Why the Jews?

The holy roots of anti-semitism might surprise you

The Jews killed Jesus.

Well, didn’t they?

After all, that’s what it says in the Bible, right? Let me check. Yep, there it is in Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19: Roman governor Pontius Pilate washes his hands and turns Jesus over to the Jews who were chanting “Crucify him, crucify him!”

I remember reciting these words in church as a child, like untold millions of other Catholic children. Because for almost 2,000 years, these gospels have been passed down from generation to generation as the inerrant Word of the Lord. And while it’s hard to discern where tribalism ends and religion begins, the notion that scripture is without error and that Church doctrine is infallible has led to incalculable tragedy for the Jewish people. I wish I would have known this sooner.

Last weekend I watched a four-hour presentation called Why the Jews?: The Long and Tragic History of Antisemitism by Brendan Murphy, who teaches a seminar on the Holocaust at the Marist School, a Catholic high school here in Atlanta. To explain the rift between Jews and Christians, Murphy takes us back to the founding of Christianity. The early Church was made up of Jews who had accepted Jesus as the long-awaited messiah, as opposed to another sect who weren’t so convinced. This latter group, known as the Pharisees, evolved into the Jews we know today. Over the first few decades of the nascent faith, the divide between these factions became hostile.

The Jews for Jesus, as Murphy calls them, wrote the Gospels. Murphy’s argument, now endorsed by the Archbishop of Atlanta, is that these authors—while telling the story of Jesus’ conception, nativity, and ministry—took the opportunity to lay the blame for His crucifixion on their political opponents, the Pharisees. (It was, in fact, the Romans who executed Jesus, along with thousands of other rebellious Jews.)

This allegation was not accidental—it was a smear campaign. Jesus either was or was not the Messiah, so if the Pharisees were right, then the early Christians were wrong. “In an attempt to legitimize their own view,” Murphy says of their writing, “they seek to de-legitimize those who believe otherwise. In fact, they seek to demonize them.”

Of course, no one back then could have known the massive impact the Gospels and the Church would have in shaping Western society. But over time, this force continued to define itself by what it wasn’t: the hypocritical sect of vipers and serpents (Matthew 23:33) who supposedly goaded Pilate to let Jesus’ “blood be upon us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).

Boy was it ever!

To the Catholic Church’s credit, it reversed this policy in 1965 with Nostra Aetate, a declaration exonerating the Jews for the crime of deicide. But the teaching is not well known, the “troublesome” sections of the Gospels weren’t re-written, and, even if they were, how can you undo the damage done by 19 centuries of putrid lies? Answer: you can’t.

Furthermore, if the Church officially changed its policy four years before I was born, how come:

1. I didn’t learn any of this in my twelve years of Catholic school? And,

2. Why did I, as the modern proxy of the Pharisees—again, the Jewish people—chant “CRUCIFY HIM!” CRUCIFY HIM!” during the Stations of the Cross with my uninformed classmates at St. Jude the Apostle Elementary in the 1970s and ‘80s? (hello, fellow Jaguars, I miss you.)

At this point, Protestants and evangelicals might be thinking, “Well, all this information makes me glad I’m not Catholic.” Not so fast, ye lovers of Chick-fil-A—wait until you hear about Martin Luther. You see, despite the reformer’s courage to stand up to the Roman Church’s laughably deceitful practice of selling Indulgences—literal tickets to “Heaven”—Luther was also horrifyingly anti-Semitic.

Consider what he says in his 65,000-word publication, On Jews and Their Lies, which sounds like the name of a Proud Boys Subreddit. Luther calls Jews “a base, whoring people” and “poisonous, envenomed worms.” But he’s just getting started.

He goes on to argue that synagogues should be burned, that Jews’ houses should be razed, and that their money should be seized for “safekeeping” unless they converted. A few hundred years later, Luther’s Arian brothers would take him at his word while wearing belt buckles boasting, “Gott Mit Uns,” or “God With Us.”

It boggles the mind.

Look closely: Jews in pointed hats eating pig shit as depicted on the façade of the Wittenberg Town Church in Germany, home to Martin Luther.

Did you know all of this? I didn’t, which is surprising, given the Church’s long tradition of discrediting its opponents. In fairness to Luther, it’s worth mentioning that he was, in this way, not unlike other Christian Europeans of his time. So all the more reason to ask why the ideology of the sub-human Jew was baked so deeply into the culture.

The author Michael Pollan wrote that “a reigning ideology is a little like the weather: all-pervasive and virtually inescapable.” The cultural critic Lionel Trilling reminded us that ideology is not acquired by thought “but by breathing the haunted air.”

With their incriminating scripture and the domination of civic life, the inescapable Church polluted the air with anti-Semitism. Church buildings and cathedrals, including Notre Dame in Paris, were—and still are—bedecked with horrific imagery of Jews, sometimes with horns or money bags, sometimes eating pig feces, or sometimes with snakes wrapped around their eyes.

If you wonder where “dirty Jew” or “greedy Jew” come from, here’s your answer.

“An ideology is not acquired by thought, but by breathing the haunted air.” - Leon Trilling

To the peasants of Europe, the stories told in the Gospels and in Church iconography were unassailable truths from indisputable, holy authority. This propaganda morphed into appalling legends of ritual slaughter—Jews kidnapping Christian children and drinking their blood. If you don’t believe me, go to Trent in Italy where you will find a Renaissance building featuring a frieze of a local Christian boy being flayed and consumed by the descendants of the Pharisees. It bears pointing out that this building stands on the location of the former synagogue that was destroyed after the Jews were driven from the town.

Last week I wrote of the “moral norms” that led to average Germans rounding up and murdering thousands of Jews. This didn’t start with Hitler. It started with a Church that dehumanized the future Holocaust victims as shit-eating, blood-drinking animals because they didn’t accept what the Church was selling.

We think we’ve moved beyond it, but Scripture-based anti-Semitism still haunts the air. The Passion of the Christ, directed and co-written by devout Catholic and pronouncedly anti-Semitic Mel Gibson, depicted a bloodthirsty Jewish mob killing Christ. The film, which received tremendous support among the evangelical community, was shown at Joel Osteen’s church, was screened for 4,000 pastors, and went on to gross more than $600 million at the box office in 2004 (about $1 billion in 2023 dollars). It’s impossible to say how many children saw this church-sanctioned movie, but suffice to assume that it was millions.

Scheming and screaming Jews in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, which grossed $612 million at the box office.

“Hang on, Paul—I liked that movie but I’m not some Nazi or a jihadist who burns babies alive.” I get that. But let’s remember that Islam has no monopoly on killing in the name of God. It’s been a while since Christian atrocities have made the news, but the historical list is longer than the Pope’s robe: the mass murder of the Crusades, the torture of the Inquisition, it goes on and on.

Ever heard of the Massacre of Verden? Good Christian emperor Charlemagne beheaded 4,500 Saxons because they wouldn’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It’s the same philosophy practiced by the early Christians, Martin Luther, and today’s jihadists: you don’t accept the “one, true faith,” so your life has no value. Convert or die, Saxon infidels!

I strongly recommend making time to watch Murphy’s presentation, or at least doing some reading on the roots of anti-Semitism. Because the horror we see in the news now is just the latest manifestation of an age-old tradition called “we-know-God-and-you-don’t.” Be aware of prevailing moral norms and careful in your convictions, especially if you regard them as inerrant. They might sound benign, but religious certainty can be deadly.

There’s a sweet pre-meal blessing I learned as a child. It starts out:

God is Great
God is Good
Let us thank him for our food

If you were to recite this prayer in the language of Hamas, the first line would read: “Allahu Akbar.” Ring a bell?

So translate your prayers into Arabic. If you still feel comfortable reciting them aloud on an airplane, keep teaching them to your children.

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