Shalom and thank you for your question! It’s not so easy to point to whole societies throughout history who have supported the Jews. Two common situations recur throughout history:
1. Since the Jews were exiled from the Holy Land, various nations in turn, whether in Europe or in North Africa, welcomed the Jews for a period of time, from several decades to several hundreds of years, only to eventually persecute them, try to wipe them out, cause them to flee, or a combination of the above. A classic case in point is the Spanish Inquisition. Jews had experienced what was called the ‘Golden Age’ in Spain, where they had prospered materially and spiritually, contributing to Spanish society in many ways, until the monster of ani-semitism reared its ugly head in the form of the Inquisition. From Spain Jews fled to Holland and other countries, if they didn’t perish on the way due to having had to flee with little or no possessions. This situation repeated itself in almost every country that Jews arrived in. Holland perhaps did not follow that pattern.
2. Individual gentiles throughout the ages have lobbied for the Jews, intervening for them in difficult situations. My aunt was saved during the Holocaust by a Hungarian gentile who walked close by as the Jews of Nyrbator in Hungary were being mairched away by the Nazis. He placed his arm over her yellow star and walked away with her as though she was his wife. He then hid her under difficult conditions until the Nazis were defeated.
Another example is that the previous Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch in Russia had been imprisoned by the Communist regime for the ‘treason’ of strengthening Judaism, and had been sentenced to death. A Russian gentile by the name of Ykatrina Fishkova lobbied incessantly until she succeeded in changing the sentence from death, to exile for an extended period, to brief exile, to absolute freedom. This was miraculous, and she surely riske her own life to do this.
During the Holocaust, the Japanes vice consul Chiune Sugihara, issued thousands of transit visas to enable Jews to flee Europe, risking his job and the lives of his family to do so. The King of Denmark, if I am not mistaken, refused to allow the Germans to take the Jews from Denmark, going as far as wearing a yellow star himself, it is said.
Such righteous gentiles have been honored in Israel by the organization Yad vaShem which has a Holocaust museum and archives, and also an area which is dedicated to the deeds and memory of righteous gentiles.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson, the most recent Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch, who escaped Nazi Europe and made his headquarters in Brooklyn New York, coined the term ‘Kingdom of Kindness’ in reference to the United States. He pointed out that on the currency of the United States it says ‘In G-d we trust,’ and the USA has consistently concerned itself with the welfare of the entire world, as well as lending a certain amount of support to Israel.
The Jewish people believe that the world is rapidly approaching the time when, as is written on the wall of the United Nations building:
‘Nation shall not lift sword against nation’. According to our belief, that will be a time when mankind will be engaged in pursuing ‘the knowledge of
G-d’, and we will all live in peace and harmony.
May that occur soon!
