Those Who Forget the Past by Ron Rosenbaum

Author:Ron Rosenbaum
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307432810
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

PART SEVEN

THE DEICIDE ACCUSATION

NAT HENTOFF

Who Did Kill Christ?

LENNY BRUCE USED TO TELL, in his act, about a Jew who was weary not only of being called a Christ killer but of occasionally being punched in the mouth by disciples of the Prince of Peace. Finally, this beleaguered Jew put a note in his cellar, where it could easily be found. He wanted to absolve all other Jews. It said: “I did it. Morty.”

This question of the Jews’ responsibility for the crucifixion has considerable resonance for me because I grew up in Boston, then the most anti-Semitic city in the country, and lost some teeth after being punched in the mouth by young hooligans whose after-dark sport was invading our ghetto and bashing Jews to avenge that deicide.

My mother told me that in the Old Country, when she was a girl and word spread that the cossacks were coming, her mother popped her into the oven, which fortunately was not lit.

Therefore, I have become much interested in a story out of Washington about a Jewish conservative journalist, Evan Gahr, who has left three leading conservative institutions after charging Paul Weyrich with anti-Semitism. Weyrich, a founder of the contemporary conservative movement, was at one point its most successful fundraiser.

Thomas Edsall broke the story in the April 21 Washington Post. He cited an April 13 Paul Weyrich commentary, “Indeed He Is Risen!” on Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation’s Web site.

The Weyrich statement, e-mailed to supporters, said, “Christ was crucified by the Jews who had wanted a temporal ruler to rescue them from the oppressive Roman authorities. Instead God sent them a spiritual leader to rescue them from their sins and despite the fact that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, performed incredible miracles, even raised people from the dead, He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered him a threat. Thus He was put to death.”

In his article, Edsall quoted Evan Gahr, who had criticized Weyrich on the American Spectator Web site. Gahr called Weyrich “a demented anti-Semite” for that resurrection of Jews as Christ killers.

In Edsall’s Washington Post article, there was further reaction from Marc Stern, a constitutional lawyer at the American Jewish Congress, whom I consult on establishment-clause cases, and Eugene Fisher, director of Catholic-Jewish relations for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Stern noted that, through the centuries, the “blood libel” that we Jews were the ones who killed Christ had ignited pogroms.

And Fisher declared that Weyrich’s accusation “is exactly the type of collective guilt on the Jewish people that the Second Vatican Council specifically condemned in the declaration Nostra Aetate, October 28, 1965.” He added that last year, while in Israel, Pope John Paul II made clear that the Catholic Church is “deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews.”

In the May 15 Wall Street Journal, David Novak, who teaches Jewish studies at the University of Toronto, noted that Weyrich is a deacon in the Catholic Church, which “has officially

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.