WE MUST FIGHT ANTI-SEMTISM IN EVERY ABHORRENCE

Since the bloody terrorist attack on Jews in Israel on October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, Jews around the world have been subjected to anti-Semitic attacks to an unprecedented degree in recent memory. This also applies here, where Danish Jews - just because they are Jews - have to live with a wide range of security measures. Jewish children are harassed and receive death threats, and public space is no longer safe if you can be identified as a Jew. The terrorist plots that Danish authorities have just foiled only underline the fact that Danish Jews are targets of a viciousness that no one should ignore.

The fight against the Jews is a fight against all of us. Anti-Semitism is a spectre that distorts, confounds and seduces. It aggravates spiritual life and makes us less human. It is in defense of the common man and the value of fellow man as equals that we grow as human beings. This is where we understand the meaning of being created in God's image.

The war in Gaza is deeply tragic, and the excessively high Palestinian death toll arouses particular sadness and pain. But what unfolds in that war can never and must never be a justification for the persecution of a fellow human being simply because he or she has a special ethnic or religious affiliation. We are all committed to that distinction.

Anti-Semitism must be combated in every form and at all levels. In the political, which Danish politicians have done well; in spiritual life; on social media and in interpersonal relationships.

It is the respect for the fellow man on which Denmark is built.

FriKirkenNet, December 2023