The Gospel story has been used as a pretext for horrible persecution of Jewish people in the West. This persecution led to the modern state of Israel, perceived, for good reason, by many Jews as the only way to escape this persecution. The result has been the dispossession of the Palestinian people.
In this episode, I try to grapple with this history and also tell of my experience of visiting the West Bank 20 years ago.
For further resources on the current situation in Israel, visit B'tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that maintains detailed documentation of what is happening as well as helpful analysis, at https://www.btselem.org/.
Another worthwhile site to visit is Jewish Voice for Peace, https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/, which organizes in North America.
And finally, I highly recommend Christian Peacemaker Teams, https://www.cpt.org/, which has had a team in the West Bank for almost three decades. They send teams all over the world to wage nonviolent resistance to injustice, as Jesus does in the Gospel of Matthew.