christian history, church history, they do not talk about the history of antisemitism in our church fathers and in our state churches in history.

Now, the theological anti-Jewish teachings of some of our church fathers resulted in antisemitic Jewish legislations by the states. Now, how? Because back in medieval days, Middle Ages, the head of the church was the head of the state. It was a state church. So, whatever the state church was teaching, it influenced the state ruler and they implemented anti-Jewish legislation. Because of this, most scholars agree that had it not been for centuries of this Christian-based antisemitism, the Holocaust could have never happened. Now, think about that for a minute. That's how deadly and how significant the history of Christian antisemitism is and yet it's not taught in our Christian history courses.

So, it's in our course. We have a whole module of six lectures on the history of antisemitism as well as a module on Jewish Christian relations because that's a spin-off. So, it's really important that we teach this so that we are enabling future Christian leaders to distinguish biblical teaching from theological distortions that contributed to centuries of hostility towards the Jewish people. They need to learn that lesson from history. Now, the third thing that we're working on is a summer study program in Israel where a student can get six credits from Hebrew University. Yeah, that I mean walking the land where the events of the Bible took place and seeing the very sites mentioned in scripture, it just deepens a student's understanding in a way that classroom learning doesn't.

So, we've partnered with Regent University and the Jerusalem Seminary in Jerusalem and Hebrew University to run an 18-day program. The first one will be in the summer of 2027. And I just use my own story to show how important this program is. I was one of those college students getting a biblical studies major and I had the opportunity at the age of 19 to go to Israel and study that summer. And it completely changed my life because the Bible that I loved, that I was studying at university just stood up and took on life. I mean it took on like flesh and bones.

It came alive. We say it went from black and white to technicolor or it went from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. I mean it just came alive. And my own personal faith was so ignited because I understood the Bible wasn't just truth, it was accurate. And all of these stories that took place were so accurate in their description. And archaeology is just proving them over and over and over. So, it's so exciting and we want to give more young adults the opportunity to go there either just on a summer tour or if there are biblical studies major, I'd really recommend this accredited class.

The last thing that we're doing is we are encouraging Christian campuses to develop some kind of an Israel center on campus through which they can host programs and conferences and speakers to provide educational opportunities for students outside of the actual classroom. The ICEJ has had the privilege of partnering now with several campuses as they've started some sort of a Israel center or an Israel Institute. And each of these programs is different and unique to that campus, but they really provide inspiration for other campuses to think what would work on our campus. And we want to help them do that.

We also are happy to provide speakers for seminars, conferences, programs that the Israel centers put on on campus. So, now let let me bring this to a conclusion. I hope that all of this kind of inspires you that there are things that you can do, that you can bring to your Christian campus or you can bring to your secular campus and really help to push back against this terrible problem of antisemitism. We need to step up to the plate to protect our young people because there's absolutely destructive influences out there. And we need to raise a generation to lead this country into the future and we want it to continue a country that blesses and supports Israel and the Jewish people.

So, if you'd like to support the ICEJ's efforts to bring these programs to the Christian campuses, I'm going to link in the today's show notes to our next gen fund. You can donate there and it'll help sponsor young adults to go to Israel in these programs or help sponsor us to go to a campus and bring our resources and our speakers and etc. So, get behind our outreach for the next generation. It's probably one of the most critical things that we all need to be doing in this day. So, in today's show notes down below and if you don't have show notes down below, you can go to our website at ICEJUSA .org forward slash show notes.

And there we have links to all of our free resources. We mentioned our free resource on the history of antisemitism, how to donate to our next gen fund. And just take advantage of all the resources that we have for you and become a partner in this ministry. It's for the future of our country and for the future of our Christian young people. All right. Well, be sure and tune in next week. I'm going to start talking next week about what the Bible says about antisemitism. And that's going to be followed with action steps, what Christians can do in their churches and through their churches to address this problem.

So, I invite you back next week and until then, God bless.

Guest (Male): We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Out of Zion with Susan Michael. Be sure to subscribe to Out of Zion now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, pray.com, Salem One Place, Salem Life Audio. Out of Zion with Susan Michael is a production of ICEJUSA. All rights reserved.