Opinion Op-Ed Jonathan Feldstein There I stood, in Jerusalem’s Beit Ha’am theater, delivering remarks to hundreds of people gathered from some two dozen countries at the opening session of “March of the Nations.” I stood 10 meters from where Adolf Eichmann stood trial in 1961, behind bulletproof glass, and where he was sentenced. Sixty-two years ago this week, Eichmann was executed for actual genocide and crimes against humanity, unlike the conflated obscene charges brought against Israel today.
The “March of the Nations” was a redemptive respite we all needed. In the middle of a war, with Israel’s enemies rising from Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran to the Ivy League, and everywhere in between, having Christian friends in Jerusalem to stand with us is a huge encouragement and comfort. The only shame is that it was not broadcast to Israeli national TV or released as a video with Hebrew subtitles, yet, to show Israel that we do still have friends around the world.
Good friends. The “March of the Nations” and its sister international program, the “March of Life,” which takes place around the world, is the brainchild and passion of Pastor Jobst Bittner in Tübingen, Germany. When I met Pastor Jobst on my first visit to Germany this past September, I was uneasy.
Not because of him or the many other Christian friends of Israel and the Jewish people I was meeting, but because as an Ashkenazi Jew, many of whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, it’s har.