Paul Calvert spoke with Rabbi Dov Lipman

Paul: How can Christians better pray for the nation of Israel?

Rabbi Lipman: I have to tell you that as I travel around the world one of the greatest sources of strength for me has been Christians who have told me, "Day in and day out we pray for the State of Israel". They pray for our success and that doesn't just warm the heart, but it gives you the strength to realise that you're not isolated. We live in a world where we are isolated and I do travel to various countries. The hatred and the venom towards Israel and the Jewish people is so palpable and real and scary to see. So to hear of a people who get up every single day and even once or twice a day pray for the Jewish people is amazing. I was in New York and there was a Christian group there that talked about that every single Sunday they get together and do a special prayer just for Israel as a State and the people of Israel. I just ask people to continue to do so. I don't tell people how to pray, but everybody in their own way, there is no doubt that the prayers help. If I can just tell you one anecdote, my wife's father was in the US army and my wife spent years in West Point, which is the US Military Academy. In the US Military Academy they have a course called Military History where they teach the history of wars and how they are won and lost. They don't teach the Six Day War, which brought the unification of Jerusalem in the US Military Academy because they cannot explain it militarily. They know there is another force at work and we understand that force is God. So prayers work and anybody who prays for Israel, it makes a difference and we are thankful for it. I would say at the same time we have to reciprocate and pray for the benefit of our Christian friends and for Christians who are being persecuted throughout the Middle East and in the world and that has to stop as well.

Paul: Do you think Israel is at a turning point? At the moment we see the threat from the North, threats from Gaza and ISIS is close to Israel's doorstep too. How can Israel stand against all these threats?

Rabbi Lipman: If you go back to May 1948, David Ben-Gurion stood up and declared a State of Israel, knowing that all of the Arab States outnumbered us hundreds of times over and were going to attack us. We withstood that and 1967 was the same thing; it was all the Arab countries, major countries and major armies coming up against us and we withstood that and not only withstood that, but went on the offensive during that war. The Yom Kippur War when Israel was on the brink of disaster, when it looked like the Syrian army was going to break through and go to Haifa and in the end we withstood that. I don't sit in my office here in the Knesset with any fear about the demise of the State of Israel because of our enemies. Yes we have to take every single threat seriously; we have to figure out the right tactics to be able to deal with it, but again I move forward with confidence that God showers us with his blessings and we will come out and survive all of these attempts to destroy us as the Jewish people, as we have done throughout our history. Again we have to pray. We have to take action; we have to have a strong military; we have to make sure we have the right friends around the world who are giving us the right support that we need, but when it's all said and done I don't view a doomsday scenario, I just see light as we move forward.

Paul: Do you think the world and media don't understand Israel's position and do you see it as a spiritual battle against the nation of Israel?

Rabbi Lipman: First of all they don't, your observation is correct. I mean to imagine a scenario where there are missiles flying into our cities and tunnels being dug into our back yards and anyone would suggest our response was disproportionate, that's one of two things, it's either a complete lack of understanding of the situation, or it is blatant and outright anti-Semitism. Sometimes anti-Israel statements are really covering over some kind of a hidden anti-Semitism.

Yes there is a spiritual battle. Yes there are people who don't want to see a strong Jewish State and a strong Judaism and there again that's where we find our Christian friends being so supportive when they are saying, we not only see it as something beneficial, but we are going to fight to make sure that it happens and we're going to pray to make sure it happens. But yes, we do face a world that is unfair towards us, which is biased towards us in a negative way and that is part of the challenge that we have as a Jewish State.

Paul: The biggest evil of anti-Semitism was of course the Holocaust and your grandmother went through the Holocaust. Tell me a little bit about that.

Rabbi Lipman: My grandmother's family lived in a village in Hungary and in May 1944 they were all put into a cattle cart and shipped off to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. They arrived there on Shavuot night on the Feast of Tabernacles in May 1944. That night my grandmother who was a teenager at the time, saw her father, her mother and her siblings all taken to be slaughtered. She was spared. She was young and somewhat healthy and through miracles she survived her time there. I had the honour of going back and visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau last year as a member of Knesset. We went during the winter and there was snow on the ground. It was so cold and it's very interesting that everyone somewhere in the back of your mind has the question of where was God? How can this kind of thing happen in a world where there is a loving God? How does this happen? That question was answered for me when I was there, because I called my grandmother the next day and I said, "How did you survive this?" I couldn't handle one hour in that cold and I was bundled up with coats and boots and socks. She said, "I don't know. There was no tactic, I don't know how I survived it." Then I realised that's where God was. Man was doing the evil and God was there helping people survive. Despite the fact there was a deliberate attempt to annihilate the Jewish people, God was there to pull us out of it, to pull my grandmother out of it and to see things come full circle. Seventy years ago my grandmother was in Auschwitz on the brink of destruction for herself and the Jewish people and now we are sitting here together in the Jewish State, in the Jewish Capital comfortably as a member of a Jewish Parliament. That to me is no greater proof of the loving God that is actively involved in our lives and gives me inspiration every single day.

Paul: I imagine for you there are family members missing because they went through the Holocaust?

Rabbi Lipman: The numbers are staggering. The numbers of my grandmothers, not just parents, but siblings, also nieces and nephews; over 30 nieces and nephews were eliminated. They were taken away from the world that night and yes our family would be much larger, but I have to say my grandmother was blessed to live to see great grandchildren being born and she is still alive today. She has a great granddaughter getting married in two weeks, so she has lived to see unbelievable things. Even though we took a hit and yes it's very painful to know that I can never meet my great grandfather, my grandmother never met her grandparents. My grandmother was left without parents in her family for most of her life, so to see the re-birth is something. That's what we focus on. We don't focus on the negative, but we focus on looking at what has happened despite the attempts of the Nazi's and Hitler to destroy us.

Paul: Does your Jewish faith help you to get over something like that?

Rabbi Lipman: Very much. I think that any tragedy that a person experiences, they need to have faith as their source of inspiration. My father passed away 10 years ago. He's my best friend in the world and I feel empty without him, but I know there is a loving God who he's close to now and who loves me and that gives constant inspiration. It is the same thing with the Holocaust and the same thing with anything we experience as a Jewish people, or as people of faith in general around the world, despite all the attempts to annihilate us or our faith and this applies to Christians today as well, we know we will persevere and we know there is a God who loves us and cares for us and appreciates the fact that we are sticking strong to our faith despite all the sadness and tragedy and in the end we will emerge victorious.

Paul: Do you see a rise of anti-Semitism around the world at the moment and is it a spiritual battle?