“I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.”
Jeremiah 31:3
Tomorrow we mark Kristallnacht, that is, the night of 10 November 1938 when Nazi Germany attacked Jewish homes, shops and synagogues. Synagogues were set on fire, property was destroyed and Jews were subjected to brutal violence. Around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. That day marked a dramatic escalation in the Nazis’ systematic persecution of Jews.
This commemoration should concern us all, for anti-Semitism cannot be confined to Nazism or a specific period; it stems from a fundamental opposition to and contempt for God’s work to save us all, and I shall explain why.
In Oslo, the Kristallnacht commemoration has been held for many years, organised jointly by the Jewish Community of Oslo (DMT) and the Anti-Racist Centre. However, in 2023, the DMT withdrew from the event and held its own commemoration at the synagogue in Oslo. In 2024, too, the DMT held its own memorial service at the synagogue. And in 2025, the community chose to withdraw from all further cooperation.
In a letter to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Oslo’s Mayor Anne Lindboe, the DMT described the background to the break as a “long-standing concern” regarding the content of the annual commemorations on 9 November.
The then chair of the board, Ronen Bahar, made the following statement to *Vårt Land* regarding the reason:
In recent years, the focus has been largely on the conflict in Palestine and on standing up against hatred and polarisation in general. We want to bring the commemoration back to addressing anti-Semitism, and what it is like to feel alone within a community.
This year, too, the Jewish Community has chosen to organise its own commemoration.
It is a disturbing aspect of our times that Israel’s struggle to protect its people from organisations and states seeking the country’s annihilation is often portrayed as an expression of racism. The very existence of the Jewish state is being turned into a moral issue. When the Jews’ right to national self-determination is portrayed as illegitimate, we must recognise that we are witnessing a new form of the age-old hostility towards the Jews.
For we cannot understand the persecution of the Jews without understanding the Jews’ place in human history.
Jesus was a Jew. Mary was Jewish. The Apostles were Jews. The first Christians were Jews. The Old Testament is the sacred scripture of Christianity, and the Christian faith’s conception of the Messiah is inextricably linked to the history of Israel.
Paul was clear that we, as Christians, should not look down on the Jews. In his Epistle to the Romans (chapter 11), he writes that God’s relationship with Israel has not come to an end, and that Gentile Christians have no reason to exalt themselves above the Jews. As Jeremiah writes, it is indeed still the Jewish people who are eternally loved by God, who are the root of the tree into which Christians have been grafted – something many Christians even today seem to forget. Or, as Jesus himself said (John 4:22): ‘Salvation comes from the Jews.’
When Christians have persecuted Jews, they have therefore also turned against their own spiritual history, against God’s chosen people, amongst whom Jesus could be born and recognised as God’s own Son.
We should therefore interpret the persistent hostility experienced by the Jews theologically, as part of the great struggle between God’s will and evil. For God is still not finished with his people.
Throughout history, the Jews have been subjected to the worst forms of persecution. It began in ancient times, with Pharaoh’s attempt to exterminate the male children of Israel, Haman’s attempt to wipe out the Jews in Persia and Antiochus IV’s attempt to abolish the Jewish religion in the Israel of that time, and the abuses continued into the Christian Middle Ages.
The motives behind anti-Semitism have changed. It began with them being regarded as religious outsiders; later, they were blamed for society’s misfortunes; subsequently, they were considered an economic threat. Some branded them as communists, others as capitalists, whilst they were regarded as a danger to national security, before they were alleged to be a racial threat. Today, Israel is increasingly portrayed as a threat to world security.
As Christians, we cannot be content merely to understand the persecution of the Jews as a result of changing political, economic and social conditions. We must also understand it in the light of the special role the Jewish people play in God’s history of salvation. God chose Abraham and his descendants as the bearers of the promise of blessing for all nations. Through this people came the prophets, the Scriptures and, ultimately, God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. This gives the persecution of the Jews a dimension to which we as Christians can never be indifferent, and it is in this light that we must view how many people today seek to relativise Kristallnacht and portray others as equally great victims. We must therefore be particularly vigilant when some claim that Israel must bear responsibility for the conflict in the Middle East.
The history of the Jewish people is not merely the story of a people who have been repeatedly persecuted. It is also the story of a people who have preserved their religious and historical identity over millennia, despite empires, persecutions and attempts at annihilation. For us Christians, this history is inextricably linked to God’s revelation and plan of salvation. Paul’s warning to the Christians in Rome therefore remains relevant today: we have been grafted into a tree that already had roots, and we have no reason to forget where those roots come from.
