They Said It Then. They’re Saying It Now.

Growing up, Passover meant a table crowded with aunts, uncles, and cousins, singing songs and sharing Torah thoughts, and my grandfather—a rabbi—leading us through the ancient story of our freedom. But there was always one moment that stood apart from the traditional liturgy. After we opened the door for Elijah and recited the prayer calling on God to pour out His wrath on our enemies, my grandfather would add a prayer about the Holocaust. I was too young to grasp all the words, but one verse burned itself into my memory:

Even as a child, I understood that those words weren’t just about ancient enemies. They were about something that kept happening, generation after generation.

A Pattern Written in Scripture

The hatred described in Psalm 83 wasn’t limited to a single incident or time period. Open the Torah, and you’ll find the pattern repeating from the very beginning of our story as a nation.

It started in Egypt. Pharaoh looked at the growing Israelite population and told his advisors, “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply” (Exodus 1:10). His solution? Slavery. Oppression. And when that wasn’t enough, infanticide—throwing every Hebrew baby boy into the Nile. The goal was clear: eliminate the Jewish people before they became too powerful.

We escaped Egypt, but the attacks didn’t stop. At Rephidim, barely out of slavery, Amalek struck without provocation, targeting the weak, the elderly, and the stragglers at the rear of the camp (Deuteronomy 25:18). This wasn’t a territorial dispute or a battle over resources—it was an assault on our very existence. God’s response was definitive: “The LORD will be at war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16). From generation to generation. The Torah itself tells us this hatred would persist.

Centuries later, in the Persian Empire, we see the pattern again. Haman—identified as an Agagite, a descendant of that same Amalek—hatches a plot to annihilate the Jews. His “final solution”? A decree to destroy, kill, and annihilate all Jews, young and old, in a single day.

The language changes. The geography shifts. But the goal remains identical: “that the name of Israel be remembered no more.”

Even within our own borders, enemies conspired against us. The Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, and countless other nations sought not just to defeat Israel in battle, but to erase us entirely. Psalm 83 lists them by name—Edom, Ishmael, Moab, the Hagrites, Gebal, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, Tyre, and Assyria—a coalition united by one shared purpose: Israel’s destruction.

This isn’t paranoia. It’s biblical history. And it’s our lived experience.

From Generation to Generation—The Pattern Continues

The biblical era ended, but the pattern didn’t. Century after century, the words of Psalm 83 echoed through Jewish history.

In 1096, the First Crusade swept through Europe. Crusaders, supposedly on their way to liberate the Holy Land, massacred Jewish communities in the Rhineland. Entire congregations were slaughtered. Synagogues were burned. Those who refused baptism were killed. The Crusaders’ logic was chillingly simple: why travel thousands of miles to fight enemies of the faith when Jews lived right here?

Medieval Europe invented the blood libel—the vicious lie that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals. These fabricated accusations sparked massacres across England, France, Germany, and beyond. In 1290, England expelled all Jews. France followed. Spain’s Inquisition tortured and murdered Jews who had been forced to convert, suspecting them of secretly practicing Judaism. In 1492, Spain expelled every Jew who wouldn’t convert. “That the name of Israel be remembered no more”—in practice, if not in those exact words.

The pogroms of Eastern Europe brought the violence into the modern era. In Russia and Poland, waves of organized massacres swept through Jewish communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Homes were burned. Women were assaulted. Men were beaten to death in the streets. The Kishinev pogrom of 1903. The pogroms following the Russian Revolution. Each time, the justifications changed—religious hatred, economic resentment, political scapegoating—but the target remained the same.

Through it all, Jews survived. We adapted, we moved, we rebuilt. But we could never escape the shadow of Psalm 83. In every generation, someone rose up seeking to fulfill its darkest prophecy.

The Night the World Watched—and Then Looked Away

On November 9-10, 1938, Nazi mobs unleashed their fury across Germany and Austria in what became known as Kristallnacht—the Night of Broken Glass. Synagogues erupted in flames. Torah scrolls were torn and trampled. Jewish-owned businesses had their windows shattered, their contents looted or destroyed. Cemeteries were desecrated. Families were dragged from their homes and beaten in the streets. By the time the glass stopped falling, 30,000 Jewish men had been arrested and sent to concentration camps.

The world expressed shock and horror. Newspapers ran headlines. Diplomats issued statements. And then… the world moved on. Jewish communities were left to sweep up the broken glass alone, their cries for help fading into an indifferent silence.

We know what came next. Kristallnacht wasn’t the end—it was the beginning. The warning signs were there, flashing red, but too few were willing to see them.

The Nazis claimed they were building a new world order, but their blueprint was ancient. Like Pharaoh, they feared Jewish influence. Like Amalek, they attacked without mercy. Like Haman, they sought total annihilation. Like the Crusaders and Inquisitors before them, they wrapped their hatred in ideology and called it righteous. The names and methods were modern, but the hatred was as old as Egypt.

History Doesn’t Just Repeat—It Echoes

Eighty-six years later, we’re hearing those same words again: “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation.”

On October 7, 2023, terrorists invaded Israeli communities, massacring over 1,200 people—grandparents, parents, children, babies—in their homes and at a music festival. They kidnapped hundreds, dragging them into Gaza. And in the aftermath, as Israel mourned and buried its dead, something chilling happened: across university campuses, city streets, and social media platforms worldwide, voices rose not in solidarity with the victims, but in justification of the massacre.

The ancient hatred that fueled Pharaoh’s decree, Amalek’s ambush, Haman’s plot, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the pogroms, and Kristallnacht is on the march again. Synagogues are being vandalized. Jewish students are hiding their identity on campus. Communities that thought they were safe are realizing they’re not.

The psalmist wrote those words thousands of years ago, but they could have been written yesterday. Our enemies in every generation have said the same thing: let Israel cease to exist. From Egypt to Amalek to Persia to medieval Europe to the Russian Empire to Nazi Germany to Hamas, the enemy has changed names and faces, but the goal remains constant.

My Grandfather Knew

That prayer my grandfather added to our Seder wasn’t just about remembering the past. It was about recognizing the pattern. He had lived through the era of the Holocaust, had lost family members in its flames, and he understood that the hatred didn’t die in 1945. It went dormant. It waited. It adapted. But it never disappeared. In fact, in the traditional Passover text, known as the Haggadah, we say, “in every generation they try to destroy us.”

But Here’s What the Torah Also Teaches

The same scriptures that document our persecution also document our survival. After listing all the nations conspiring against Israel, Psalm 83 itself becomes a prayer for God’s intervention and for the nations to recognize His sovereignty: “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O LORD… Let them know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth” (Psalm 83:16, 18). The quote from the Haggadah ends, “and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.”

And throughout Scripture, we see God’s promise fulfilled again and again. As the prophet Jeremiah declared: “Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night… If this fixed order departs from before Me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before Me forever” (Jeremiah 31:35-36). In other words: as long as the sun rises and the moon shines, Israel will endure.

Pharaoh’s plan failed—we left Egypt not as scattered refugees, but as a nation. Amalek attacked—and we prevailed. Haman built his gallows—and ended up hanging from them himself. The Crusaders passed. The Inquisition ended. The pogroms ceased. The Nazis were crushed. The pattern of hatred is real, but so is the pattern of deliverance.

The Book of Esther teaches us something crucial: when Mordechai learned of Haman’s decree, he didn’t just pray and wait for a miracle. He acted. He mobilized. He enlisted Esther. And the Jews of Persia defended themselves when the day of destruction came. They fought back. They survived. They celebrated.

This Time, We’re Not Standing Alone

And here’s what’s different in 2024: we’re not sweeping up the broken glass by ourselves anymore.

On Sunday, November 9, at Noon EST, Israel365 is partnering with Ten From the Nations for a global virtual event: “KRISTALLNACHT: Crossing Over the Broken Glass.“ This isn’t just another commemoration service. This is a call to action—for both Jews and Christians to stand together against the rising tide of antisemitism.

“Solidarity is no longer enough,” says Al McCarn, president of Ten From the Nations. “We must cross over the broken glass of history—acknowledging the church’s role in centuries of antisemitism—and step into a new era of peace, truth, and shared purpose.”

The program features an incredible lineup of speakers from Israel, the United States, Canada, Austria, and Germany—rabbis, pastors, soldiers, politicians, and journalists who refuse to let history repeat itself in silence. Among the speakers are Israel365’s Rabbis Tuly Weisz, Elie Mischel and Pesach Wolicki.

The Torah’s message is clear: persecution will come from generation to generation, but so will survival. So will resistance. So will victory. Pharaoh drowned. Amalek fell. Haman was defeated. The Crusades ended. The pogroms stopped. The Nazis were crushed. And Hamas will not succeed.

My grandfather’s prayer at the Seder table was his answer: Remember. Recognize the pattern. And refuse to be silent.

This November 9, eighty-six years after that terrible night, join us in saying: Not again. Not on our watch.

Register now for the Kristallnacht commemoration at tenfromthenations.org/kristallnacht

Because the enemies described in Psalm 83 are still out there. But this time, we’re standing together—Jews and Christians united—crossing over the broken glass toward a future of peace, purpose, and unshakeable resolve.