October 7: When History Knocked on Our Door Again

October 7 is not merely a date to be remembered. It is a wound. For the Jewish people, it reopened memories buried deep in our collective history—memories of families hunted, homes invaded, children murdered, women brutalized, hostages taken, and human beings targeted simply because they were Jews. For me, October 7 struck even deeper because I am the son of a Holocaust survivor.

The Holocaust is not distant history in my family. It is family history. My father escaped Holland in the shadow of Kristallnacht. My paternal grandfather, Rabbi Felix Halpern, was an Orthodox rabbi in Germany. My paternal family was caught in the machinery of Nazi destruction, and my entire paternal line was devastated and exterminated by the Nazi machine. These were not statistics to me. They were my family. They had names. They had homes. They had faith. They had dreams. And they were swallowed up in one of the darkest campaigns of hatred the world has ever known.

I was born in the Netherlands into the aftermath of that horror. On one side of my family were Jewish victims of the Holocaust. On the other side were courageous men and women who risked their own lives to save Jews from the Nazis. My maternal family, did not remain spectators during the Nazi occupation of Holland. My grandparents helped hide Jewish people. Their home became part of the underground resistance network. My mother, carried messages and food coupons and assisted Jewish people in reaching places of safety. My uncle became involved in resistance operations.

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Then came one of the most daring moments in our family history.

On January 23, 1945, ten Jewish prisoners were being held in the police station in Zeist. Their future was terrifyingly clear. They were waiting to be handed over to the Sicherheitspolizei, transported to Westerbork, and from there into the machinery of Nazi deportation and death. The resistance determined that they would not allow it.

A German military truck was obtained. Documents were forged. A German Luftwaffe deserter posed as an SS officer. And my uncle put on a German military uniform. Early that morning, they drove directly to the Zeist police station. They entered pretending to represent the Nazi authorities. Orders were barked. Papers were presented. The guards were told that the Jewish prisoners were being transferred. The deception worked. Ten Jewish men, women, and children were marched from their cells and placed aboard the truck. They initially believed they were being taken away by the Germans. Instead, they were being rescued.

The truck drove into the woods. When the prisoners were finally told they were free, what they had feared would become their place of death instead became the beginning of their deliverance. They were taken into hiding, including to the Reformed church in Driebergen where my grandfather served. All ten survived the war. Years later, Yad Vashem recognized members of my family as Righteous Among the Nations. So I carry two histories within me.

On my father’s side, I carry the memory of Jewish family members consumed by the Holocaust. On my mother’s side, I carry the memory of Christians and resistance workers who refused to stand by while Jews were hunted. One side reminds me of what hatred can do. The other reminds me of what courage must do. That is the history through which I experienced October 7, 2023.

When Jewish families were slaughtered, young people murdered, communities invaded, and hostages dragged away, I could not watch those images as a detached observer. I heard echoes. I heard the voices of another generation. I thought of my father. I thought of my Orthodox Jewish grandfather. I thought of the family members whose lives were extinguished by Nazi hatred. I thought of my mother, my grandparents, and my uncle Jan, who risked their own safety to save Jewish lives. The uniforms had changed. The century had changed. The location had changed. But the ancient hatred of Jews had not disappeared.

And neither had the question that confronts every generation:

What will you do when Jewish lives are under attack?

My family answered that question during the Holocaust. They did not issue statements from a safe distance. They hid Jews. They transported Jews. They carried messages. They risked arrest and death. My uncle put on the uniform of the enemy and walked directly into a police station to help rescue ten Jewish prisoners. That is why the silence following October 7 has been so painful to me.

I expected the world to condemn the slaughter without hesitation. I especially expected the Church to speak clearly. Many Christians did, and I thank God for them. Pastors prayed. Churches stood with Jewish communities. Believers reached out with love and compassion. But in too many places there was caution.

There was hesitation. There was silence. Some appeared more concerned about how a statement might be received than about the Jewish families who had just been butchered. That silence is difficult for a son of a Holocaust survivor to understand. My family has already lived through what happens when hatred is allowed to grow while good people remain quiet.

During the Holocaust, silence helped create an atmosphere in which evil could advance. There were people who said nothing because the situation was complicated. There were people who looked away because they were afraid.

There were people who convinced themselves that what was happening to the Jews was not their responsibility. And millions died. But there were also people like my maternal family. They understood that there are moments when neutrality becomes a moral decision.

There are moments when silence becomes complicity. And there are moments when love must become action. October 7 was one of those moments. This does not mean we cease grieving for every innocent life lost in war. Jewish suffering does not require indifference toward Palestinian suffering. Every innocent life matters before God. But compassion must never erase moral clarity.

The deliberate murder of civilians is evil. The kidnapping of men, women, children, and the elderly is evil. The brutalization of innocent people is evil. Antisemitism is evil. And the Church must never be ashamed to say so. As followers of Yeshua, our connection to the Jewish people is not incidental. The Scriptures came through the Jewish people. The prophets were Jewish. The apostles were Jewish. Yeshua was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died as King of the Jews, and will return as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. The Jewish people should never have to ask where the Church stands when antisemitism rises. They should already know.

My family knew what standing meant. On one side of my family, Jews paid with their lives. On the other side, people risked their lives to save Jews. That leaves me with no room for indifference. Standing meant opening a door. It meant hiding someone in danger. It meant carrying messages. It meant risking arrest. It meant driving a German truck to a police station. It meant putting on the enemy's uniform in order to save Jewish lives. Today, standing may look different. But the moral question remains the same. Will we

OUR DUAL MANDATE

Metro Jewish Resources is dedicated to helping the Church understand the Jewish roots of the faith, the enduring place of the Jewish people in God’s redemptive purposes, and the lessons of history that must never be forgotten. Through teaching on the Holocaust, antisemitism, and what it meant to live under Nazi occupation, we seek to equip believers with both biblical understanding and moral clarity for the times in which we live.

Freedom Ministries carries a complementary mandate: to call the Body of Messiah into revival, awakening, and a deeper encounter with the presence of God. Our desire is to see hearts restored, lives transformed, and communities awakened to the reality of His presence until, as Habakkuk 2:14 declares, the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Together, these ministries carry a message of remembrance and revival—remembering where silence and spiritual blindness can lead, while calling this generation to truth, courage, repentance, and the manifest Glory of God.