The conflict in the Middle East between the State of Israel and the Palestinians is relatively new in the history of the Jewish people. After the beginning of Christianity, there was a movement called the
Jewish deicide:
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"
Jewish deicide is the notion that
the Jews as a people will always be collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus, even through the successive generations following his death.
[1][2] A Biblical justification for the charge of Jewish deicide is derived from
Matthew 27:24–25. Some rabbinical authorities, such as 12th-century scholar
Maimonides and, more recently, ultranationalist Israeli rabbi,
Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891–1982), have asserted that Jesus was indeed stoned and hanged after being sentenced to death in a
rabbinical court.
"In the
catechism that was produced by the
Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, the
Catholic Church taught the belief that the collectivity of sinful humanity was responsible for the death of Jesus, not only the Jews.
[5] If one were to claim that only the Jews were responsible for Jesus’ death, the logical corollary to this would be that Jesus’ redemptive suffering, death and resurrection was for the sins of Jews alone and not all of humanity, as is taught by the Church. In the
Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church under
Pope Paul VI issued the declaration
Nostra aetate that repudiated the idea of a collective, multigenerational Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. It declared that the accusation could not be made 'against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today'.
[1]"Most other churches do not have any binding position on the matter, but some
Christian denominations[
which?] have issued declarations against the accusation.
[6][7][8]"
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"CHRISTIANITY’S UNDERSTANDING OF ITS ORIGINS centers on the New Testament, particularly the poetic rendering in the gospels of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, which is traditionally known as the Passion.5
In the gospels’ rendition and as interpreted for centuries, the Jews are perceived as 'the Christ killers,' a people condemned forever to suffer exile and degradation. This archcrime of 'deicide,' of murdering God, turned the Jews into the embodiment of evil, a 'criminal people' cursed by God and doomed to wander and suffer tribulation to the end of time. No other religious tradition has condemned a people as the murderers of its god, a unique accusation that has resulted in a unique history of hatred, fear, and persecution. When it came to Jews, the central doctrine of Christianity, that Jesus was providentially sent into the world to atone by his death for mankind’s sins, was obscured."
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"After a few centuries of freedom from harassment during the Carolingian period (800-1000), the Jews of western Europe began to suffer new indignities as the crusades came on. The Muslims were the 'infidel' targets in the attempted recapture of the holy places in Palestine. However, the pillage and slaughter committed by Christian mobs against Jews on the way linger long in Jewish memory."
" - - - Martin Luther in his early days naively imagined that the Jews, to whom he was attracted by his studies, would flock to the Church in his reformed version. When nothing of the sort happened, he denounced them in a set of pamphlets written in vituperative fury. He had produced the early, favorable "That Christ Was Born a Jew" in 1523, but after he turned on this so-called "damned, rejected race," he wrote Against the Sabbatarians (1538) and On the Jews and Their Lies (1543)."
"Germany was populated with more Jews than any country in Western Europe when Hitler came to power. It also had the same ugly heritage of anti-Jewish sentiment as all Christian Europe. The short-lived Weimar Republic could not deliver Germany from the severe economic hardships it experienced after World War I. Jews had been the Republic’s strong supporters and a few of them were the architects of its constitution, a fact that Hitler capitalized upon. Huge inflation in 1923 and the depression of 1929 increased Germany’s problems. Some leading capitalist families, gentile and Jewish, managed to escape these problems, but the eyes of the angry populace were trained on the Jews rather than the gentiles."
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My comment on the above:
It is clear to me that, without Christianity, the Jews would not have been subjected to the horrors of the last two centuries. Ah, religion. Isn't it wonderful?
It is also clear to me the irony of the strongest supporters of the State of Israel, besides conservative Jews, are conservative Christians. Could it be because of how they interpret Scripture regarding "
The End Times?"
