David Reagan - The New Anti-Semitism with Olivier Melnick
Is Christianity guilty of anti-Semitism? What exactly is anti-Semitism? And why does anti-Semitism seem to be increasing rapidly across our nation and around the world? Stay tuned for some insights from a Messianic Jewish expert.
David Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Blessed Hope, and welcome to Christ in Prophecy! I have as my co-host today, Colonel Tim Moore, who is our Associate Evangelist, and the one that is going to replace me in September of 2021. And we have as our special guest Olivier Melnick, who is a French Jew who lives in the northwestern United States. In the state of Washington don’t you?
Olivier Melnick: Yes.
David Reagan: Yes. And there he serves as the Northwest Regional Director of one of the most important Messianic ministries in America today, Chosen People Ministries. Welcome to Texas, brother.
Olivier Melnick: Well, thank you. Happy to be here.
David Reagan: Okay. Tell us quickly what in the world is a Messianic Jew?
Olivier Melnick: Well, a Messianic Jew, there are two words there Messianic and Jew. So, to be a Messianic Jew you have to be Jewish first.
David Reagan: Okay.
Olivier Melnick: You know which is a descendent of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through one of the twelve tribes, a physical Jew. And Messianic is simply a Jew who believes that believes in the Messiah, and that Messiah happens to be Yeshua, Jesus. Messiah, you know Christ, Mashiach same word, different languages. So, I am a Jew who believe in Jesus.
Tim Moore: So, Olivier how did you come to know Yeshua? How did you come to believe in Him as the Messiah?
Olivier Melnick: Well, I grew up as a Jewish kid in France from Holocaust surviving parents, both Jewish. And God was not really in the picture, so I didn’t care. I always used to tell people, “If God exists He doesn’t need me, and I don’t need Him. So, let’s just keep our separate path.” And then I met the woman that would be my wife, a Californian Gentile meets a French Jew, so, sparks happened.
Tim Moore: Of course.
Olivier Melnick: And she started telling me about Yeshua from the Old Testament, from the prophecies. And I look at this big Bible, you know which I never opened before. I couldn’t tell the difference between a Habakkuk or Isaiah. I mean I had no understanding of my Jewish roots, or the Bible.
Tim Moore: Really?
Olivier Melnick: And the book didn’t really impress me. And then she asked for her dad to send more stuff because she was in France at the time with me. And her dad sent this little book called, The Late Great Planet Earth.
David Reagan: Ah.
Olivier Melnick: Remember that book?
Tim Moore: Ah, yes I do.
Olivier Melnick: And so many people I’ve met have come to the Lord through that book.
David Reagan: Yes, that’s right.
Olivier Melnick: And I started reading the book on my way to work everyday in Paris on the subway, missed my stop two or three times. I got to the Rapture, and I panicked. I’m going, wait a minute, there they go, and here we stay.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: If this is true. So, I went home, and I said, “Ellen is this true that there is going to be?” She said, “That is exactly why I want you to come to your Messiah because I don’t want to be separated from you.” And I had asked her to marry me. She said, “I cannot marry you unless we believe the same.”
Tim Moore: There’s some pressure.
Olivier Melnick: So, yeah.
David Reagan: Sounds like you’ve got quite a wife.
Olivier Melnick: Ah, 36 years now.
David Reagan: Well, praise the Lord for that.
Olivier Melnick: So, that’s how I got–I read the book and I got scared, and then she led me to the Lord at that point because I didn’t want to be separated from her and wanted to be part of the Rapture. So, I hope I get to experience the Rapture. If I don’t, if I pass before, but I would like to.
Tim Moore: So, you’re understanding that Yeshua was Jewish, but obviously the Messiah the had already come and He is coming again.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely. And the more you look at the Old Testament prophecies there is no other person that can fulfil a fraction of those. It has to be Him.
Tim Moore: Yes, sir, we obviously agree. Well, you are considered to be an expert on anti-Semitism which is coming around again in new forms, and your latest book is on that subject. It is titled as we can see, “End Times Anti-Semitism” and there’s a new subtitle, “A Chapter in the Longest Hatred”–“A New Chapter in the Longest Hatred.” So, how do you Olivier define anti-Semitism?
Olivier Melnick: Anti-Semitism there are many ways to define it, but the way I look at is it the hatred, it is the irrational hatred of the Jewish people characterized by thoughts, words, and or deeds, or any of the three combined. And I think the word that I keep emphasizing more and more in the last maybe 10 years is irrational.
David Reagan: Well, yeah, I think that is a beautiful definition, and I would seize on that because there are people in the world who hate Jews who have never met a Jew.
Olivier Melnick: Yes.
Tim Moore: Absolutely.
David Reagan: A few years ago in Japan of the top ten best-selling books in Japan five of them were blaming every problem in Japan on Jews. And you can count the number of Jews in Japan on one hand.
Olivier Melnick: Yeah, absolutely.
David Reagan: It is irrational hatred.
Tim Moore: Very irrational.
Olivier Melnick: It’s irrational.
David Reagan: Ok, I would like to follow up on that by saying the subtitle of your book “End Time Semitism” the subtitle is “A New Chapter in the Longest Hatred.” And in the book you differentiate between what you call classical anti-Semitism and what you refer to as end time anti-Semitism. What is the difference between the two?
Olivier Melnick: Well, classical anti-Semitism you could say that it is the anti-Semitism what we can study from basically the biblical record all the way to the Holocaust.
David Reagan: Okay.
Olivier Melnick: Okay. That’s historical anti-Semitism. The apex of it was the Holocaust with the racial anti-Semitism; Jews are a subhuman race of vermin that we need to destroy. Then for about 20 years there was some kind of respite, there was a time where people thought it was gone, anti-Semitism stopped existing, except it was just swept under the carpet. And in the 60’s about 20 years or so after the end of the war we start seeing this shift in the world where in the Middle East the victims become the perpetrators and the perpetrators became the victim. And we saw the birth of this new anti-Semitism. It was no longer racial because there was not really cool to say, “Well, the Jews are a subhuman race.” We don’t say that anymore so now we say, “We are anti-Zionists, or we are anti-Israel, but not anti-Jews.” So, that was the beginning of it. And people have seen it. That was the topic of my first book that came on out in ’07 “New Anti-Semitism.” But end time anti-Semitism I see as a morphing of the Historical anti-Semitism and the new anti-Semitism; where now for the last 5-7 years we have seen Jews being killed now. They fear for their lives. In France alone 10% of the Jewish population has emigrated to Israel in the last ten years.
David Reagan: Mainly out of fear.
Olivier Melnick: Out of fear because of anti-Semitism. Absolutely.
David Reagan: What are some manifestations of this end time anti-Semitism beside an increase in violence, for example the Boycott Movement.
Olivier Melnick: Well, the BDS Movement, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement, I compare to what happened in November of 1938, the night of the 9th-10th of November 1938, Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. There are a lot of parallels on that. It’s basically a movement that is promoting the boycott of anything Jewish, anything from Israel. And again people don’t check the facts, they just want to, they think the uneducated masses will think that by boycotting Israel economically and socially, they think that they are going to change things. But the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction Movement simply, and they say it themselves, they want to eradicate Israel, and destroy the Jews.
David Reagan: Now, you said they don’t check the facts, and I think that is very important because the whole BDS Movement is based upon one fundamental, now there are several things that they argue, but one fundamental one, Israel is an apartheid state.
Olivier Melnick: That is correct.
David Reagan: And, there is no evidence of apartheid in Israel.
Olivier Melnick: No, there is no. Israel is accused of being an apartheid state, and also of doing ethnic cleansing. There are more Arabs today in Israel then there were in 1948 when the state was declared a new nation.
Tim Moore: And thriving.
Olivier Melnick: And there were less Jews today then before the Holocaust. And it is the other way around.
David Reagan: And all of the Muslim countries in the Middle East have expelled their Jews.
Olivier Melnick: Right.
David Reagan: So, the place where apartheid is being practiced is in the Muslim countries, not in Israel.
Olivier Melnick: Tell me what country in the Middle East you can find Christians, Muslims, and Jews living together?
David Reagan: Israel.
Tim Moore: Israel.
Olivier Melnick: That is the only one.
Tim Moore: That’s exactly right.
David Reagan: And a Palestinian living in Israel has the same rights as an Israeli.
Olivier Melnick: That is correct.
David Reagan: They can get welfare. They can get job placement. They can get medical care. There is no separation in the hospitals, on the public transportation or whatever.
Tim Moore: Economically they thrive more in Israel then in any of the surrounding nations.
Olivier Melnick: That’s right.
David Reagan: So, we go back to your word, irrational.
Tim Moore: Yes.
David Reagan: It is an irrational thing.
Olivier Melnick: Yes, absolutely.
Tim Moore: Olivier I appreciated your treatment of the Dreyfus Affair being from France originally, obviously that was an episode that motivated people like Theodore Herzl to recognize the irrationality of anti-Semitism back over 100 years ago and lead them to aspire to find a homeland for the Jewish people. How do you see God working through even some of the events, and some of the things that we watch happening today as he brings to fruition all the prophecies of scripture relative even to the Jewish people?
Olivier Melnick: Well, we need to understand is that you are going back to the word irrational, it is irrational because anti-Semitism comes from Satan.
Tim Moore: Yes, it does.
Olivier Melnick: And because Satan knows what’s coming, he knows his career is coming to an end, and he knows he’s not going to win. And he knows the Jewish people are key in the return of Yeshua, because He won’t return until Israel says, “Baruch haba B’Shem Adonia” Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: So, Satan knows, he’s going to do everything he can to stop that. So, right now there are–the whole world, eventually the Bible tells us the whole world is going to turn against Israel, in Zechariah 12.
David Reagan: Well, I always teach that anti-Semitism is not only irrational, but it is supernatural because it comes from Satan.
Olivier Melnick: Right.
David Reagan: Satan hates the Jewish people with a passion because they gave the world the Word of God, because they are the chosen people of God, because it was through them that the Messiah came, and because God has promised that a great remnant is going to come to repentance and Satan is determined to destroy the Jewish people so that prophecy cannot be fulfilled.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely. That is the bottom line right there. That’s what he’s doing right now through all kinds of people groups, like he did during Nazi era, but he is also even using the Church today.
David Reagan: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: Not the whole church but people within the Church who have different views, faulty views, of what the Bible says.
Tim Moore: Who have been deceived, quite frankly.
Olivier Melnick: Being deceived. And our promoting agendas or supporting agendas like the BDS.
David Reagan: We have churches in America who are endorsing the BDS Movement and also withdrawing all of their investments from anything that has to do with Israel. It is incredible what’s going on.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely.
David Reagan: But, it is a fulfillment of prophecy. It says in the end times all the nations of the world are going to come together against Israel. And it is going to include the United States of America too. Right now, we are a big supporter, but Trump’s not going to stay in office forever. And sooner or later we are going to see the other side come in, and they have already made it very clear they are turning against Israel.
Tim Moore: Right.
Olivier Melnick: And let me go ahead and say that to the people, “Well, I’m not going to.” Well, I tell them listen a nation can be against Israel, it doesn’t mean that every single citizen needs to come against Israel.
David Reagan: Absolutely. Right.
Tim Moore: It’s the policies of that nation. We’ve seen that already in the past where the United States was very fickle even as an ally toward Israel. And we will turn once again, as Dave says.
Olivier Melnick: Yeah.
David Reagan: Well, folks we’re going to take a brief break, and when we come back we are going to take a look at the ugly history of Christian anti-Semitism and the basis of it.
Part 2
Tim Moore: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our interview with Olivier Melnick about anti-Semitism. Olivier, I’ve found that most Christians have no idea that for Jewish people the roots of anti-Semitism sometimes come from Christian theology, specifically what is now called Replacement Theology. Can you explain that to us?
Olivier Melnick: Well Replacement Theology is plaguing the Church in a very, very bad way. Basically, it is faulty theological approach that claims that all the promises that were made to Israel and the Jewish people in the Tanakh, starting with Genesis 12:3 and forward have now been transferred to the Christians, to the Church. Meaning that everything that God promised that was unconditional, eternal promises to the Jews are now transferred to the Christians. So, to me when I look at this it makes God a covenant breaker and a liar. And if God can break His covenant and lie to Israel on this, then I usually tell people, He can probably also break His covenant with you, and maybe you are not saved by grace, maybe you need to do works now. So, your salvation is not secure. We have to trust that if God gives Israel a covenant, several covenants in the Old Testament, He’s not going to come back on His word. So, what is interesting is in Replacement Theology also people usually say the blessings have been transferred to the Christians–
David Reagan: But not the curses.
Olivier Melnick: Curses can stay with Israel. But the blessings are all not coming to the Christians. There is a verse in 1 Corinthians 10:31-32 that says that–it describes three groups of people, the Jews, the Gentiles and the Church of God. And if it describes three groups of people, if the Church has replaced the Jews, there’s got to be a distinction there.
Tim Moore: I appreciate you saying that in 1 Corinthians, and obviously Paul had much to say about the Jews in Romans as well. So, these are not just promises made in the Old Testament they are reaffirmed in the New Testament.
Olivier Melnick: Right. Right.
David Reagan: Now, this is characteristic of both Catholics and Protestants.
Olivier Melnick: It’s all across. I would say it is all across Christendom.
David Reagan: Yeah.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely.
David Reagan: It is the majority of Christendom that believes in Replacement Theology.
Olivier Melnick: Yes. Yes, I think if you put it under Christendom it’s up to almost two-thirds.
David Reagan: Now, it started very early in Christian history.
Olivier Melnick: Second century.
David Reagan: So, kind of give us an overview of that. And tell us why people began to turn against the Jews.
Olivier Melnick: Well, early on the early Church Fathers started to, they had a desire to get back into the Word, and study in the original language, so they wanted to learn Hebrew, so they got together with Rabbis who knew Hebrew. And then in that process some of the Church Fathers developed an allegorical approach to Scripture where it could say this to you, something else to me, or tomorrow something else. So, this allegorical approach started to replace, to invite the students of the Word, those Church Fathers, to replace Israel with themselves, and the Church. And then one thing led to another. Originally it was just theological anti-Judaism. No dangers. You know you are the Jews, we are the Christians, let’s just keep it separate because we don’t think the same way. It was not really–
Tim Moore: Kind of benign concept.
Olivier Melnick: Right, like I said a theological difference.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: But then it continued, and you know human nature, like it or not all of us are sinners, forgiven, saved by grace and redeemed, but we are still in the fallen body so we have the ability to sin and to hate. And so people started to see the Jews being described as rejected by God, so people with no education back then went like, “Well, if they are rejected by God then we should not interact with them, so, then this little bit of animosity started to develop. And then laws in the third and fourth century like the Justinian Code or another one that skips my memory right now, started to be written to separate the Christians from the Jews even further. And then it snowballed into all the things that happened against the Jews in the name of Christ, or in the name of Christianity.
David Reagan: And I think the important thing to point out is that as they began to move against the Jews, who were the founders of the Church.
Olivier Melnick: Right.
David Reagan: They had to justify it. And so, the fundamental justification was the Jews are Christ killers.
Olivier Melnick: Christ killers, that’s right.
David Reagan: They’re the ones who committed the worst sin of all, the sin of deocide, killing God, and we cannot have anything to do with them. And when they began to introduce that I mean the words they used against the Jews were horrible.
Tim Moore: Hatred really took off.
Olivier Melnick: You know I am right now I am taking a class for this degree I’m working on, and I have to read a lot of the Church Fathers. And it is a class on the Trinity, but when I read the Church Fathers, and even though what I read is really good, in the back of my mind as a Jew, myself, I can’t help but remember that almost every single one that I’ve read said some really nasty things about the Jews.
David Reagan: And the Golden Orator.
Olivier Melnick: Chrysostom.
David Reagan: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: Yes.
David Reagan: He preached the most horrible sermons against the Jewish people you ever read in your life. Called them every name in the book.
Olivier Melnick: That’s right. And then people have no books to read, no education. They look at well if my leader, the bishop or the priest or whatever at the time they were, the Church Fathers if they believed that, they knew the Bible, they must know. They are the authority. So, I have to hate the Jews.
David Reagan: Did the Reformation have any impact upon this anti-Semitism?
Olivier Melnick: Well, there is a lot of good that came out of the Reformation, we know that. But, Martin Luther also wrote a little pamphlet called, “The Jews and Their Lies.”
David Reagan: Right at the end of his life.
Olivier Melnick: And it’s–
David Reagan: It’s horrible.
Tim Moore: It is horrible.
Olivier Melnick: It is a terrible book. It is two years before his death I think. And people ask me all the time, “Was he anti-Semitic? Was he old? Did he have Alzheimer’s? Was he sick?” I say, “It doesn’t matter because it is still in his works.” If you go to a library it still exists in the full works of Luther.
Tim Moore: And it had great impact not only in that day and age, but play it forward all the way into Germany in the 20th Century when they were citing Martin Luther–
Olivier Melnick: Hitler.
Tim Moore: –as justification for some of the actions of the Nazis.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely, finishing what Luther started.
Tim Moore: Exactly.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely.
David Reagan: One of the things interesting about that is early in his career when he first rebelled against the Catholic Church, he wrote a wonderful pamphlet in favor of the Jews, talking about how smart they are.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely.
David Reagan: And basically, what he was saying was I don’t blame them for rejecting the Gospel because the Gospel has been so terribly perverted by the Church. But he believed that once he gave them the pure Gospel; salvation by grace through faith they would turn. And when they didn’t, man did he turn against them. He gave a blueprint for the Holocaust.
Olivier Melnick: Yes, he did.
David Reagan: He said, “You know, confiscate their Torah scrolls, confiscate their money”
Olivier Melnick: Burn it.
David Reagan: “Put them into forced labor.”
Tim Moore: Ghettos.
Olivier Melnick: Forbid them to go on the roads.
David Reagan: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: Forbid the Rabbis from teaching.
David Reagan: And Hitler quoted it in “Mein Kampf” and said he was one of the persons he most admired. And at the trials at the end of World War II the Nuremberg Trials they stood up, the Nazi criminals, and said, “All we did was what Martin Luther said.”
Tim Moore: I think that’s–
Olivier Melnick: And then you, I’m sorry.
Tim Moore: Go ahead.
Olivier Melnick: Then you wonder why Jewish people today say the Holocaust was a Christian act.
David Reagan: Yes.
Olivier Melnick: It’s because if you connect the two, even though really true believers, true followers of Yeshua would never think that, would never do that, if you read your Bible and you really believe it. But if you connect the two, you are like if Hitler is taking his lead from Luther who is the big reformer, the father of modern Christianity so to speak.
David Reagan: That’s right.
Tim Moore: Protestantism, yes.
Olivier Melnick: Then Christians are responsible. And then people ask me all the time, “Why are Jewish people so Gospel resistant?” Well, read my book.
Tim Moore: I think Luther himself provides a cautionary tale because he had a lot of good things to say.
Olivier Melnick: Yes.
Tim Moore: He obviously reformed the Church, and Protestants follow in his footsteps in terms of trying to go back to faith alone, Scripture alone, and all the other solas, but Luther was deceived when it came to the Jews toward the end of his life. And today we have people who have good doctrine in so many areas, and yet they allow themselves to be deceived. And I use that phrase intentionally because we have to be very cautious not to follow after false teachings, especially as they would be satanically inspired to come against the Jewish people.
David Reagan: When people tell me that, when an anti-Semite, and I’ve had this happen tell me, “Well, the Jews killed Jesus.” I always refer them to Acts 4:27 which tells us who killed Jesus. “Truly in this city, Jerusalem, there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus whom thou didst anoint Herod, Pontius Pilot, the Gentiles and the people of Israel,” and a fifth, you and me, because Jesus died for us all. My sins were responsible for His death.
Olivier Melnick: Absolutely.
David Reagan: Not just the Jewish people.
Olivier Melnick: No. No, but it continues to this day, you know that is the biggest accusation we have, of course that is one of many. We are also accused of poisoning the wells of Europe with the Black Plague.
David Reagan: Oh, yeah.
Olivier Melnick: You know the Crusades, you now the Christian Crusades was very detrimental, very, very lethal to the Jews.
Tim Moore: Yeah, when we go to Israel, I take people to one of the great Crusader forts there at Acco and I tell them the Crusaders came to free the Holy Land, but as well as coming against Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land, they were absolutely determined to kill and destroy Jewish communities throughout Israel even then, that were remaining after the Diaspora.
Olivier Melnick: Right.
David Reagan: You know one time I went to the theological seminary that is at TCU, Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth. I went over there and I took a look at the many, many volumes, like that of books that they had where preachers preached all the way through the Bible from Genesis 1 to the last verse. And you know what I discovered? That about 80% of them did not preach on Romans 9-11. When they go there they’d say, “Now, Romans 9-11 is an irrelevant parenthesis and skip.” Because Romans 9-11 says God loves the Jewish people. He still loves the Jewish people. He has a purpose for the Jewish people. In chapter 11 Paul begins, “Has God rejected His people? He has not has He?” And the Church says, “Yes.” And he says, “No.” I mean it is just as clear as it can be. For 2,000 years the Church has said, “Yes, He has rejected.”
Olivier Melnick: Unless we look at those verses, “He has not rejected His people, because we are His people now.” Don’t get me started.
David Reagan: And He is a covenant keeping God.
Olivier Melnick: That’s right. That’s right, that hasn’t changed. There is a great future for Israel.
David Reagan: Tell us about your ministry that you serve.
Olivier Melnick: Chosen People Ministries believe it or not this year we are celebrating 125 year anniversary.
David Reagan: Is that right?
Olivier Melnick: Yes, and I’m not the founder.
Tim Moore: That is good to know.
Olivier Melnick: Yes, but, yes 125 years we are in I believe now in 19 countries, wherever there is a Jewish community we will have a presence; either a congregation or a center, or a branch or some sort of presence to reach out with the Gospel of Yeshua to the Jewish community. We do one-on-one visitation. We do festivals. We do conferences. We even, we still do street evangelism, although this is kind of dwindling down. A lot of it is on the internet now.
David Reagan: I was going ask you, do you share the Gospel with these people?
Tim Moore: Are you seeing a response that is upticking in recent years?
Olivier Melnick: We are seeing a response, we have seen a tremendous response in the last almost 10 years now with our web campaign. We have this web campaign ifoundshalom.com, where we have testimonies of Jewish believers, myself and probably at least another 100, five to eight minute testimonies. And they are all Jewish believers from all over the world.
David Reagan: What is the website?
Olivier Melnick: Ifoundshalom.com
David Reagan: Shalom, peace, Ifoundshalom.com. And where would they go to find the ministry that you serve?
Olivier Melnick: chosenpeopleministries.com
David Reagan: Yes, and they have a wonderful publication they put out.
Olivier Melnick: Yes. Yes.
David Reagan: It is really, really great.
Tim Moore: Olivier when I hear you talk, and reading your book, and just seeing the passion that you bring toward proclaiming the Gospel to Jewish people, and Gentiles alike, and advising us not to buy into the deception. I’m reminded of what Zechariah promised in the end times. Of course, we know that the Jewish people would continue to be blessed not because they deserved it anymore than I deserve it, but they would receive a blessing from God, and they would reclaim their land, and be back in the city of Jerusalem. And then Zechariah says this in chapter 8:23, he says, “Thus say the Lord of host, ‘In those days ten men from all those nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying, ‘Let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you.'”
David Reagan: Hallelujah. I can hardly wait.
Tim Moore: Hallelujah. I’m going to hold on tight and follow after.
David Reagan: Yeah, Yeshua is just going to turn the world upside down one day.
Olivier Melnick: That’s right, and that means that at some point the remnant, of the Jewish people at the time are all going to become believers.
Tim Moore: Amen.
Olivier Melnick: They’re all going call God their God.
David Reagan: Folks, that is our program for today. Stay tuned and we will tell you how you can get a book that answers all these questions we dealt with today, and many others. I hope our program has been a blessing to you, and I hope that the Lord willing you’ll be back with us next week. Until then this is Dave Reagan speaking for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our redemption is drawing near.”