Page 2 - Boca ViewPointe - February '20

Page 2, Viewpointe February 2020
JICYMI

Just In Case You Missed It a sign of divine disfavour incurred by the Jews’ denial that were described as companions of the Devil and a race of vipers.
Jesus was the Messiah and by their role in his crucifixion. Church liturgy, particularly the scriptural readings for the Good
By Bob Kronish As Christianity spread in the first centuries CE, most Friday commemoration of the Crucifixion, contributed to this
Jews continued to reject that religion. As a consequence, by enmity. Such views were finally renounced by the Roman
The Grievous History of the 4th century, Christians tended to regard Jews as an alien Catholic Church decades after the Holocaust with the Vatican
AntiSemitism people who, because of their repudiation of Christ and his II declaration of Nostra aetate (Latin: “In Our Era”) in 1965,
Michael Bernbaum is church, were condemned to perpetual migration (a belief best which transformed Roman Catholic teaching regarding Jews
the author of the following illustrated in the legend of the Wandering Jew). When the and Judaism.
article, He is the author Christian church became dominant in the Roman Empire, its Anti-Semitism In Medieval Europe
and editor of twenty books, leaders inspired many laws by Roman emperors designed to Religious attitudes were reflected in the economic, social,
scores of scholarly articles, segregate Jews and curtail their freedoms when they appeared and political life of medieval Europe. In much of Europe
and hundreds of journalistic to threaten Christian religious domination. As a consequence, during the Middle Ages, Jews were denied citizenship and
scholarship. Jews were increasingly forced to the margins of European its rights, barred from holding posts in government and the
AntiSemitism is described as hostility toward or society. military, and excluded from membership in guilds and the
discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group. Enmity toward the Jews was expressed most acutely in professions. To be sure, some European rulers and societies,
The term anti-Semitism was coined in 1879 by the German the church’s teaching of contempt. From St. Augustine in the particularly during the early Middle Ages, afforded Jews a
agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish 4th century to Martin Luther in the 16th, some of the most degree of tolerance and acceptance, and it would be an error
campaigns under way in central Europe at that time. eloquent and persuasive Christian theologians excoriated the
Although the term now has wide currency, it is a misnomer, Jews as rebels against God and murderers of the Lord. They JICYMI on page 3
since it implies a discrimination against all Semites. Arabs
and other peoples are also Semites, and yet they are not the
targets of anti-Semitism as it is usually understood. The
term is especially inappropriate as a label for the anti-Jewish
prejudices, statements, or actions of Arabs or other Semites.
Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust, had
a racist dimension in that it targeted Jews because of their
supposed biological characteristics—even those who had
themselves converted to other religions or whose parents
were converts. This variety of anti-Jewish racism dates only
to the emergence of so-called “scientific racism” in the 19th
century and is different in nature from earlier anti-Jewish
prejudices.
The Origins Of Christian Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism has existed to some degree wherever
Jews have settled outside Palestine. In the ancient Greco-
Roman world, religious differences were the primary basis
for anti-Semitism. In the Hellenistic Age, for instance, Jews’
social segregation and their refusal to acknowledge the gods
worshiped by other peoples aroused resentment among some
pagans, particularly in the 1st century BCE–1st century CE.
Unlike polytheistic religions, which acknowledge multiple
gods, Judaism is monotheistic—it recognizes only one god.
However, pagans saw Jews’ principled refusal to worship
emperors as gods as a sign of disloyalty.
Although Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples were
practicing Jews and Christianity is rooted in the Jewish
teaching of monotheism, Judaism and Christianity became
rivals soon after Jesus was crucified by Pontius Pilate, who
executed him according to contemporary Roman practice.
Religious rivalry initially was theological. It soon also
became political.
Historians agree that the break between Judaism and
Christianity followed the Roman destruction of the Temple
of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE and the subsequent exile of
Jews. In the aftermath of this devastating defeat, which was
interpreted by Jew and Christian alike as a sign of divine
punishment, the Gospels diminished Roman responsibility
and expressed Jewish culpability in the death of Jesus
both explicitly (Matthew 27:25) and implicitly. Jews were
depicted as killers of the Son of God.
Christianity was intent on replacing Judaism by making
its own particular message universal. The New Testament
was seen as fulfilling the “Old” Testament (the Hebrew
Bible); Christians were the new Israel, both in flesh and in
spirit. The God of justice had been replaced by the God of
love. Thus, some early Church Fathers taught that God had
finished with the Jews, whose only purpose in history was WHITSYMS NURSING SERVICE
to prepare for the arrival of his Son. According to this view,
the Jews should have left the scene. Their continued survival
seemed to be an act of stubborn defiance. Exile was taken as IS THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR IN-HOME CARE

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