Since the October 7^th attacks, Antisemitism around the world has been growing at a rapid pace. Just this past week, a man was arrested with guns and ammunition for an attack on Alabama Synagogues. JNS reported:

Dov Wilker, Southeastern regional director for the American Jewish Committee, stated that the incident “is yet another example of the numerous threats Jewish institutions have faced from extremist views that stoke blind hatred, in too many cases, leads to violent, antisemitic acts whose goal is to terrorize and kill Jews.”

In New York City, a Jew was identified because he wore a kippah and had his nose broken. His wife said, “For me, it’s like 1939”.

According to JNS, the consul general of Israel in New York stated:

“This attack is a direct result of the daily incitement taking place around the world, including in the United States, against Jews and against Israel,” Akunis stated. “Lies, verbal violence, calls for another Oct. 7 massacre, and the unrestricted spread of blood libels, such as the false Gaza narrative, influence many people, some of whom do not hesitate to commit physical attacks.”

In Israel, one of the terrorists Israel was forced to release as part of the “deal” was re-arrested. Arutz Sheva reported:

Special forces from the Judea District, Border Police Yassam units from the Judea and Samaria District, and Border Police K9 units from Jerusalem on Wednesday night arrested a terrorist in Bethlehem, thwarting a terror attack planned for Saturday.

The terrorist in question was recently been released as part of the hostage deal, in which Israel released convicted killers in exchange for a mostly-civilian group of hostages.

Now, the terrorist has been re-arrested on suspicion of resuming the manufacture of explosive devices and planning to carry out a terror attack at Rachel's Tomb on Saturday.

Another Jewish man was attacked and robbed on his way home from Synagogue in Los Angeles. A car did a U-turn after noticing the man wore a kippah, and the armed occupants of the car exited the vehicle and robbed the victim.

In an interview with JNS, Christian actress Patricia Heaton, founder of the October 7^th Coalition, stated:

“Many city officials have looked the other way as protesters regularly call for a global intifada. They chant, ‘From the river to the sea,’ and their rhetoric is becoming increasingly antisemitic. Jewish restaurants and businesses have been vandalized, and Jews have been harassed or even killed. These are all warning signs we saw before World War II in Germany. We should all be alarmed,” Heaton said.

Reflecting on the growth of antisemitism around the world, author Shira Lankin Sheps, in an article entitled “Yom HaAliyah: The call to move to Israel” stated the following:

My concern is that many Jews are likely to come to Israel relatively soon because their worlds have shifted around them. Not because they planned to leave, but because their circumstances have begun to move. Sometimes, aliyah begins with longing; sometimes, with necessity.

Leaving their places of birth because it’s become untenable. Unsafe. Problematic to be Jewish. Unaccepted — at school, at work, in public.

In some places, it may already be too dangerous. In others, it may just be a wake-up call that it is time to move on and answer the louder call of impending redemption. A reunification with people and land.

Another author, Macy Hall wrote in the Times of Israel:

I will be the first to admit that before the war began, I didn’t feel a deep pull towards Israel. As I think of it now, it’s clear that it’s become an intrinsic part of my soul – my Neshamah. Two years of hatred online and abusive comments took Israel from being little more than a country I visit to a safe haven.

Considering making Aliyah has become like second nature to me. To say those words now, with a ceasefire in place and all living hostages home, feels a lot easier, but they’ve been true throughout the war, not only towards the end of it.

That’s an unsavoury truth that many British Jews have had to face: a country at war has often felt safer than the one we grew up in.

I don’t think I know a single Jewish person who hasn’t experienced antisemitism in the past two years. From online, to our major cities, and even to our university campuses, it has become inescapable. Synagogues are being attacked and vandalised, Jewish schools and nurseries require extra security, and students are left feeling unsafe on campuses.

This change of attitude was brought out by Jewish Australian Michael Gencher, Executive Director of Stand With Us Australia,  in a July article in The Times of Israel, under the headline: “Pulled by Purpose, Pushed by Hate: The Changing Narrative of Aliyah” where he stated:

For decades, the narrative of aliyah—Jewish immigration to Israel—was rooted in hope. It was the Zionist dream: a pull toward purpose, continuity, and peoplehood. A story of identity and rebirth, not retreat. Jews came to Israel not because they had to, but because they felt called—by history, by faith, by the promise of shaping the future. Aliyah was a choice. Today, disturbingly, it’s becoming a contingency plan.

Since October 7, 2023, the world has changed for Jewish communities outside Israel. Antisemitism, long simmering beneath the surface, has exploded into public view. Universities have become hostile environments. Jewish students are heckled, lecturers cheer on genocidal slogans, and protests bleed into threats and vandalism. Synagogues are targeted. Schoolchildren are abused. Mezuzahs are removed from doorframes, Magen Davids hidden beneath clothing. Even in liberal democracies that once held up pluralism as a point of pride, the message to Jews is becoming clear: your belonging is conditional.

He continues:

The shift from pull to push in the aliyah narrative is not just emotional—it’s measurable. The Jewish Agency and Nefesh B’Nefesh report record-breaking inquiries from Western countries, particularly France and North America. And here in Australia—where aliyah was once the rare choice of the deeply religious or passionately ideological—we are seeing a clear rise in inquiries, conversations, and serious planning. Families are speaking with the Israeli consulate. People are attending aliyah seminars. The thought process has changed. In all of these places, the shift is not being pulled by Zionism but pushed by antisemitism.

He concludes:

Israel was never meant to be merely a shelter from the storm—it was meant to be the sun breaking through the clouds. A lighthouse, not a lifeboat. Yet increasingly, we’re seeing it recast as the final refuge when all other doors close…. Of course, Israel must always be a refuge. That is its moral and historical imperative. But Jews must never be made to feel that they belong only in Israel because they are being pushed out of everywhere else. That was the world of 1939.

God brought his people out of Egypt when he constituted them as a nation:

“Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” (Exodus 19:4–6)

After the diaspora of AD 70, the Jews were scattered all over the world. Their existence would be tenuous at best, as Moses prophesied:

“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” (Deuteronomy 28:64–67)

However, in the latter years God would redeem his people a second time:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, That the Lord shall set his hand again the second time To recover the remnant of his people, Which shall be left, from Assyria, And from Egypt, and from Pathros, And from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, And from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, And shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, And gather together the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:11–12)

It has been God’s work to bring Israel back the second time. He is actively “recovering” the remnant (Hebrew qanah)  meaning ‘to get, to acquire, to buy, to redeem’ and “assembling” (Hebrew acaph) meaning ‘to gather, receive, gather in or collect.’

God is actively at work through the angels to bring his people back today, like he did when they came out of Egypt:

“Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.” (Jeremiah 16:14–15)

The regathering began as a fishing process, drawing his people into the land. The age of persuasion came first, Jeremiah illustrates:

“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them” (Jeremiah 16:16)

The imagery used here is one of gathering together. Isaiah likens the returning population to doves coming back to their roots:

“Who are these that fly as a cloud, And as the doves to their windows? Surely the isles shall wait for me, And the ships of Tarshish first, To bring thy sons from far, Their silver and their gold with them, Unto the name of the Lord thy God, And to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee. And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, And their kings shall minister unto thee: For in my wrath I smote thee, But in my favour have I had mercy on thee. Therefore thy gates shall be open continually; They shall not be shut day nor night; That men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, And that their kings may be brought.” (Isaiah 60:8–11)

 What Michael Gencher spoke about was the shift from a “pull to the land” – an attraction that would lure the people, to a fear and necessity that would drive them out of their habitations. Jeremiah continues and highlights this second phase:

“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them

That is the first phase, then he states:

“and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.” (Jeremiah 16:16–17)

Jeremy Gimple spoke about this at the emergency Aliyah conference in Jerusalem back in May 2024. He spoke of the change from Jews being attracted to come to Israel to being driven there, citing this very verse.

The imagery is of the diaspora — hidden in the mountains, hills, and holes of the rocks. This was the situation when the Philistines invaded the land during the time of Saul:

“When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits. And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.” (1 Samuel 13:6–7)

The hostility of Gentiles to the Jews is nothing new. For generations, since the diaspora, Jews have found safe places to hide themselves throughout the world — in Australia, Canada, Britain, and the USA and many other places. They were largely driven from Europe as a result of the Holocaust, although a few remain.

The Jewish Australian Michael Gencher (cited earlier), and many Jews today, have a faith in humanity that is scripturally unfounded.  God put division between his people and the world right at the beginning of time:

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

 God separated his people out of the Gentiles when he called out Abraham, as Peter points out:

“Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.” (Acts 15:14)

 They have remained God’s witnesses as God told them in Isaiah:

“Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, And my servant whom I have chosen: That ye may know and believe me, And understand that I am he: Before me there was no God formed, Neither shall there be after me.” (Isaiah 43:10)

The world hates the Jews because God chose them to carry his name. They have for a while, be able to hide  “in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits” of the Western world, but that time is drawing to a close. The latent antisemitism that fester under the surface of militant Islam and Christian replacement theology is rearing its ugly head all over the world. God warns his people not to put their trust in humanity:

“Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish.” (Psalm 146:3–4)

The reason is clearly given. Contrary to popular humanistic belief, man is not basically good. Rather, evil is inherent in all mankind:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” (Jeremiah 17:9–10)

What draws man above his nature is the word of God, a word that has been set aside in today’s secular world, leaving man to devolve back to his base nature.

The dread Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy is rising up again. The old pariahs and blood libels are being revived, reinvented and repackaged on a monumental scale, fuelled by the social media engine.

However, with all of this comes hope. It is in the darkness that light will burst forth. Malachi describes the scene:

“But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise With healing in his wings; And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet In the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 4:2–3)

Israel will be regathered into their land, whether pulled by hope, or pushed by fear. They will be extracted from the caves, thickets, rocks, high places, and pits where they currently hide themselves. They will be brought to the land once again, and there, God will send his son, their Messiah to deliver them, to redeem them, and to breathe spiritual life back into them. When looking over the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel saw them be gathered together again, reconstituted into a nation, and in the final stage restored to life at his command:

“So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.” (Ezekiel 37:10)

The result is summarized in verse 12-14:

“Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:12–14)

As we witness the awakening of the Jews of the diaspora to the opening of the pits where they have safely hidden themselves, we are encouraged that God’s hand is at work. Although the prospect of leaving may be disappointing as they have built lives for themselves, and the journey may be frightening, the hand of God will perform it — and nobody can turn him from his purpose:

“For as the rain cometh down, And the snow from heaven, And returneth not thither, But watereth the earth, And maketh it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: It shall not return unto me void, But it shall accomplish that which I please, And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For ye shall go out with joy, And be led forth with peace: The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:10–12)

For the Bible in the News, this has been Jonathan Bowen joining you.