A week after vandals destroyed his Springfield, Ore., church’s memorial to Oct. 7 victims, Aaron Taylor, senior pastor of Crossfire World Outreach Ministries, is leading a group of pastors on a tour of Nazi concentration camps in Poland.
Taylor, who is also Oregon director of Christians United for Israel, helps lead CUFI’s annual annual tour to Poland, this time with 30 pastors.
“We come and bring them to Poland and we bring them to Israel so they can see for themselves,” he told JNS.
His late friend Irving Roth, a Holocaust survivor who visited his church, was imprisoned at Auschwitz before being forced on a death march, Taylor said. Tour participants are slated to go to Auschwitz on Tuesday.
Taylor compared Jew-hatred today with that of the Holocaust era.
“It begins with words,” he said. “Once it starts getting into actions, that’s when it begins to be scary, because those actions just increase. That’s what we’re seeing.”
Taylor told JNS that he visited the Car Wall, a memorial site in southern Israel with more than 1,500 charred and bullet-riddled vehicles that were damaged on Oct. 7, 2023.
“It’s so real,” he said. “It’s so not then, but now. It seems so current.”
“The Jews have moved their entire lives, and they finally have a homeland,” Taylor told JNS. “Let them be. There’s one Jewish country.”
Taylor was in Israel on the third anniversary of Oct. 7, when his church’s display of Israeli flags was attacked on consecutive nights, and even in broad daylight.
Back at the church, staff restored the memorial. “I’ve got more flags,” Taylor told church staff. “Put them back up.”
The church reported that vandals first struck early on Oct. 7 and returned overnight, tearing flags from the display and breaking them. Fuel lines on church vehicles were also cut, according to the church.
The display was part of Flags for Fellowship, an initiative coordinated with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. Taylor told JNS that the church also placed a sign asking people to pray for peace in Jerusalem and Israel.
Police officers were “not sure if it’s religious bias or not” that the church was targeted for its support of Israel and Jews, Taylor told JNS.
Taylor said that he has asked authorities to investigate threats posted beneath local news coverage, including calls to burn the church with its members inside.
