We may have to run, fight, or do both.

Some people wonder why I have a soft spot for the Jews. I have Jewish colleagues — who tolerate me as a somewhat useful goy, almost as intelligent as the average member of the tribe. They are smart — obviously so — verbal, and generally do not suffer fools.

To begin with, the Jews can be a model of how to live when you are a minority, and a persecuted one at that. For most of the last Millennia the Jews have been shunted from one European country to the next — used as canon law does not apply to them, but also used as scapegoats for societal dysfunction.

One of the reasons I honour the Jews is that the founders of our faith were Jewish. To the man: all the Apostles were Jewish — it is with the second generation of believers that Gentile leadership begins to occur.

Acts 2:22-36

22″You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know – 23this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. 24But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. 25For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken; 26therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope. 27For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. 28You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’

29″Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. 31Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ 32This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. 33Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. 34For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 35until I make your enemies your footstool.”‘ 36Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

The very argument that Peter made in this sermon alluded continually to scripture — and Peter was no scholar. He was a fisherman, uneducated (read illiterate). But he alluded to three prophets without breaking into a sweat. This series of allusions was convincing in Jerusalem at that time — in fact the main point of division between christianity and judaism is not the death of Jesus but his resurrection. If he died and the sanhedrin were corrupt he was but one of many false messiahs. But if he rose… then everything changes.

I am also aware that the secular elite despise Christians and hate Jews. David Goldman, who is quite Orthodox, noted this about the recent over reach of our current Manchurian President.

Today it is contraception and the morning-after pill. Tomorrow it will be kosher slaughter, or matrilineal descent, or circumcision, or other matters of existential importance to Jewish observance. If the Obama administration gets away with forcing Catholic institutions to step across lines of life and death in the name of “health,” the federal government will have a precedent to legislate Judaism out of existence — as several other countries have already tried to do.

Now the Obama administration has told Catholic institutions that they don’t have to dispense pills that kill babies. Instead, they can pay the insurance company, and the insurance company will dispense the pill for them. It is an accounting trick (as Paul Ryan called it) that the White House misrepresents as a compromise. The Catholic bishops, of course, reject it. And only one Jewish organization, the haredi organization Agudath Israel, offered a sharp response. Its Washington director Abba Cohen stated:

Whether or not the White House’s new “compromise” proposal adequately addresses the religious freedom concerns raised by the Catholic Church is for the Catholic Church to say, not us – and, frankly, not the White House, either. The important points here are that no religiously sponsored entity, and no religiously motivated individual, should be forced by government to violate its or his sincerely held religious principles; and that the determination of religious propriety must be left to the religious entity or individual, not to the government

Abba Cohen is correct. So are the Catholic Bishops.

So what can we learn from our Jewish friends?

• Never assume that you are part of the culture and tribe. You can appreciate, indeed contribute to the high, medium and low culture of your nation, but your final loyalty lies in the covenants. Or to put it another way, Christianity and Judaism , are by the nature un-Australian, un-American, un-Canadian and un whatever tribe you belong to.
• Therefore do not look to the wider culture for morals. Instead keep your home and guard your traditions. An observant Jew wants a synagogue with a minyan or quota — but also keeps kosher, lights the sabbath candle, and much of the religious observance does not occur in the synagogue, but is part of life.
• Keep the traditions and practices of faith alive, and teach them to the next generation. The Law of Moses states that is a father’s duty to do this — not the rabbis, not religious education…
• What matters is what you have learnt. Education is portable. Land can be taken.
• And (therefore) have a look at what is going on in your culture and country. If there is persecution, be prepared to flee. Look for the safe harbour, where you can practice the faith in peace.

Finally, when this does not work, learn from the Zionists. Sometimes you simply have to fight to avoid annihilation. And people in love with death (which at present is an unusual bunch that include liberals and islamists alike) love annihilation. So we may have to fight if we cannot run.