Steve Conover: Thank you for joining us for the Friends of Israel Today. I'm Steve Conover and Chris Katulka, our host and teacher is with me. I want to encourage you to take note of our website, that's foiradio.org. It's there you can listen to over nine years worth of content featuring Chris's teaching and insightful interviews with a host of great guests. Again, that's foiradio.org.

Chris Katulka: Steve, part of the DNA of the Friends of Israel is to stand up against antisemitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, the targeted hatred of the Jewish people. And so when we think about antisemitism, we need to highlight what it is. It's been around for a long time. It goes back to biblical times and why is it here today? Why is it actually even growing, especially here in the United States of America, especially since October 7th? Well, today we're going to have Ty Perry, who is the assistant to the North American Ministries director on the program, to talk about his column that he writes in Israel My Glory, which features antisemitic moments that take place all around the world really and how really we should respond as Christians. We really want to bless those who bless you, talking about Israel, and curse those who curse you. We want to stand on the side of God's blessing.

Steve Conover: Stay tuned for Ty, but first in the news, at the end of July a rocket from Lebanon, from where Hezbollah has been striking Israel struck the town of Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Golan Heights. According to the Jerusalem Post and the time of this recording, at least 12 children were killed and dozens more were injured when the rocket made an impact on a soccer field near a playground in the Druze village. Hezbollah denied launching the rocket.

Chris Katulka: Steve, here's my take, Hezbollah has been proud to take responsibility for killing innocent Jewish Israelis. There were recently two that were killed in Metula. They were targeted with the kamikaze drone by Hezbollah. But now that innocent Israelis from the Druze community were killed by their terrorist act, they say, "Hey, wasn't us." You need to take stock of this my listeners, when Jewish people are killed by Hezbollah they celebrate, but when they kill Israel's minority communities they say, "Hey, nothing to see here."

Steve Conover: Chris, before we move on, this news story was tragic. This was about a week ago that we heard this news over the weekend coming out of Israel, and I imagine a lot of people have never heard the term Druze until the news of last weekend. What do we know about them?

Chris Katulka: The Druze are a very special community in Israel. Number one, they go back to the 11th century AD. They actually come from Egypt, but they migrated and moved up into the area of the Golan Heights. In fact, there are Druze that live in Israel. There are some Druze that live in Lebanon, and there are some Druze that live in Syria. When the Golan Heights was taken by the Israelis after the six-day war, the boundary lines, the armistice lines were set and a lot of those Druze communities were kind of isolated from one another. But the amazing thing about the Druze is that they actually don't want any nationality connected to themselves. So whatever country they land in, that's who they adopt. And so when those lines were drawn in 1967, the Druze became Israelis. Many of them are proud Israelis. The Druze religion is very fascinating.

They're connected to Shia Muslims, but what's fascinating about them is they really have a very different religion than the Muslims that practice today. They believe in reincarnation and they've adopted a lot of the practices of ancient religions from the time that it was founded, like the Persians and Zoroastrianism and things of that nature. So they have a very spiritual outlook on life. You can't become a Druze, so if anybody's trying to convert to become a Druze, you can't do it. They don't welcome in converts. You are born into it by your family, and you cannot marry outside of being within the Druze community. So it's a very close-knit family community. And Israel happens to have a very beautiful Druze community up in the very, very, very northern part of the country in the Golan Heights.

Steve Conover: And we take people there, don't we?

Chris Katulka: We do. In fact, we've enjoyed plenty of their cuisine and culture. It's a part of what we do when we do an Up to Jerusalem tour to Israel. We take the bus all the way up when we're visiting the Golan Heights, and we often will stop in Majdal Shams for lunch where we get to interact with the Druze. And they have a fantastic cuisine, a fantastic culture, very nice people who are always very welcoming. And are, again, many of them are very proud Israelis as well.

Steve Conover: They make up about 2% of the country's population in Israel. There is a community of about a million that, as you said, is in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. What does it say about Israel that the Druze community is so pro-Israel and serves in the IDF?

Chris Katulka: That's something I wanted to highlight, and I'm glad that you brought that up, was the fact that there are Druze who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. That means that they serve the country that they live in and they are proud Israelis. And this is a very fascinating thing to see because oftentimes when people think of Israel, they don't think of it as a multicultural pluralistic society. They think of it as all Jewish people and that's just not the case. There are many minority groups within Israel, Druze being one of the popular ones actually. And so what it shows is the appreciation and value that Israel has as a democracy. For those who are not even Jewish, they value their Druze community. And the Druze, again, because of that reason, go into the army, they go into the Navy, they go into the Air Force and they serve their country because that's where they find their religious freedom, to be able to practice and worship the way they want.

Steve Conover: Thank you, Chris. We continue to pray for the Druze community in Israel at this time.

Chris Katulka: Hi, I am Chris Katulka, the host of The Friends of Israel Today radio program, and also the editorial writer for Israel My Glory magazine. Today we have a special guest, Ty Perry. Ty is the assistant to the director of North American Ministries. And we're going to be looking at a column that Ty has been producing since the beginning of 2023 in Israel My Glory, and it's all about antisemitism. This is important because antisemitism is on the rise, and Ty is going to highlight why this article that he's writing in Israel My Glory is incredibly important. Ty, great to have you.

Ty Perry: Thanks for having me, Chris.

Chris Katulka: Hey, so you've been writing excellent articles since the beginning of 2023, a new column that we've put in Israel My Glory all about antisemitism. And this has become important to Friends of Israel because antisemitism is actually on the rise. It seems like every time that we turn the news on, there's something related to some type of antisemitism going on not just in the United States but around the world. Maybe you want to share with us why it's important for our audience, our listeners, our writers, our readers to see and hear what's going on with antisemitism in the world.

Ty Perry: Yeah, I think it's important for Christians to know that there's suffering around the world. There's persecution of believers around the world, all that's vital for us to understand. But since Israel, the Jewish people are the apple of God's eye and we're called to be a blessing to them, not a curse, then we need to be cognizant of attacks on those people. And I think particularly as the church has traditionally, at least in the last couple of centuries, we've been some of the best friends that the Jewish community has. We need to be more aware of what they're facing so that we can come in and meet the needs that they have.

Chris Katulka: I like where you went there. You had talked about the fact within the past few years, especially in the last few decades even, the church has shown really a biblical approach to understanding how to love Israel and the Jewish people. Maybe you can highlight that a little bit. Why is it that the church all of a sudden has started to show love and support and standing up against antisemitism?

Ty Perry: I think fundamentally it's biblical, that as it comes to the text, the more interaction the believer has with the text and coming at it from a literal hermeneutic, they're going to come away with some type of a love for the Jewish people to some extent. I think since 1948 with the reestablishment of Israel, it confirmed everything that Bible students have known or at least thought would probably happen as they've studied the scriptures. And so since 1948 with the reestablishment of Israel, there's this awakening among evangelical believers to support the nation of Israel. You see the '67 six-day war when it looked like Israel might not be in existence anymore because of the Arab armies, and yet they miraculously defeat all of the Arab armies around them. That was a real clear point in the Christian Jewish relationship particularly as it concerns Israel, where Christians said, there's something more going on here than just a nation that the UN started or allowed to start. The Lord is behind this.

Chris Katulka: So when you're looking at the church, you're seeing there's both kind of it's a double-edged sword here. You're seeing both an increase in love and support for Israel and the Jewish people based on what the Bible teaches. But then at the same time, there's also the church has that ugly history of antisemitism that can kind of somehow find its way even into modern messages, if you will, and speaking to modern audiences. Could you maybe highlight a little bit about that?

Ty Perry: Yeah. So historically Christian, and I say that broadly, Christendom has been one of the foremost persecutors of the Jewish people. And that's that contradiction and a paradox. But in recent years, what we've seen is it's not so much among Christians, it's not so much a religious animosity against the Jewish people as much as it gets into a social animosity, social antisemitism. So they're not necessarily Christians who are saying, the Jewish people killed Christ, we need to do harm to them. But they may say, there's some Jewish people doing things that we don't like and therefore it's brought into apply to all Jewish people. So we see that in the church.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, maybe like they control the media or they have all the money or things like that. Those are antisemitic tropes. Can we back up for a minute too because I always like to highlight this for our listeners on the radio or whenever I'm speaking, I always like to highlight what antisemitism is because I once many years ago saw a statistic that showed that not many people even understand what that term means. So maybe as we're kind of having a conversation about why your article is so important in Israel My Glory, and we even highlight that it's a column about antisemitism, maybe this is a good moment for people to hear, what is antisemitism?

Ty Perry: I wish there was just a defined way of answering that, there's actually a debate on the definition of antisemitism. But fundamentally it's a hatred of the Jewish people. It's a view of the Jewish people that is negative and it manifests itself differently. So you have political antisemitism, you have theologically motivated antisemitism which is what you're seeing in the Muslim world. But it's fundamentally a hatred of the Jewish people with a variety of manifestations.

Chris Katulka: Now, and I think that's really important... I always like to just say to people, when I say antisemitism I mean it's hatred toward the Jewish people. And like you said, that can work its way out in many different ways. And one of the ways that we're seeing this today, is Israel is at war right now. Israel is at war with Hamas, and then just recently Iran attacked Israel which means Israel's at war with Iran in some ways through its proxies and even directly now as they have to deal with that. And what's interesting is Israel is attempting to protect itself even after October 7th, which is antisemitism. It was a direct attack against the innocent Jewish lives that were living in Israel from Hamas. Even with that happening, there are voices that are rising up and they have this antisemitic sound to them. They have an antisemitic way of thinking.

And what's fascinating to me is a lot of people will say this, they'll say, "Oh, I'm not antisemitic. I just hate Israel." Which is another word, anti-Zionism or to be anti-Zionist. How do you deal with that, Ty? Can you say, I hate Israel but I love Jewish people or I like Jewish people. How do you wrestle with that?

Ty Perry: Well, again, you'll have a variety of opinions on this, but I view it this way. Is there theoretically aligned between being opposed to the state of Israel and being antisemitic? Maybe in theory. If you say, I disagree with a lot of Israeli policies, that's not anti-Semitic. If that was anti-Semitic, most Israelis are antisemitic. Most Jewish people are anti-Semitic. But when it comes to anti-Zionism where we have this view that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, that's where we cross the line because Israel is held to a double standard. A standard that no other nation in the world is held to. And so it's very curious that people will say, "I don't hate Jewish people. I just hate Israel." Essentially what they're saying is, I don't hate individual Jewish people. I just hate it when they have power.

Chris Katulka: That's exactly what it is, and I've thought about this a lot. There's so many issues that happen in the Middle East. I was just speaking at a conference and I saw this young woman in her 20s that was there, and we got to talking. And after we were done our conference, she came up to me and she says, "I have a question for you that I don't have an answer to." And bear in mind, this is someone who's lived in Israel for a long time. She has Israeli friends, she speaks Hebrew, the whole thing. She says, "Everybody calls what happened on October 7th and that antisemitism, they call it spiritual." But she says, "Sometimes I feel like that waters down what actually is going on." She's a Christian and she says, "I believe it's spiritual, but if you say that to Israeli who's suffering, it just feels like it kind of goes, it's spiritual."

I'm interested to hear what your thoughts are on this. I told her, "I understand what you're saying." Because for her it was deeper. Her friends suffered. I told her, "I think the answer is to tell their stories." She goes, "How do I combat this? How do I say, yes, it is spiritual but also this." And I was saying, the thing you want to do is tell their stories and you want to put them in their shoes, because she's right. If you just say it's spiritual, you've kind of just kind of chalked it up to going, oh, it's somewhere up there in the heavens. When really I'm telling her what you should do is tell their story. It will ground both the spiritual component of what's going on and also the reality on the ground. I'm curious to know what your thoughts are, especially as you're telling the stories.

Ty Perry: I think I understand where she's coming from. I think that when you understand it as a spiritual conflict though, it takes on even more significance because this is not just a political battle happening here. It's a massive spiritual thing happening that has obviously very physical manifestation. But I do think it's important to tell the stories about how does that conflict bear out? What are the Jewish people facing? I have a friend, her name is Sivan, and she was in Sderot the night of the day of the attack on October 7th. And she told me her story of what it was like to hear Hamas members outside of her door. She's inside with her, I think it was a seven-month-old baby and her elderly mother. That puts flesh on that story. And it also I think for me, as I consider what this is, that it is a spiritual battle. Understanding that it being spiritual doesn't mean it's not real, that this is how it's impacting real people. And so I think those together that's probably the best way to approach it.

Chris Katulka: And that's what I was trying to say is you can't ignore the spiritual component of antisemitism. It's something that routes all the way back to the moment God called Abraham, because God gave a commission to Abraham through you all the families of the earth will be blessed. Well, that's enough for Satan to go, I'm targeting these people until they're done with, because if there is no Israel, if there are no Jewish people, then we don't have to deal with God's redemptive plan at all. And so I was trying to tell her that it is a spiritual thing, but telling the story is what puts people in their shoes so that you can feel that. I want to move really quickly because as we're talking about stories, all we see on the news today is college campuses, they have become a hotbed of antisemitism. Why is that? Why are college campuses the places that seem to be the target of antisemitism or the bullseye of antisemitism?

Ty Perry: Sure. Well, I think again there's a number of reasons that contribute to it. But historically, the college campus has been a place for the free exchange of ideas, which is what I think it should be in the West. That's something we've championed. Unfortunately, it's been hijacked to be a stage or a platform for the most radical ideas, while at the same time suppressing any counter protest of any substance. And so when you think of antisemitism, an anti-Israel sentiment, I think that's a major component. The other component is that there is a growing movement of anti-Western thought, anti Judeo-Christian worldview, and so Israel is at the apex of that. And so these college campuses are going to have protests that coalesce around Israel because it represents everything that the campus has been promoting and targeting as something that they want to eliminate.

Chris Katulka: Yeah. And that's fascinating to me because what you're saying is that number one, they're learning. It almost seems like there's a sense of activism that's being taught from college campuses, and you even see it not just in the... You go, oh, well, the teachers are teaching this. But it almost seems to be working its way all the way up to the upper echelons of the leadership and staff at these high Ivy League schools, where they're standing before Congress and they could not just call out antisemitism for what it is. Why do you think it's not only in the communication of how teachers are speaking to students who are, I think activating them to fulfill these antisemitic tropes and to speak out against Israel. But then at the same time, you'd think that the leadership would say, "Enough students, let's return order." But it seems like everything's out of control.

Ty Perry: Yeah. I think it's in a way a case of the tail wagging the dog. The donors are the ones you'd think that these college presidents would want to appease, and a lot of the donors to Harvard and Columbia they're Jewish people who are very much opposed to what has happened. But they're not focused on the donors, they're focused on the students. And if they really don't want to come up against the students and their views, and so they kind of get in line behind that. And so I think that's why you're seeing these college presidents not be able to make a bold statement that this is antisemitism. I also think you have a lack of moral clarity. Once you reject truth, which is what they've done at a lot of these Ivy League schools, once you reject the idea of truth and that it's knowable then it becomes very hard to make any moral judgments. Even ones that seem crystal clear like antisemitism, those judgments aren't able to be made as clearly.

Chris Katulka: Yeah, and that becomes the issue of where I think modern antisemitism and modern anti-Zionism which I think are one and the same, the hatred of Israel and the hatred of the Jewish people they go hand in hand. I think it comes exactly from what you're talking about, is that there is a truth that is being taught, and it's that if you are the victim then you are the one who's being oppressed. And so victimhood is one of those interesting ones, and there's this thought that's going throughout college campuses. And I even think that the thought in some media outlets as well, that Israel is the oppressor of the Palestinians or the oppressor of... Look at what they're doing over there. And instead of looking at the history and finding the truth, they just listen to what their professor says or what the media says in that little soundbite and then all of a sudden an activism to get involved.

When really when they say things like from the river to the sea, they don't even realize what river they're talking about or what sea they're talking about, which just shows that there's an antisemitism that's not even built on facts. It's just built on an emotion that's being communicated through social media, through their professors or wherever the case might be. And that's why I think your articles are incredibly important.

Ty Perry: Well, thank you. It's a privilege to write them.

Chris Katulka: Now, listen, this is your opportunity, if you're tuning in for the first time and you're just finding out about Ty's articles on antisemitism, this is a great opportunity for you to turn and to actually find his articles which are in every issue of Israel My Glory. These articles will inform you on the antisemitism that is happening not just in our country, which is on the rise, but globally. It will connect you with what's going on with antisemitism happening in Europe, happening on college campuses, even the antisemitism coming out of the Middle East. Ty tackles some of the difficult issues and really makes us think about how we as Christians can get involved to fight antisemitism and to push back and to be praying for Israel and the Jewish people. Ty, are there any last words that you want to give for our listeners and readers of Israel My Glory?

Ty Perry: Well, first of all, I hope you read the articles to become informed about what our Jewish friends are facing, and then don't let it stop there. Don't just read these and close the magazine and be done. At the very least, pray for the Jewish people. Pray that the antisemitism they're facing might be at least restrained. But then also look for opportunities to show your Jewish friends and neighbors that you care and you do so as a believer in the Lord Jesus.

Chris Katulka: Hey, Ty, thanks so much for being a part of this program and also for being a writer for Israel My Glory.

Ty Perry: Privileged. Thanks, Chris.

Steve Conover: Hey, Chris, did you know that August is Make-a-Will Month?

Chris Katulka: Believe it or not, Steve, I did. And that's why it's so important to consider your future planning, especially since it's so easy to put off until another day.

Steve Conover: I agree, Chris. And it's why it excites me that the Friends of Israel has partnered with the online estate planning tool FreeWill to enable you to write your legal will for free. In as little as 20 minutes online, you can create an estate plan to protect your assets, support the people and organizations that you love, and have the opportunity to include a legacy gift in your plans.

Chris Katulka: When the Katulka family was planning our will, I wish I would've known about FreeWill, and so we hope that you'll join us on Make-a-Will Month. To get started on writing your legal free will today, go to foi.org/yourfreewill. Again, that's foi.org/yourfreewill.

Steve Conover: Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode of The Friends of Israel Today. A reminder to visit our website at foiradio.org. Again, that's foiradio.org. The Friends of Israel Today is a production of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Passion for God's Word. Compassion for God's Chosen People.