Hatred of the Jews has been a sad fact for the past 2,000 years. Documentation of this comes in a fascinating book by Rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok, The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism (Eerdsmans, $18 paperback).
Cohn-Sherbock, who teaches Jewish theology at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, has compiled one of the most readable accounts of the terrible history of evil.
"Pagans regarded the Jewish community with aversion and puzzlement," he writes. "Christians, however, conceived of Jewry as spiritually contemptible and demonic. As rival faiths, Judaism and Christianity entered into conflict, and the history of their interaction is a tale of human suffering and tragedy."
One of the principal causes of anti-Semitism is the New Testament, which describes Christ as the true eternal Temple in opposition to the earthly and temporal cult of Jerusalem. "The New Testament thus laid the foundation for the theological negation of Judaism and the vilification of the Jewish people," Cohn-Sherbok writes. He notes that the Synoptic Gospels "minimize the responsibility of the Romans for Christ's death; instead the elders, the chief priests and the Scribes play a dominant role."
Because the New Testament sees unbelievers (such as the Jews) as the incarnation of the false principle of the fallen world, "their reaction to the Son of God is to plan his murder. They are not of God, but of the devil." In John Chapter 15, the Jews are represented as demonic because they sought to kill Jesus and are portrayed as wanting the same fate for His followers. "Not surprisingly, such a diatribe against the Jews and the Jewish faith has served as a basis for Christian persecution of the Jews through the centuries," Cohn-Sherbok writes.
So it has gone through recorded history since biblical times. Christian clergymen in the Middle Ages encouraged persecution of the Jews. In 1542, Martin Luther published his pamphlet, Against the Jews and their Lies. Luther called the Jews an unwanted pestilence, repeatedly expelled by those among whom they live.
In Great Britain Jonathan Swift, revered author of Gulliver's Travels, emphasized the dangers posed by a Jewish presence, labeling them "a stiffnecked and rebellious people." In the New World, concerted efforts were made to convert Jews. Cotton Mather celebrated every conversion and wrote a treatise on the topic. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, learned Spanish when he lived in America so that he could convert Jews. Quaker William Penn said the Jewish nation should be viewed with compassion and "converted only with kindness."
Some pressure lifted in the middle of the eighteenth century when the existence of a sizeable black community in America "provoked the hostility of the white population, thereby deflecting potential animosity away from the Jews." In Western Europe, Jews were forced to live in ghettos and repeatedly the allegation was made that they "exuded a particular smell in contast to the Christian odor of sanctity. This smell was viewed as a sign of their depravity." As a result, the book notes, "the Jewish community turned inward, despising those who denigrated them."
The Enlightenment in England, France and Germany did not produce help for the beleagured Jews. Voltaire attacked Jews as "our masters and our enemies . . . whom we detest," and "the most abominable people in the world." Relief arrived at the end of the eighteenth century and with establishment of the Napoleonic era, Jewish existence was revolutionized, the position of the Jews improving throughout Europe.
The advent of severe unemployment in Germany in the early 1930s led to the rise of Nazism with its policies of rabid anti-Semitism. In Russia during the Revolution, authorities condemned what they believed to be an international Jewish conspiracy. Pogroms occurred throughout that country.
Finally, in history's greatest expression of hatred, the Holocaust occurred, leading to the extermination of six million Jews.
Despite this long and horrible history, Cohn-Sherbok points to a change in attitudes that provides hope for the future. The Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches have in recent years denounced anti-Semitism. "No longer do most Christians feel compelled to convert the Jewish people to the one, true faith; rather Judaism is affirmed as a valid religious tradition with its own spiritual integrity. . . . Along with Jewish thinkers, Christian theologians have struggled to make sense of God's nature and activity in the light of the destruction of six million innocent victims."
Cohn-Sherbok concludes that by working together, "the long habit of Christian anti-Semitism may at last be overcome."
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