By Charles Gardner — 
After so much focus on Hamas hatred from pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London, it was encouraging to see between 1,500 and 2,000 people take to the city’s streets for a ‘March for Life’ on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
Part of a worldwide movement, it was inaugurated after the Anglican repentance service for medieval antisemitism in Oxford’s Christ Church Cathedral almost exactly two years ago.
A march was also held in Oxford, coinciding with a pro-Palestinian encampment there. Organiser Dr James Patrick said: “It is not enough to express sorrow for indifference or hostility towards the Jewish people in the past.”
He added that it was now more urgent than ever that Christians produce fruit in keeping with repentance in view of the exponential rise of antisemitism in the wake of the Gaza war.
“The accusation of Israeli genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza is absolutely false and groundless…England invented the blood libel against the Jews in 1144, but now our brightest students are regurgitating the same malicious antisemitic lies that Jews deliberately target innocent children.”
Dr Patrick also spoke of Britain’s passive complicity in the Holocaust by refusing to admit desperate Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938, and then severely restricting immigration to Palestine (as it was then known) the following year in their hour of greatest need.
Oxford pastor Phil Herklots added: “For Christians to stay silent and inactive when the diabolical evil of antisemitism has reared its ugly head – again, and with a vengeance – is deplorable!”
Historian Marcus Roberts spoke of Britain’s failure to arrest and prosecute Nazi war criminals and the subsequent cover-up of the true horrors of slave-labour camps on British soil.
Holocaust survivor John Fieldsend told of his escape to England via Sir Nicholas Winton’s Kindertransport trains as most of his family were murdered in Auschwitz.
Two young German women, who had flown over specially for the event, spoke tearfully of their shame and remorse over the actions of their Nazi grandparents. And their white roses were received with a warm hug by John, who recently had his German citizenship reinstated.
Waving Israeli flags and banners for the hostages, the London march was organised by Tim Guttman, a Messianic Jewish pastor who heads Christian Action Against Antisemitism.
Among those taking part was Matthias Rowley, a descendant of a Nazi perpetrator who asked the Jewish people for their forgiveness over the horrors that took place in Poland and Germany.
And a survivor of the Nova festival, one of the targets of the Hamas massacre, shared a message of love and hope.
In his regular Watching Over Zion newsletter for Christian Friends of Israel, David Soakell told of the family of an Israeli soldier who died in the conflict having met an eight-month-old baby girl whose life was saved by his donated liver.
Sergeant Dor Zimel, 27, was killed by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile last month, and his organs were donated to those in need – including baby Lielle.
“In an emotional encounter, the baby wore a shirt with a photo of Dor as her family thanked his for her second chance at life,” David reported. “And Dor’s mother, Sharon, brought a lion teddy for the little one so that her son would ‘continue to live’ through Lielle.”
All of which gives extra meaning to the Hebrew phrase L’chaim (translated To Life!) when raising a glass to toast a special occasion.
