Garry sent Victor 1969 Stanley Goldfoot’s Open Letter to the World from Jerusalem. Victor’s reply:
Hi Garry,
We appreciate the things you send us. They keep us abreast of what is going on and, wherever we are granted, give us opportunity to speak truth for the good of all concerned.
Whether or not this video accurately reflects Stanley Goldfoot’s personal attitude and spirit, I do not know, but this I do know: The young narrator’s attitude and spirit are ones of resentment, impudence, arrogance, antagonism, defiance, and contempt for the Gentile world, and the words match the spirit well.
He reeks of bitterness, spitting out hatred, which seems to suggest that if he were to have opportunity, he would do the very same, if not more, to all those who have sorely abused Jews throughout history. I have the impression that, but for the grace of God, he would do so to the racial descendants of all nations who birthed perpetrators against Jews, which would include me, a Ukrainian, a descendant of one of the peoples historically well known for cruel and vile persecution of Jews. (To be fair, the Torah plainly tells us that all men, both Jews and Gentiles, are capable of any atrocity imaginable, given the right circumstances, but for the grace of God.)
Given the tone of the video, I would not expect any judgment, discernment, or mercy from this fellow, and by distribution of this tape, I would suspect that you and all Jews in agreement with it hold me, a Gentile, secretly and silently in contempt, waiting for the opportune time to wreak havoc and vengeance. Right or wrong, that is at least partially the message I get from this fellow.
But I also understand his feelings. There is no question that the world is guilty of all the things expressed. I harbor no doubts of this, being informed of these things and recognizing their veracity and credibility. I can also very readily understand bitterness on the part of Jews, for they have suffered terribly. If one takes the entire historical record into account, I know of no other people that have suffered more at the hands of fellow mankind.
Is this reaction of indignation against the world the answer? It is not, and I think you know it, too.
For another matter to consider here, I say the video is overflowing with contradiction. Let me give you examples:
“I am not an alien; I am a Jerusalemite!” he proudly proclaims.
Tell me, Garry, are all Jews Jerusalemites? If not, are other Jews somehow inferior because they are not Jerusalemites?
And if he speaks of a general possession of Jerusalem by Jews, how can he be so boastful when “Jerusalemites” have lost Jerusalem time and time again because, and only because, of their wickedness, their infidelity to God, which was prophesied by Moses, their God-appointed lawgiver and prophet. Their infidelity and judgments were also recorded by their many prophets in the Tanakh over many centuries after Moses. The Jews threw away the Law of God, contemning the Holy One of Israel! What did they expect? A slap on the wrist?
The narrator says to Gentiles, “I owe you nothing!”
That is not true, not true at all. God appointed a specific people, the Jews, to bless the world, and to the extent that they obeyed God, the world has been blessed. But let Jews not sit on their hands now and think themselves superior or special because they have excelled, contributed, or prevailed in any way, as this man seems to do. It has not been their righteousness or virtue that has caused them to survive or better the world.
It has been God’s mercy and grace granted to the world through the Jews. Israel has been God’s ordained “starting point” to redeem mankind to Himself – a mankind, I remind this fellow and all Jews, that was created in His image. Jews are not alone in this fact.
Adam was not a Jew and he was not circumcised, Garry. You know that, but Jews seem to either forget that fact or be unaware of it altogether. Many don’t even believe the Genesis story of the first parents. To many of them, it is all myth.
Adam was a man from whose loins came all men, both Jews and Gentiles. And God spoke to Adam and Eve after their disobedience, promising that while the seed of the serpent would bruise mankind’s heel, the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, thus redeeming all of mankind, not only Jews. As Isaiah declares by the Spirit of God:
“And in that day there shall be the Root of Jesse standing for a banner of the people; to Him the nations [gentiles/goyim] shall seek; and His resting place shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10 MKJV).
“Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; My Elect, in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit on Him; He shall bring out judgment to the nations [gentiles/goyim]” (Isaiah 42:1 MKJV).
“I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand, and will keep You, and give You for a covenant of the people, for a Light of the nations [gentiles/goyim]” (Isaiah 42:6 MKJV).
“And He said, It is but a little thing that You should be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You for a light to the nations [gentiles/goyim], to be My salvation to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6 MKJV).
If the Jews have dropped the ball by disobeying their God when they should be glorifying Him instead, are they not indebted to the nations? I think so. “No man is an island.” In their infidelity to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah, the Jews offended their God, lost their nation, and were scattered to the far reaches of the earth.
The narrator proudly declares that the Jews gave the world something – a humane moral code. He apparently does not understand that God gave the Jews that code by Moses, in spite of the rebellious nature of their hearts, a code they came to despise, which led to losing their Jerusalem and the entire country, more than once.
He boasts of the prophets walking the land of Israel and particularly Jerusalem millennia before Moscow, London, and other major cities of the Gentile nations were even conceived. What he fails to mention is that the Jews abused and stoned their prophets who, by the Spirit of God, commanded them to keep that moral code they presume to have brought to the world in their own righteousness.
The prophets didn’t speak in the defiant, arrogant, and bitter spirit that the narrator speaks. Indeed, it was because of his kind of spirit that God had to send His prophets to warn the Jews of judgment to come if they didn’t repent.
Who do the narrator and Jews who think like him think they are? Ironically, they are God’s gracious gift to mankind, but when they think they are God’s gracious gift, in their own righteousness, that’s where they go wrong.
Fine, so let him get it off his chest, but then he better repent of his attitude, or the negative side of the words of the prophets he is so proud of will continue to rain down on him and upon all those who have his same “stinkin’ thinkin’.”
He boasts that for two millennia or more, Jews kept insisting that next year, they would return to Jerusalem. He gives no thought to the fact that it is not the virtue of Jews that kept the hope alive of returning to their land, but the faithfulness of God, Who promised the fathers that land. Even when the Jews were in all wickedness, killing their prophets who represented God’s interests and that of their fathers, God promised He would return them to their land for their fathers’ sakes, those being Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom He made a covenant and to whom He made the promise, which promise He will keep, and then some.
If the Jews had obeyed God and the moral code He gave them, and His Words and warnings of His prophets, they would not have lost Jerusalem. They would not have been repeatedly evicted from their land, with the majority of Jews slain and only a remnant left each time. Had they possessed the righteousness the narrator presumes to have and obeyed, they would have prospered, even as Moses prophesied in Deuteronomy 28. Instead, they lost everything of the land and suffered the judgments Moses specified would come if the Jews turned to other gods and despised the “moral code.”
So who is this fellow to be self-righteous and indignant? The Jews, contrary to God’s goodness and mercy, decided to be like the very people this young narrator despises and arrogantly defies and condemns for their wicked ways, so who are the Jews to find fault with them? Are not the Jews at fault, who, by the Law of Moses given of God, came to know better than the Gentiles who needed to hear the Law as well, which Law would have come by the Jews had the Jews continued steadfastly in faith and obedience to the God of Israel?
As it turns out, the Law of God did indeed reach the Gentiles by God’s grace through believing Jews, followers of Messiah Yeshua, while the unbelieving Jews tried to do everything to prevent this from happening, thus greatly contradicting themselves.
The great folly and sin I see with the Jews is their victim mentality. They do not recognize themselves as perpetrators. Not only did they despise the Law God gave them by their prophets, they killed the prophets who contended with them on their God’s behalf. Finally, they slew their own Messiah, despising, mocking, and scorning Him to this day.
Garry! Is it any wonder they have suffered as they have? And finally, we have the answer, The Key, which we sent to you and to many other Jews, knowing they would be offended rather than appreciative, but no matter, it is the truth that will make them free at last. We don’t mind taking the hit for giving you your way out of prison and despair, even if it is from those we are sent to help and deliver.
One day soon, you’ll know that all these things, the crucifixion execution of the Messiah by the Jews, the casting off of Israel, the Law and faith brought to the Gentiles, and the final return of the Jews to their God were all predestined by the counsel and foreknowledge of God, your Savior and ours, for the good of all concerned, both Jew and Gentile, as we shall see.
The Key for Israel and the Jew is the answer of God to the Jews today.
Garry, have you ever seen or heard in any of our history where the Jews were compassionately instructed to confess the great and horrible offense they committed against their own God, their Messiah, and thereby be reconciled to Him without force, threat, or coercion?
I have never done that with any Jew, not even with Paul, and he, a repentant believer in the Messiah Yeshua HaMashiach, has never seen or heard of such a thing, either.
Yes, Jews have been unrighteously condemned and hated for killing the Messiah, they have been foolishly and murderously forced into conversions to orthodox Christianity, Islam, and other religions, and they have been told they are wrong, but have they been told, with sympathy and compassion, what they must do to be redeemed and come to ultimate, everlasting victory on earth?
Perhaps they have been told, but I have never seen, heard, or red of such a thing in my lifetime, anywhere. Have you? I would like to know.
More importantly, whether such has ever occurred or not, we would like to see you and all Jews come to reconciliation with your Messiah. We are fully confident that we will see this happen, not by man’s hand or choice, but by God’s everlasting compassion and mercy. The time is at hand.
Victor Hafichuk