Rabbi’s Commentary

Dear Friend of The Fellowship,

This past Easter Sunday, hundreds of Pakistani Christians were celebrating the holiday at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore, Pakistan, the country’s second-largest city. It was a warm evening, and the park was bustling with young families . . . until a suicide bomber entered and, next to a bumper-car ride in the children’s section of the park, turned the holy day into a day of horror.

At least 72 people have been confirmed dead, 29 of them children, and more than 300 others were injured.

Tragically, this attack is part of a larger wave of violence against Christians throughout the Middle East. Millions of Christians in the region have had to flee their homes, seeking sanctuary in overcrowded refugee camps and in smuggling routes to Europe. Open Doors, an organization that helps persecuted Christians around the globe, releases an annual World Watch List, ranking the countries where it is most difficult and dangerous to be a Christian. Currently, five of the top ten countries on that list are in the Middle East. The situation is so grave that the United States recently called ISIS’ actions against minority groups in the region – including Christians – “genocide,” the first time it has used that term since referring to Darfur in 2004.

Just as we continue to fight anti-Semitism and those it would motivate to violence, so we now fight this rising Christian persecution. We as God’s people, Christians and Jews together, must remain vigilant in our insistence that the violence perpetrated by extremists is unacceptable. We must insist that these religiously motivated acts of violence be covered by the media and denounced by our leaders. We must continue to observe our holy days, having greater faith in our God than we have fear of our enemies. And we must continue to implore Him for His precious gift of shalom, peace.

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President and Founder, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews^® of Canada

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