Jewish Philanthropy

"[My debt] applies to so many young people who were on the Kindertransports. It was Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England."
"In the 1930s thousands of Jews, mainly women and children, were helped by Christians who took enormous personal risks to save them from certain death. We owe a debt of gratitude."
Lord George Weidenfeld, British House of Lords

Egyptian Copts have some measure of state protection under the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Who went so far as to condemn the oppression they had suffered, and their fears during the one-year presidency of Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. And who went so far in January of 2015 to visit the main Coptic Church in Cairo to declare his support for his fellow Egyptians, including Christians.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (2nd R) talks next to Coptic Pope Tawadros II as he attends Christmas Eve Mass at St. Mark's Cathedral. (Reuters)

For the present they are not persecuted by the state. Under former President Hosni Mubarak relations were static, but no new Christian churches were to be built, nor old ones refurbished. Egypt is 90 percent Muslim. In Libya, Islamic State affiliates took credit for beheading 21 Egyptian Copts who were on temporary work assignment there. Egypt responded by sending in its military jets to bomb the ISIL camp. 

In parts of Syria and Iraq which have succumbed to Islamic State's caliphate, Christians have been cleansed from the geography. Four years ago over a million Christians called Syria their home. Since Islamic State's campaign to enslave, torture, crucify and slaughter the Christians that lived there, 700,000 have fled, abandoning their historical, Biblical-era homeland.

At one time Christians constituted half of Lebanon's population; they are now reduced to a third. Under the Palestinian Authority, the Christian population in the West Bank has been severely diminished; Bethlehem's population of Christians was halved. In Israel, by contrast, the Christian population, both Arab and non-Arab has risen, enjoying civil rights protection.

Recently, 150 Syrian Christians were flown to safety and refuge in Poland, thanks to the humanitarian work of the Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund which focuses strictly on support for Christian refugees from the Middle East. That 150 flown to haven in Poland will receive eighteen months of support to aid them in their new homes, transforming their lives from helpless flight to promise of delivery from languishing in refugee camps.

A young Christian Syrian couple with their seven month old daughter flank Miriam Shaded, a Polish church charity worker, who will help the families resettle in Poland, in Warsaw last week. Shaded has a Syrian Christian background and works for the Esther Foundation. (courtesy)

Lord George Weidenfeld, a life peer, philanthropist, founder of the European Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a Jew and honourary vice-president of the World Jewish Congress and fiercely committed Zionist, 95 years of age, is also a committed rescuer of endangered Christian populations. Troubled by the plight of one of the world's oldest Christian communities, he has focused on doing what he can to help where he can.

In acknowledgement of the scale of the numbers fleeing persecution, he knows he cannot save the world in a sense, but he is resolved to give two thousand Christian families a new lease on life. He has faced critics who complain his rescue plan is restricted to Christians. Because his rescue doesn't include Yazidis, Druze or Shiite Muslims, the U.S. government has declined participation.

The contrast between what one determined man can achieve with the limited means at his disposal, and that of the Gulf monarchies, sitting on untold riches yet unmoved by the plight of fellow Middle Eastern Arabs to the point where they sit with aplomb on oil reserves, and wait for countries of the West to step in and absorb refugees they themselves have no intention of diluting their population base with, is of polar opposites.

Lord Weidenfeld will explain to anyone who is interested, that 77 years ago when he was in his teens he was taken from Vienna to London.  There the Plymouth Brethren provided for him, giving him opportunities to feel he was worth protecting. Sir Nicholas Winton pioneered trains to carry over 650 children out of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to the United Kingdom, from 1938-1940. 

Sir Winton, was termed the ‘British Schindler,’ and he died in July. Now Lord Weidenfeld's focus is on Christians whose plight is dire; his way of returning the kindness done to him.