We for Israel

Can't we finally draw a line under our past?
No, because the subject of "Israel" is about the past, present and future. Even under the Nazi dictatorship, Mother Basilea dared to say before the Gestapo that Israel, God's covenant people, could expect a great future - as a clear consequence of the validity of the Holy Scriptures.

Deep shock over the guilt of our people against the Jews in the Holocaust brought our young sisterhood to repentance. Therefore, it is at the core of our vocation as a community to contribute to the reconciliation and restoration of our relationship with Israel.

As early as the mid-1950s, a desire to do good for Israel, God's covenant people, to help heal wounds, flared up in Mother Basilea. Beginning in 1957, sisters ministered to Holocaust survivors in Israel, first in the north of the country, and later in Jerusalem. In 1958, Mother Basilea's book "Israel - My People" was published and became an eye-opener for many around the world to see the abyss of the past in the light of truth. During the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt, it was our privilege to host survivors in order to assist them during such a difficult time.

In 1962, more sisters were sent out, and for years they carried out a prayer ministry on the Mount of Olives - then East Jerusalem. Surrounded by Arab families, they had many opportunities to build cordial relationships. In their four decades of ministry there, they were able to lead countless groups of pilgrims to the Holy Places. Hundreds of thousands of the booklets "Holy Places Today" were, and still are, gladly taken in many languages to the sites of Jesus' life and suffering.

It is a great joy for us every time when Jewish visitors visit Kanaan - old or young, rabbis from Israel or a bus with residents of a Jewish retirement home from our country ... Their gratitude to have experienced something of love and comfort here is shameful.

So that "His kingdom may come", it is part of our mission as Christians from the nations to clear away the stones from the people of Israel, God's covenant people, which have blocked their way to Jesus, their Messiah, for centuries (see "Clear away the stones"). Already in the early history of the Church, an ominous development was in the offing, which led to the first schism in the Church - the separation from our Jewish roots, which are quite clearly shown in the Holy Scriptures.

We are grateful for all opportunities to do good to Holocaust survivors and to support them while they are still among us - whether in Israel, here in Germany or in countries of our branches. As Christians, we stand by the Jews as God's chosen covenant people, our "elder brother," and against any form of anti-Semitism. We likewise stand at the side of Israel, the land God promised them and to which He brought them back.