|
Christian Antisemitism
In order to understand the origin and development of Christian antisemitism it is necessary to understand that Christianity originated as a Jewish sect. Although it eventually separated from Judaism it still regarded the “Old Testament” as its precursor and theological justification.
The original need to both attract Jews and yet reinterpret Jewish Scripture for its own purposes is reflected in the antagonism in the Gospel narratives towards the Pharisees, regarded by traditional Judaism as its authentic representatives. A typical example is in Matthew chapter 23, where Jesus uses the phrase "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites” seven times.
As Christianity gradually diverged from the parent religion, it increasingly reinterpreted Jewish Scripture and History to assert the idea of Supersessionism - that the original Jews had been replaced by the new Jews - the Christians. Typically, Deicide (the killing of Jesus) and the refusal to convert are now the cause of both the destruction of Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of the Jews. By the fourth century CE Constantine decisively shifted the balance of power towards Christianity by making it the official state religion of the Roman Empire. This was overwhelming “proof“of the claims of Christianity to be the successor to Judaism. The polemics against Jews and Judaism became increasingly vile.
As a matter of fact, Jews worship the devil: their rites are criminal and unchaste; their religion a disease; their synagogue an assembly of crooks, a den of thieves, a cavern of devils, an abyss of perdition! Why are the Jews degenerates? Because of their hateful assassination of Christ.
[St John Chrysostom - 4th century CE : "Six Homilies against the Jews"]
In Medieval Europe such polemics became increasingly common. In 1173 an English monk wrote a detailed tractate claiming that Jews tortured to death a Christian child during Passover. This is the basis for all subsequent blood libels which associate Christian blood with the making of unleavened bread for Passover.
The widespread belief in the perversity of the Jews also caused them to be commonly blamed for the Black Death pandemics which devastated Europe in the 14th century CE. As a consequence hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed.
During the Middle Ages Church authorities restricted Jews to certain detested occupations, especially money lending since Official Church doctrine forbad Christians to take interest on loans. Unsurprisingly, any tensions between Jewish creditors and Christian debtors led to the typecasting of Jews as greedy and obsessed with money. Inevitably any unpaid debts lead to hatred and violence against the (Jewish) moneylenders.
By the 19th century CE the dislike and even hatred of Jews permeated Europe, even if they had nominally equal rights of citizenship. The classic case of modern antisemitism is the Dreyfus affair in which Captain Dreyfus of the French army was falsely imprisoned for espionage in 1894. The subsequent campaign to overturn the conviction became the apparent point of contention in the ongoing struggle between the forces of secularism (the “left” – supporting innocence) and the Catholic Church and its allies (the “right” - supporting guilt). Dreyfus was formally exonerated by the French Government only in 1906, in the year following the passage of a law separating Church and State.
The role of the churches in Nazi Germany can be traced to the heritage of theological antisemitism. The churches did protest some aspects of Nazism. In spite of intense pressure from the regime, they succeeded in limiting the public scope of the euthanasia program introduced by the Nazis. They also campaigned for converted Jews and those married to members of their churches. But there was never any official protest against general persecution of the German Jews or their eventual deportation to occupied Poland.
By the 1960s the mood of the Churches had changed. Pope John XXIII, within the encyclical Nostra Aetate, formally exonerated the Jews for the death of Christ in 1965. Most mainstream Protestant churches followed suit.
But in the past few years the traditional idea of supersessionism has gained additional impetus especially within the more liberal Protestant Churches. It expresses itself in the proposition that the Jews have no right to Israel, theologically as well as physically and in full support for the Palestinians and the idea of boycotting Israel.
The more traditional forms of antisemitism still continue to be present but are usually found in non-mainstream Church groups. | 
Antisemitism 