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Remembering the Holocaust with Our Russian
Jewish Friends
(November 1999)
Zdrastfuytieh! (if you don't speak Russian,
salutations!) We are House of the Risen Son, a Russian Jewish Messianic
Fellowship reaching out to former Soviet immigrants in the Philadelphia
area. This month I'd like to tell you about an important opportunity
we had to minister to the larger Russian Jewish community in our
city.
Every year a solemn commemoration is held at Shalom
Memorial Park cemetery to remember the terrible event that started
the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Ukraine. In September of 1941
in the city of Kiev, in the space of two short days, SS execution
squads rounded up more than 100,000 people, half of them Jews, and
machine-gunned them to death at a place called Babi Yar. Within
months, 900,000 Soviet Jews were killed outright, without even the
"benefit" of going to a concentration camp.
Multitudes from the Philadelphia and New York Russian
Jewish community gather annually to to remember Babi Yar with a
program of prayer, poetry, song, and speeches by community leaders
and rabbis. This year, my friend Fred Klett and I were invited not
merely to be observers, but to participate in the memorial program.
The Jewish Holocaust is ever-present on the mind
of Russian Jewish people. It is probably the biggest impediment
that deters people from considering the good news of Messiah Jesus.
How could there be good news from God if He let 6 million Jews die?
The Bible shows us that such evil does not originate with God, but
that it is the result of human sin. And God sent His Son to die
for our sins and to transform the world with His love.
With more than one thousand onlookers, including
rabbis, Fred and I pointed the way to this truth, Fred through song,
and I through a short address in Ukrainian. I explained that I was
formerly anti-Semitic, but that now I am a Christian believer in
Jesus the Messiah. I then read the words of Psalm 107:18-20 about
the goodness of God and the power of His word to save people.
Many came to me afterward to thank me for those
words. Praise God that our presentations were broadcast on local
Russian television! Please pray that many Russian Jews will stop
and see who Jesus really is, and that through events like this one,
we can engage the Russian Jewish people with the love of Jesus.
With Glory to Our Risen Messiah!
Marko Malyj
Congregational Planter, New Life Northeast Presbyterian Church
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