‘The Jews killed Jesus” joins the chorus, once again, of deplorable antisemitic rhetoric filling the air. This time it comes from Capitol Hill. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (Florida) are at it again, spewing irresponsible and dangerous venom without regard for truth or consequences.
By voting against the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 (HR 6090) Taylor Greene invoked the antisemitic canard of Jews as Christ-killers, stating, “I will not be voting for [an act] that could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews.”
Gaetz wrote regarding the claim that Jews are responsible for the death of Jesus: “The Bible is clear. There is no myth or controversy on this.”
This antisemitic trope of deicide has been responsible throughout the centuries for crusades, pogroms, Holocaust, assaults, and discrimination. Preached from pulpits and taught in Christian schools, Jewish lives were not safe when the accusation of Jews as “Christ killers” was spread.
Greene and Gaetz succeeded in nothing except to further fan the flames of Jew-hatred metastasizing malignantly today in the streets and on college campuses in the United States and throughout the world.
Historical allegations about the killing of Christ
Perhaps Taylor Greene and Gaetz should go back to Sunday school. The historic allegation of deicide, the accusation that all Jews are eternally responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, has long been rejected by much of the Christian world. Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Scott Phillips, CEO of Passages, an organization that brings Christian college students to Israel, eloquently dismissed this antisemitic libel and states unequivocally: “Christians of all denominations have waged a battle over the last couple of generations since the Holocaust to ensure that this is expunged from our theology.” He is a good friend of Israel and the Jewish people.
Major church organizations have long rejected the deicide charge. The World Council of Churches (WCC), an organization representing over 580 million Protestants throughout the world, announced in 1961: “In Christian teaching, the historic events that led to the crucifixion should not be so presented as to fasten upon the Jewish people of today responsibilities which belong to our corporate humanity and not to one race or community.”
Section four of the Catholic Church’s Nostra Aetate, adopted in 1965 during Vatican II, repudiates the deicide charge: “Neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his passion.” Pope Benedict XVI also renounced it in his 2011 book Jesus of Nazareth. In 1998, the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America stated that “the New Testament… must not be used as a justification for hostility toward present-day Jews… blame for the death of Jesus should not be attributed to Judaism or the Jewish people.”
Far be it from me to dictate to those of other faiths how to read their Bibles or what to believe. However, it is not far from this Jew to know the historical consequences of those readings and beliefs suffered by his people and his family.
With God’s grace, Jewish-Christian relations have evolved in positive and productive ways over the past 60 years thanks, in large part, to the bravery and sensitivity of Christian leaders and theologians across the denominations who understood the consequences of almost two millennia of theologies and teachings of anti-Judaism. These religious leaders and academics revisited their texts and found more honest and purer readings and understandings.
As the current chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), the official representative of world Jewry to the leadership of world religions, I personally see the warming relations between Christians and Jews. To many Christians, antisemitism is anathema.
Two important examples: The IJCIC was the first official Jewish delegation to meet with Pope Francis in 2013, following his appointment to the papacy. He declared to us then, and has often repeated, that “a true Christian cannot be antisemitic.”
At Yad Vashem on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022, IJCIC accompanied then-secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) Dr. Thomas Shirrmacher and the leadership of the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) including Rev. Connie Duarte and Dr. Frank Hinkelmann, as the EEA endorsed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
They, as well as the Vatican and the Eastern Orthodox Church, see antisemitism not as a “Jewish problem” alone, but as a Christian one as well. In varying degrees, they have contemplated how their theologies and liturgies contributed to historic Jew-hatred, and are responding in positive ways.
Much has been achieved in interfaith relations since the Holocaust; much still needs to be accomplished. Not all is perfect and some of these organizations are better than others. Because of the relationships we have nurtured, we challenge our interlocutors when we feel they are wrong in their understanding and reactions to matters concerning Jews and Israel.
There are many out there, including these United States representatives, who have not yet heard or learned these lessons about antisemitism and the deicide of Christian leadership and theologians. We expect much better from our legislators and their supporters.
I call upon our friends in the churches who view antisemitism as “sin against God and humanity” to step up to their commitment to battle antisemitism and to reiterate in clear, unequivocal, and public ways, to their people in the pews and the public at large, their teachings against antisemitism and deicide.
The writer, executive vice president emeritus of the Rabbinical Council of America, is chair of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, the official representative of world Jewry to the leadership of world religions.