The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is one of the most beautiful churches in the world. If you're walking in old city Jerusalem at 4:00 in the morning, you are likely a Christian, Jew or Muslim on the way to prayer. It's one of the most peaceful experiences in the world.
I have a photo of the steps up to the chapel, built where we believe Christ was crucified. It was there where a priest friend of mine celebrated Mass for my friend Andrew Breitbart the morning after he died unexpectedly from a heart attack in 2012. That morning, we prayed for his eternal soul and for the consolation of his family.
When Andrew died, I was on my first pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I had the opportunity to go again, not too long ago. I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at an early hour. I wasn't going to. I was tempted to hit snooze. But I heard the Muslim call to prayer, and I was reminded that the most important thing we can do in our lives is pray. It's an action beyond us, of supernatural fuel. It's the best that we've got.
During that most recent trip, I was having some health issues, so when we had our tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I found a spot to sit, right below where Christ had been crucified. This trip was sponsored by the Philos Project, which wanted to convey what was important about the land to people of various Abrahamic religions. Jonathan Silver, editor of Mosaic magazine at the Tikvah Fund, was with us. He found me at my spot and joined me. We are both New Yorkers. I run into him now and again in the Amtrak station named after Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan, who was in the Senate seat Hillary Clinton would eventually fill, spoke out against partial-birth abortion. We do not have to live in ideological silos. We can see beyond politics and anger and hate. We must.
During our time under Calvary, I remembered a Good Friday past in New York. That Palm Sunday, there was an attack on a Coptic church in Egypt. In an act of prayerful solidarity, New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan went to a Coptic church in Manhattan with an ecumenical crowd. Rabbi Joseph Patasnick talked about how he was afraid to go outdoors on Good Friday when he was young, because it was believed that Christians would retaliate against Jews for the death of Jesus.
But that's the thing. It wasn't the Jews. Jewish men and women are not the enemy. I am. The sin in the hearts of men is. That's why Christians are Christians. We are sinners in need of a Savior. We are imperfect and worse.
Antisemitism is evil. Hating Jews is a sin. We can't tolerate people excusing or denying the Holocaust. Instead, we should be remembering the faces of individual men, women and children who were murdered by the Nazi regime. And consider that it is evil that we would ever consider that hatred of Jews is anything but evil.
We hear people talking about Middle Eastern foreign policy, but it often comes down to hatred of Jews. Sure, have an opinion about a position Israel takes. All I know is we must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters being hated. Adopt love for others. It is what matters most.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)
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