CHRISTIAN ANTISEMITISM
Albert Ziegler/583186
Professor Jackson
History of World Religions-380-01
09 November 2002
Having experienced this lecture, your assignment is to write an essay discussing historical Christian anti-Semitism and how it differs from the doctrine of love advocated by Jesus of Nazareth. This essay should include an investigation into Christian anti-Semitism in our world today and how it was provoked by church teachings, as well as ideas on how Christian anti-Semitism can be purged from current Christian thought and behavior.
Christian Anti-Semitism
Christianity and the preponderance of its adherents have provoked and perpetrated anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews throughout history. Christian persecution of the Jews has been based upon ill-founded superiority beliefs and inspired by church teachings. These church teachings were not the message that Jesus shared with his followers but were perversions of Christian doctrine by religious zealots and calculating
political leaders. Christians have murdered millions of innocent Jewish men, women, and children in the name of God. Anti-Semitism has been inherent in Christian teachings since the crucifixion, causing discrimination, forced conversion, expulsion, torture, and murder.
Christian anti-Semitism began with the crucifixion and the false labeling of Jews as "Christ Killers" (Telushkin 461). "Christ Killer has been among the last words tens of thousands of Jews have heard before being murdered" (Telushkin 461). “The greatest oddity about the term is that it was the Romans, not the Jews, who killed Jesus" (Telushkin 461). Pontius Pilate ordered the execution of Jesus. "Pilate's power in Judea was absolute. Had he wanted to absolve Jesus, he would have done so: He certainly would not have allowed a mob of Jews, whom he detested, to force him into killing someone whom he admired" (Telushkin 127). "The New Testament's portrayal of Judas as having betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver heightened considerably Christian enmity toward Jews, for not only does Judas betray Jesus, he does so in a particularly loathsome manner" (Telushkin 462). Not until 1960, when Pope John XXIII, composed a prayer absolving Jews of deicide was there any formal recognition of the wrongs perpetrated by Christianity against the Jews. "Forgive us the curse, which we unjustly laid on the name of the Jews. Forgive us that, with our curse, we crucified Thee a second time" (Telushkin 471). Christianity's view of the crucifixion led to discrimination being perpetrated against the Jews.
Erroneous Christian teachings misplaced the responsibility for the execution of Jesus on the Jews. The proclamation of Jesus as the King of the Jews by others, led to the crucifixion. The crucifixion instigated discrimination, resulting in oppressive restrictions for Jews, including: their religious, economic, and cultural practices. The forced separation of Jews from Christian society would soon follow. The anti-Semitism propagated by Christian teachings made Jews the scapegoats for the ills of society. Forced to live separately from Christians, because of the hatred inspired by Christian teachings, Jews were limited by law from practicing most professions. The profession designated for Jews by Christianity and its adherents was money lending. Even though William Shakespeare never met a Jew, because he lived more than 350 years after the Jews of England were expelled in 1290 BCE, he was inspired by Christian anti-Semitism to create a character in The Merchant of Venice known as Shylock. "The image of Jews as a nation of money lending Shylocks has persisted throughout the Middle Ages into the modern world" (Telushkin 466). Christian anti-Semitism also led to false accusations of ritual murder, known as the blood libel.
Once the Christian world believed that Jesus was God and that the Jews had
killed him, no crime seemed too bizarre or horrific to attribute to them. The blood libel, the accusation that Jews murder non-Jews in a religious ritual and then drink their blood, originated in twelfth-century England. Over the next seven hundred years, it led to the murder of tens of thousands of Jews. (Telushkin 464) By the fourteenth century, the ritual murder charge had become associated with Passover; Jews were accused of mixing Christian blood into their matzo and wine. The joyous holiday turned into a time of terror for Jews because of their fear that anti-Semites would frame them by murdering a Christian child and then dumping his body in a Jewish house. (Telushkin 465)
Christian propagated anti-Semitism mixed with religious fervor, led to acts of violence perpetrated against Jews. Christian anti-Semitic religious fervor influenced the Crusades in which Christians murdered Jews that refused forced conversion to Christianity. In 1095, when Pope Urban II called for the Crusades to regain Palestine
from the 'infidels,' tens of thousands of Christians set out for the Holy Land. Those Jews unfortunate enough to live in the cities through which the Crusaders passed were generally offered the choice of conversion or death. [..................................................] In 1099, when the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, they gathered all the city's Jews into a synagogue and burned them alive. Afterward, they banned all non-Christians from living in Jerusalem. (Telushkin 184)
"At the Fourth Lateran Council, convened by Innocent (Pope Innocent III) in
1215, the Church decreed that Jews living in Christian lands were at all times to wear a distinctive badge on their clothing" (Telushkin 185). Once Christianity infected its adherents with anti-Semitism, through its teachings and forced markings for the distinguishing of Jews, as well as separation from Christian society, expulsion was inevitable.
The expulsion of Jews began in England and spread throughout many countries
in Europe. They were expelled from France in 1306 and 1394; Hungary between 1349 and 1360; Austria in 1421; numerous localities in Germany between the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries; Lithuania in 1445 and 1495; Spain in 1492; Portugal in 1497; and Bohemia and Moravia in 1744-1745. Between the fifteenth century and 1772, Jews were not permitted in Russia [...] (Telushkin 189).These expulsions coincided with other Christian persecutions of Jews.
Christianity inspired the persecution of the Jews during the Spanish Inquisition. The righteous act known as the Inquisition was an attempt to save the souls of those still secretly observing their faith. Although, from the perspective of the victims, those righteous acts, were seen as the inhumane, unjust, and merciless destruction of their Jewish soul.
The Spanish Inquisition was a perverse attempt to save people's souls by torturing their bodies. Since only Christians of pure faith could go to Heaven, the Inquisitors reasoned, and all others would be sentenced to the eternal torments of Hell, it made sense to temporarily torture people of impure faith until they accepted Jesus, and thereby save their souls from the never-ending tortures of the next world. (Telushkin 190)
Some Jews were forced to either convert to Christianity or be subject to fiendish torture and death. Having chosen conversion many still practiced Judaism secretly. Christians that believed in the sanctity of the Inquisition's mission, informed upon the converted Jews they suspected of these clandestine acts. "Those Jews whom the Inquisitors couldn't win back to Christianity were burned at a public ceremony known as an auto-da-fé" (Telushkin 191). Continued religious fervor and Christian anti-Semitism
during the Protestant Reformation was inflamed by Martin Luther, who "[...] is the most extreme example in history of a Jew-lover who turned into a Jew-hater [...]" (Telushkin 204). "Luther argued passionately for the elimination of anti-Jewish legislation, to enable the Jews to compete fairly in the marketplace" (Telushkin 205). When Luther could not get the Jews to convert voluntarily to Christianity, he became a staunch anti-Semite, preaching the murder of the Jews. The anti-Semitism that was inspired by Christianity was one of the leading causes of the Holocaust of the twentieth century.
Without Christian anti-Semitism, Adolph Hitler would not have been able to
mobilize a nation to condone the mass murder of Jews. The Holocaust was an attempt at a Final Solution to what anti-Semites saw as the Jewish problem. Dehumanizing the Jewish population under Nazi control and desensitizing the non-Jewish population through force and propaganda created the potentiality for the murdering of six million Jews to come to fruition. Playing upon stereotypes first inspired by anti-Semitic Christian teachings allowed the evolution of the industrialization of the destruction of the Jews. The acceptance of the murder of the Jews reached all the way to the top of the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII. The Pope did nothing to stop its implementation and reprimanded clergy for extolling aid and inspiring sympathy in their communities. This signified to the world, the condoning of the murdering of the Jews by Pius XII.
Not all Christians were anti-Semitic. There were many Righteous Among the Nations that did not stand idly by and allow hatred and murder to infect their world. These people lived the teachings of Jesus in their everyday lives. The lives of those providing aid, and the lives of their families, were put in jeopardy of death for these altruistic acts. Their numbers, unfortunately, were rare.
In conclusion, history demonstrates that Christianity and the preponderance of its adherents have provoked and perpetrated anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews throughout history. Christian persecution of the Jews has been based upon ill-founded beliefs and inspired by church teachings. Christians have murdered millions of innocent Jewish men, women, and children. Anti-Semitism has been inherent in Christianity since the crucifixion, causing discrimination, forced conversion, expulsion, torture, and murder. When exploring Jewish history, it will be found that every day is Remembrance Day.
Works Cited
Telushkin, Rabbi Joseph. Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know
about the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History. New York: William
Morrow and Company, 1991