Parshall Partners

Blessing Those Who Bless Him

         Anti-Semitism is on the rise.  College campus protests, attacks on synagogues, and killing Jews at point-blank range all point to a historic resurgence of the oldest hatred in history. 

         According to the 2025 report on anti-Semitism from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 83% of Jewish college students had experienced antisemitism since the October 7^th, 2023 attacks in Israel.  41% felt the need to sometimes hide their Jewish identity.  The report found that 46% of adults worldwide hold significant antisemitic beliefs, and that prejudice against the Jewish people seems to be hardening among the under-35 Millennial and Gen Z generations.

         Perhaps this resurgence of anti-Semitism is due in part to ignorance about who the Jewish people are. There are 1.4 billion Chinese, 1.5 billion in Africa, 660 million Hispanics and Latinos but only 15 million Jews, in the world.  Yet, this small group of people have made a huge impact on world history. Listen to what President John Adams had to say about the Jewish people:

“I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern.”

         Mark Twain wrote a piece for Harper’s Magazine in 1899, entitled Concerning the Jews, where he stated:

         ” ...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of…The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

         The answer to their immortality is God Himself.  His promise of Genesis 12 still holds. As a promise keeping God, He will bless those who seek the welfare of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 

         Those are my thoughts. I’m Janet Parshall.