HashKama: the Jewish problem

The Jewish problem has always been, ‘How to survive in an antisemitic world.’  That continues to be their problem in today’s hostile world.  Jew hatred has continued throughout the centuries, and the Jew has survived, and in some situations conquered; they often thrived throughout the centuries, having had to live by their wits and perseverance.  Many have reached the top in their professions, in the fields of science, medicine, the arts, literature and so much more.  They are in essence the miracle people – loved and preserved by God; hated and despised by humankind.  Today, 14^th April, The Jews are holding their Memorial Day, commemorating the death of their men and women that served in their armed forces, and the victims of terrorism who died (23,928 fallen Israeli soldiers, and 3,158 victims of terror).  They are doing this in the land that God gave them.  God has brought His people back from all corners of the world, in preparation for the Second Coming of Messiah.  The hatred for the Jew is the demonisation affecting much of humanity.  It is Satan’s hatred for the Living God being worked out in humankind; those that have been created in the image and likeness of God.  It is a perversion of self-hate.

Words of Warning

In the last article, we saw a young Jewish man, the son of Paul’s sister, issuing a warning; then there was the Jewish prophet, Ezekiel, who warned the people; and we also considered words spoken by Moses, the leader of the Israelites, and saw how he had warned the people before he died.  This time, we are considering another young Jewish man.  His name is not mentioned in the Bible, but he is numbered with the faithful.  His story was sent from Israel by the daughter of the man, relating his childhood experiences and memories.  It is written here very much as I received it.  I have added the title and some footnotes.

The young watchman of Israel

My thanks to the daughter, who, I believe, is intending to write a book about this episode, and more besides, which opens with: A fragment of the memories of my late father, Ivan (Tito) Rachnitzer, born in Osik, Yugoslavia, 1928.

How innocent we were at first… when the Nazis arrived (1941), after a few days the [i]Ustaše has already distributed (Nazis extreme and cruel Croats.  From them, very big killers came out) Youth uniform Nazi, Hitler [ii]Jugend.

As a twelve-and-a-half-year-old, I saw them on the streets from home, in these clothes.  It looks beautiful and impressive and I wanted it too.  I had one Croatian friend, and he came in clothes like this, [his name was] Ostasha.  I go out, he says, “Where are you going?”  I tell him, “I am going to stand up and get clothes too.”  He says, “You’re an idiot!  They’ll beat you, kill you there, don’t come close, now it’s just starting.  Close the blinds in the evening tonight.  Tonight, we will break windows for all Jews.”  And it was like this.  This youth got a role to be “Productive.”  They came.  With us the blinds were closed.

I didn’t go, of course, to stand up and get a uniform… I was scared when he explained to me.  “Listen, we’re against Jews, we’ll break windows, we’ll make trouble for stores, like they did, like they did in Germany.  I didn’t know what they did.  They started building a concentration camp about ten kilometers from Osik, in [iii]Jacobo, near a flour mill; and the Jewish young people had to go there to build it, and also my brother was sent to this job.  And when they went, while on the way, these Ustaše stood and beat them, and gave them kicks.

I felt a growing anger.  I listened to the news radio [and heard] what happens between the Finns and the Russians, [and[ what happens between Hitler and Stalin.  I was very [informed and] up-to-date.  At that time refugees from Austria came to us.  Jews that the local Jewish community in Osik made sure to get them.  Lazzi Bachi, my grandfather’s brother, took one woman (Riza) and her mother to save them.  And slowly [a relationship] developed and they got married.  My father told me that I will go to her.  She is a music teacher, and I can talk to her a little in German; and she is alone only with her mother, and with grandfather’s brother.  Say hello.  So I went, and she really loved me.  She told me what was in Austria.  And I heard then about concentration camps, about the beating they received, about the reference, about breaking windows.  I heard all kinds of stories and went into detail and saw that it was slowly happening with us.  And I started telling dad.  The Jews did not believe in all these stories.  They didn’t want to believe.

I got into my head that you need to escape from there; and no-one wanted to.  And dad sent me one day to the Jewish community, and we talked there, and they just made a list of Jews (which was actually meant to send them to the [iv]Yasnovac concentration camp).  But then we didn’t know anything.  They said it’s for work camp for re-education.  That Jews “should be educated for work, not just merchants and lawyers.”  I got there and heard, and they reminded me it’s for the camp.  It was called a work camp.

I didn’t believe it.  I already knew it wasn’t good, and I spoke.  I told them there in the office of the committee of the Jewish community – “Why are you sitting on this?  So I got beaten, and do I open my mouth, rude, boy.  And I told my dad, so I got beaten up from him too.  “How are you not ashamed?  You have nothing to talk to adults!  Wait until you grow up.”  I was frustrated because I felt the danger growing and getting closer.

The daughter shares some more information:  Further, the father of a gentile boy named Brazzo Igor Modrov, who became a good friend of my father, after my father saved him from children who beat him, arranged fake papers for my father and his family, wrote my father and his brother as his sons on his passport, and travelled with them on the train.  This is how they escaped to an area that was then controlled by the Italians on the Adriatic coast.  Ivan (Tito) Rachnitzer and his wife made Aliya from Yugoslavia in 1950.  His daughter and her sister were both born in Israel.

More to come

There is so much more to this story and the family’s exploits.  I wait in great anticipation for the daughter to write her book.  I can sense the young boy’s sense of frustration as the adults fail, and refuse to hear what he is saying; and fail to heed the warnings he is giving.  This happens in today’s Church and world when we try to warn about sin, and the coming apocalypse; people choose not to listen.  His father beating him reminds me of life in Britain in times past.  If a child got into trouble with someone in authority, a teacher or police officer, they would very likely give him a clip around the ear.  Then, if he went home and told his father what had happened, his father would give him a smack too.  How times have changed, when today’s children chase the headmaster down the corridors, and young men and women fight the police, and in some areas, children are involved in throwing stones and petrol bombs.  These are signs of judgment, which means we need to be those that will speak out the word of God, warning that unless people repent and believe in Jesus, they are doomed.  “The danger is growing and getting closer.”  There is no escape but in Jesus Christ who died that we might live.  The kingdoms of this world are coming to an end, but the Kingdom of Heaven is a Kingdom without end.  “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14).

The Veil – A Problem for Jews

There is a major problem for the Jews to face.  Because of the veil, they fail to recognise Yeshua as the Messiah.  They have a veil over their eyes.  But, when they turn to Yeshua, the veil is lifted.  “We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were closed.  For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.  And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.… (2 Corinthians 3:13-16).

Sound the Alarm

Sound the alarm! let the watchman cry,

“Up! for the day of the Lord is nigh;

Who will escape from the wrath to come?

Who have a place in the soul’s bright home?”

Sound the alarm! let the cry go forth,

Swift as the wind, o’er the realms of earth;

Flee to the Rock where the soul may hide!

Flee to the Rock! in its cleft abide

Sound the alarm on the mountain’s brow!

Plead with the lost by the wayside now;

Warn them to come and the truth embrace;

Urge them to come and be saved by grace.

Sound the alarm in the youthful ear,

Sound it aloud that the old may hear;

Blow ye the trump while the day beams last!

Blow ye the trump till the light is past!

(Author: Fanny J. Crosby: 24.03.1820 – 12.02.1915)

The Torah

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them: ‘When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not heed the warning and the sword comes and takes their life, their blood will be on their own head. Since they heard the sound of the trumpet but did not heed the warning, their blood will be on their own head. If they had heeded the warning, they would have saved themselves. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life, that person’s life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood.’

“Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked person, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood. But if you do warn the wicked person to turn from their ways and they do not do so, they will die for their sin, though you yourself will be saved” (Ezekiel 33:1-9).

Blessings and shalom

Malcolm [14.04.2021]

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[i] The Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary Movement (Croatian: Ustaša), commonly known as Ustaše.  The anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe; it was a Croatian fascist, ultranationalist and terrorist organization, which was active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945.  Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during WWII.  Much of the ideology of the Ustaše was based on Nazi racial theory. Like the Nazis, the Ustaše deemed Jews, Romani, and Slavs to be sub-humans (Untermenschen).

[ii] Hitler Youth

[iii] Osík is a municipality and village in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic.

[iv] Jasenovac was a concentration and extermination camp established in Slavonia by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.  The concentration camp, one of the ten largest in Europe, was established and operated by the governing Ustaše regime, which was the only quisling regime in occupied Europe to operate extermination camps solely on their own for Jews and other ethnic groups.