A Backward Look by CR Dickey "What is Anti-Semitism?

article page 124 from "Biblical Treasures (Volume I)" written by CR Dickey What is Anti-Semitism?

Articles from Biblical Treasures (Volume I) – C. R. Dickey

 

INTRODUCTION

 

                The Staff at Destiny Publishers, having read all the articles written by the late C. R. Dickey (Christina R. Dickey) found in DESTINY Magazines from July 1938 to October 1967, received such a blessing from her writings that we wanted to share the information with all who are seeking God’s wonderful truths.  We are hereby publishing all her articles in two volumes, which we believe you will find most inspiring and of genuine interest and value.

 

                Her knowledge of the Scriptures was unbelievable so she must have had a very close association with her Lord, as she certainly became a champion for His cause.

 

                Our late beloved editor, Howard B. Rand, realized her talent as he published many of articles in booklet form.

 

                The reader should take into account the time element when each article was written, which was from the late thirties to the middle sixties.  We found her articles to be up to the minute as though she had written them yesterday.  Her writings on various subjects are backed up with Scripture verses, as well as with quotes from reliable sources, when making a point.  From her writings, the Lord surely made use of her God-given talents.

 

                Although we do not have any knowledge of her background, we do know that she was a Congregational minister.  Her sermons given must have been of interest and value to her congregation.  We are sure her articles contained in this book will do the same.

 

A Backward Look

 

                Everyone who drives an automobile knows that safety depends upon the backward look as well as the forward look.  Disaster may result quite as often from not knowing what is behind as from not looking ahead.  And so it is in guiding the course of nations.

 

                An illustration now much in the news is the Palestine situation.  Only a few people, comparatively speaking, realize how quickly the flame smoldering in that region may explode in the face of the world, involving our country in the deadliest war of all time.  The danger is all the more imminent because our leaders of State, uninformed and even misinformed by leaders of Church, do not know the background of the issues involved.  They boldly move to portion out the land of sacred history to Jews and Arabs, because they have never looked back to determine the real ownership of the land, and the origin of the conflicting participants in the Palestine struggle.

 

                Speaking to His servant nations of Israel, after their redemption by Christ and their lapse in forgetfulness of their very origin, God said through the Prophet Isaiah:

 

                "Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.  Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled:  who among them can declare this, and shew us former things?  Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified or let them hear, and say, It is truth.  Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen."  (Isa. 43:8-10)

 

                Who indeed can "shew us former things," and bring forth witnesses able to declare the truth and justify their words?  In Isaiah 51:1-2, the Lord commands us to wake up and take a backward look in order to find out who we are, and from whence we came.

 

                "Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord:  look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye are digged.  Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you:  for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him."

 

                This message is clearly addressed to Israelites of the Abrahamic covenant:

 

                "Awake,  awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old."  (Isa. 51:9.)

 

                However, they are a very different people from the Jews, who are now generally regarded as Israel.  The Israel people addressed in this chapter are ignorant alike of their past and their future; consequently, they have lost direction both as to their origin and their destiny.  They are urged to study their beginning and trace their ancestry to Abraham and Sarah, because they no longer remember their genealogy or their ancient history.

 

                Now what Jew ever forgot his Abrahamic lineage -- or permitted anyone else to forget it?  Although usually maintaining silence on the subject, orthodox Jews are aware of the fact that many present-day Jews are not of Israel-Judah stock.  They are Jews only by religious or political affiliation with Judaism; yet these proselytes, in company with the posterity of those Jews who Christ condemned for unbelief, claim descent from Abraham and Jacob, and clamor for all the special privileges divinely promised to a redeemed and regenerated Israel.

 

                Let us look further in the characteristics of these latter-day Israelites of Bible prophecy.  They are people "that follow after righteousness...that seek the Lord."  Thus they have already been the recipients of the Gospel, as stated in Isaiah 51:5:

 

                "My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth."

 

                They are not a scattered people without a country; they are Christian nations, some of them dwelling in the Isles, who recognize and employ -- though imperfectly at the present time -- the principles of Divine law as the foundation of stable government:

 

                "Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation....The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust....Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law."  (Isa 51:4-7.)

 

                In the fourth chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul explains the relation existing between redeemed Israel and Abraham.  In part he says:

 

                "For what saith the scripture?  Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness....For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith....Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all;  (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken,  So shall thy seed be....Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."  (Rom. 4:3-25.)

 

                Hebrews 11:11-12 confirms the faith of Sarah also as a vital part of Israel-Christian heritage:

 

                "Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.  Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable."

 

                Now it is this faith and righteousness of Abraham and Sarah which distinguishes the latter day redeemed Israelites of Isaiah's prophecies from faithless, unbelieving Jews.  The numerical expansion of Israel in the Christian era is also not applicable to Jewry.  The prophets visioned Israel as being a nation and company of nations forever, with the Lord's throne in their midst, occupied in every generation by a regent from the line of David, until the return of Christ as King.  Bible prophets including our Lord, saw the Jews cast out of the Kingdom and continuing as a scattered remnant, few in number, without a nation or a throne.

 

                Jeremiah saw latter-day Jewry as "evil figs, which cannot be eaten," that is assimilated.  He describes them exactly as the world has known them for almost two thousand years, in this remarkable prophecy:

 

                "And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them."  (Jer.24:9.)

 

                These are the people who are laying claim to Palestine, presumably on scriptural grounds.  It is in their interest -- and because of their domineering pressure -- that our government officials have foolishly intervened to effect the partitioning of the land to Jews and Arabs.  The twofold results of this folly are clearly stated by the prophets.  First, the Jews will not succeed in establishing a Jewish State and homeland in Palestine.  Their failure is written in Jeremiah 24:10, which concludes his vision of the "evil figs":

 

                "I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers."

 

                This fate was pronounced against Jews who once held an inheritance in the land.  How much more severely will it apply to usurpers who "Say they are Jews and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan" (Rev. 2:9).

 

                A second result of meddling in Palestinian affairs concerns the United States.  The course our politicians have taken will be the direct cause of untold distress and tragedy for our own people.  Writing of catastrophic events immediately preceding the return of Christ, Zechariah states that Jerusalem will be the storm center of contention and confusion.  Then, in following declaration, he warns the nations to refrain from interference in the dangerous situation:

 

                "The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel....Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.  And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people:  all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."  (Zech. 12:1-3.)

 

                Through Isaiah God points out that Israel's leaders are responsible for the consequences.  They betray the people into the hands of treacherous conspirators.  The Prophet writes:

 

                "His watchmen are blind;  they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber."  (Isa. 56:10.)

 

                Blind, ignorant, dumb, asleep!  What a charge against the national and spiritual leaders of God's Israel who He redeemed by the blood of His Son on Calvary's cross!  No wonder the Prophet calls us to wake up and look back -- to our birthright in Joseph.  (See Genesis 48 and I Chronicles 5:1-2.)

 

                Nothing would do more at this moment to clear the atmosphere of mental fog than for citizens of this country to take a look into the past and find out the actual meaning of anti-Semitism.  What a bugaboo it has become through deceptive use!  When all the camouflage is removed, the term "anti-Semitism" simply means "against Semites."  Who, then, are Semites?  Semites are the descendants of Noah's son Shem.  Therefore, anti-Semitism, meaning literally antagonism toward all the descendants of Shem, cannot be applied honestly to a small segment of people called Jews, many of whom are not even of Semitic origin, as we shall see.  It is true that Abraham was a Semite, being in the direct line of Shem; but there were ten generations from Shem to Abraham --- all of them Semites.

 

                Furthermore, Abraham himself was the progenitor of several distinct racial strains besides the Israelites.  First, there was Ishmael, son of Abraham by Sarah's maid Hagar, whose descendants have been identified as the Arabs of today.  Next there was Esau, Jacob's twin brother, who became the father of the Edomites, known also as Idumeans.  Then another separate line resulted from Abraham's six sons by Keturah.  All these Abrahamic peoples and their descendants to this day are Semites, although they are not Israelites.  Thus in waging their campaign of hate against the Arabs, the Jews themselves are really anti-Semitic in a big way.

 

                Arabs know about their Semitic background and claim Abraham as their father.  They are taught in the Koran that Abraham built the city of Mecca for Ishmael.  This seems credible when we consider Abraham's deep concern for Ishmael's welfare.  Actually, Arab leaders are amazed by Anglo-Saxon stupidity on the subject.  Jewish leaders, too, are much better informed on these racial origins than Christians; but the success of their plans for world domination depends upon keeping Christendom blindfolded and sympathetic toward their aims, by sending out a steady stream of unholy propaganda regarding the Holy Land.

 

                As a matter of fact, neither Jews nor Arabs hold an exclusive right to Palestine.  To whom, then, does Palestine belong?  We shall not take time to quote all the terms of God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as stated in such passages as Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-17; 17:1-8, 15-21; 22:15-18; 26:1-5; 28:1-4; 35:9-12; however, anyone not familiar with these passages should study them carefully.  This perpetual, unconditional covenant guaranteed that Abraham would father many nations and kings through Sarah's son Isaac, and that "all the land of Canaan" would be included "for an everlasting possession."  Their posterity would also become an innumerable multitude and possess the gates of their enemies.  In confirming the covenant to Jacob at Bethel, God changed his name to Israel, and added this significant decree:

 

                "A nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land."  (Gen. 35:11-12.)

 

                It is just at this point in the progress of God's covenant with Israel that both Christians and Jews need particularly to take a studious and unprejudiced backward look.  This is the spot where we lose the key to Israel's history, especially in its relation to the greatest nations of our own day.

 

                For more information on the development of the "nation and a company of nations" promised to Jacob-Israel in Genesis 35, we must turn to Genesis 48.  In that important document the dying Jacob confers his Israel name and birthright upon the two sons of Joseph, declaring that Manasseh would become a "great people" and Ephraim would become "a multitude of nations."  Furthermore, Jacob states (v. 16) that the future nation and company of nations of Manasseh and Ephraim will carry the name Isaac in fulfillment of Genesis 21:12, "for in Isaac shall thy seed be called," which they do at the present time in calling themselves Saxons; i.e., sons of 'Saac.

 

                Two points stand out clearly in studying the terms of God's covenant with Israel:  a) the birthright included a title deed to all the land granted to Abraham in the original charter, which comprised Palestine and probably a considerable portion of land east of the Jordan; b) at the end of Jacob-Israel's life the birthright was conferred exclusively upon the House of Joseph.  This tremendously important fact is established not only in Genesis 48, but in Genesis 49:22-26, and in I Chronicles 5:1-1.  The latter leaves no room for doubt in this declaration:

 

                "For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph's."

 

                Thus the land of Palestine was mandated by the Lord God Himself to the nation (great people), and company of nations, to issue from Joseph's two sons.  To them also was committed a sacred trust and responsibility, namely, the administration of God's laws for Israel, that through their obedience and righteousness all the nations of the earth might be guided and blessed.  Ephraim is destined to take the lead in administration, but Manasseh must share the responsibility under God's plan and direction (Gen. 48:20).  An unbiased review of history will show that the United States and Great Britain are the only nations that meet all the specifications for the House of Joseph mentioned by Moses and the prophets.

 

                The question now arises, If the foregoing statements are true, do the Arabs have any claim to Palestine as a homeland?  While Arabs hold no covenant deed to the land, they have two valid claims to live in it:  one is the right of conquest and continuous residence for 1300 years; the other is a right based on the promise made to their forefather Ishmael that he should be permitted to "dwell in the presence of all his brethren" of Israel, since, he, too, was Abraham's son (Gen.16:12).  The Lord said to Abraham:

 

                "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee:  Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.  But my covenant will I establish with Isaac."  (See Gen. 17:18-21; 25:16.)

 

                Arabs, therefore, are not to be deprived of their right to live in the Holy Land.  In fact, they have a stronger claim to that privilege than the aggressive Zionists who are determined to dispossess them.  What about the racial background of these internationalists -- now calling themselves Zionists and claiming to represent the whole House of Jacob-Israel -- who are responsible for the present upheaval in Palestine?  Lest we should be accused of prejudice, we shall let a Jewish industrialist answer the question.  His answer needs wide publicity and constant repetition until the truth begins to take root in Christian thought.  The following paragraphs are quoted from a letter originally written to the National Economic Council, Inc., and reprinted in DESTINY Magazine for January 1948:

 

                "Popular ignorance of the real basis of political Zionism is beyond calculation.  Vaguely most Christian Americans have the idea that the Jews claim Palestine because it was the 'Promised Land' in which they lived for a period of a few centuries that ended 2,000 years ago.  And the thought of a people returning to its 'homeland' seems emotionally satisfying and good.

 

                "But here are facts most Americans do not know:  Political Zionism is almost exclusively a movement by the Jews of Europe.  But these Eastern European Jews have neither a racial nor an historic connection with Palestine.  Their ancestors were not inhabitants of the 'Promised Land.'  They are the direct descendants of the people of the Khazar Kingdom, which existed until the 12th century.

 

                "The Khazars were a non-Semitic, Turko-Finn, Mongolian tribal people who, about the 1st century A.D., emigrated from Middle Asia to Eastern Europe.  There they created one of the largest kingdoms of their time.  At its greatest extent it covered an area of about 800,000 square miles.  About the 7th century A.D., the King of the Khazars adopted Judaism as the state religion, and the majority of inhabitants joined him in the new allegiance.  Before that date there was no such thing as a Khazar whose ancestors came from the Holy Land....

 

                "In view of this fact, what becomes of the cry for 'repatriation' to the 'homeland'?  These Eastern European, Yiddish-speaking Jews have no historic or racial connection with Palestine, or, for the matter, with the other Jews who existed in other countries for thousands of years prior to the Khazar conversion.

 

                "At best, the cry of truly Palestinian-descended Jews for a return to the 'homeland' would be highly dubious....And if the claim of Palestinian-descended Jews is so dubious, what of the claim of Khazar-descended Jews?  Would a single Christian support their trek back to the 'homeland' or want to oblige them by expelling the Arabs, if it were known that these Eastern European Yiddish-speaking Jews who form the Zionist group practically in toto, have neither a geographic, historic nor ethnic connection with either the Jews of the Old Testament of the land known today as Palestine?

 

                "If the Jewish claim to Palestine is tested as the only other remaining ground, the religious, it may be summarily and finally replied that religiously both Christians and Moslems also have religious roots there.  The reason it is called the 'Holy Land' today is because Jesus of Nazareth lived and died there.  To Christians He is the Son of God and Saviour.  To Mohammedans He is a great prophet.  To official Jewry, He is an executed blasphemer."

 

                There were other non-Israel infiltrations into Jewry besides the Khazars of European Russia; among them were the black Jews of Malabar and Abyssinia, and the Mongoloid Jews of China.  Perhaps the most important of these infiltrations, from the standpoint of influence, is the intrusion of Esau's descendants into Jewry.  As David Davidson says in a lecture titled Palestine:  Esau Claims Possession:

 

                "The people of Jacob exist today in the English-speaking peoples.  Today, the race of Esau survives and persists, absorbed in that remnant of the Israelitish tribe of Judah known as the Jews.  The latter fact of history is disclosed by the Encyclopedia Biblica, and is acknowledged by the Jewish Encyclopedia....

 

                "The race of Esau were the Edomites of Old Testament history and the Idumeans of New Testament times, and included the marauding Sinaitic tribe of Amalek.  The dominant physiognomy and aggressively intrusive characteristics of the race were derived from the native stock of North Syria through the 'Hittite' wives of Esau. and by subsequent intermarriage between the Edomites and 'Hittites."  After the Edomites (or Idumeans) were absorbed into the remnant of Judah, after 130 B.C. but mainly in the dispersion following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the Edom-'Hittite' physiognomy eventually emerged as the European Jewish type of physiognomy -- falsely called 'Semitic."...

 

                "Herod the Great was an Edomite and became the first Idumean 'King of the Jews."  As such he sought to destroy our Lord at birth.  At that time the Idumeans had been comprised in the Jewish state and had been Jews in religion for over a century.  They dominated the whole of Jewish life and our Lord, in revealing the nature of the Herodian or Idumean Domination, refers to the 'leaven of Herod' as the antithesis of the 'leaven of the Kingdom of God.'  In the 'Revelation of Jesus Christ' (Rev. 1:1) the effect of the intrusion is referred to as 'the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan' (Rev. 2:9).

 

                "The Idumean intrusion has brought a blight upon true Jewry and has placed an undeserved stigma upon the name Israel.  Behind the mask of Idumean physiognomy neither Jew nor Christian can discern what is true and what is false in Jewry, except by their respective works....Josephus, in describing the conditions internal to the Roman siege of Jerusalem, reveals how the race of Esau (as the Idumeans) were mainly instrumental in inflaming the hatreds of the three internal factions of disintegration, which three factions have their counterparts in the three politico-economic world factions today."

 

                From such reliable evidence we may safely conclude that Zionists, for the most part, are a nondescript mixture of races masquerading as Israel.  They did not originate in the tribe of Judah and their ancestors did not belong to the Kingdom of Judah which disintegrated at the time of the Babylonian captivity.  Zionists are denounced as impostors by such prominent orthodox Jews as Benjamin H. Freedman and Dr. I M. Rabinowitch, who see in political Zionism a false, alien element working toward the destruction of everything stable, decent and spiritual in human society.  It is this contradictory element in Jewish history which is so confusing to Christians.  C. F. Parker calls attention to it in a recent article in which, after referring to modern Idumean-Hittites and their claim to be the seed of Israel, he says:

 

                "It is remarkable that pogroms against the Jews have constituted seeming contradictions.  If the first Jesuits were Jews, as indicated, why should they persecute their own people?  If, however, they were Edomites masquerading as Jews, their desire to eliminate Judah is easily understood....

 

                "Central Europe has been a prolific source of contradictory elements in Jewry, and this can only be explained through a duality within that people:  the false seeking to destroy that cherished by the other.  Communism, the product of Marx, and allied teachings, promulgated and supported by numbers of Jews, are odious to the Orthodox....The two elements are quite incompatible; and it is only with the pious, religious element of Jewry that Christians have anything in common in their acceptance of the Old Testament, and their belief in a Divine, as distinct from a Herodian, Messiah."  (The National Message, London, England, January 3, 1948.)

 

                Zionists, therefore, have no claim -- scriptural or otherwise -- to the land of Palestine.  Arabs have no ownership in the land, but they do hold a scriptural right to live there in peace, as we have seen.  Even orthodox Jews, who stem from Judah hold no scriptural mandate over Palestine.  Far from being the whole of Israel, they are only a small portion of the one tribe of Judah.  Furthermore, the birthright -- carrying with it the Israel-Saxon name and mandate over the covenant land -- did not go to Judah, but to Joseph's two sons.  Therefore, by Divine edict, mandatory powers over the Holy Land belong solely to the "nation and company of nations" of Ephraim and Manasseh or, in other words, to Great Britain and the United States.  And there are no Arabs, Zionist Jews, or Judah Jews in the House of Joseph.

 

                The tragedy now arising out of the situation lies in the fact that Christians in Britain and America do not realize that the mandate belongs to them.  We cannot escape divinely-imposed responsibility, however, nor will we escape the tribulation which is sure to follow willful disobedience.

 

                We accept erroneous ideas with alacrity because we do not take the time or trouble to find out the truth.  A case in point is the Balfour Declaration.  Most of our people have been convinced by Zionists, and even by Christian leaders, that its terms have been violated by the British Government.  But have they read it to find out?  Anyone who investigates for himself will know that the Archbishop of York declared the truth when he said:

 

                "No pledge was ever given by the British government that Palestine should be handed over to the Jews.  The pledge of the Balfour Declaration was that within in there should be established a national home for the Jewish people without prejudice to the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.  This promise has been faithfully observed.

 

                "Palestine today is the home of over 600,000 Jews....Without the good will and the active protection of the British government, it would have been impossible for the Jews to have made this home....

 

                "When I visited our Forces in Palestine last March (1946), the country was like an armed camp in which everyone was incessantly on the alert.  By unscrupulous and violent propaganda many of the Jews, especially the younger men and women, have been worked up to such a condition of hysterical fanaticism that they have been brought to believe that Great Britain was responsible for the awful sufferings of their race in Europe."  (From report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, in York Diocesan Leaflet.)  *In 1948 Israel became a state!  Fig Tree?

 

                In like manner many high government officials have been sold on the partition plan for Palestine.  Perhaps we should say that some of them are not convinced that the plan is necessary, fair or feasible, but they are consenting to it under the pressure of political expediency.  Will they be tricked and pushed into sending U. S. troops to Palestine?  If not, they will be squarely up against the alternative of leaving the gate wide open for Russia to take over the Middle East and its vast resources when Britain withdraws from that area.  Either course threatens disastrous results.

 

                Informed people in all nations wait with apprehension to see the outcome of United States participation in the Palestine debacle.  It is truly a colossal blunder on the part of irresponsible politicians which promises nothing but dire consequences for the world.

 

                "Blind, ignorant, dumb, asleep" -- so the Prophet described the national and spiritual leaders of latter-day Israel  nations!  If United States government officials had been standing by Britain in upholding our share of responsibility in the Palestine mandate, instead of bargaining for Jewish votes, the present crisis could have been averted.  If the Church leaders had been teaching this generation the truth about God's plans for modern Israel, we would have enlightened and courageous statesmen guiding the nations toward peace instead of war.

 

                We now begin to see why it is so important for Christian-Israel nations to know their origin.  No wonder God commanded us to examine our racial beginning in Abraham and Sarah.  Today our very existence as free peoples is jeopardized by wholesale ignorance on this vital subject.  If Anglo-Saxons should suddenly come to a realization of their Israel-Joseph origin, the vehement flame of Zionism would be extinguished swiftly by a mighty wave of righteous indignation.