Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 14, 1995 TAG: 9504140049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LARRY B. STAMMER LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As a boy growing up in Chicago in the late 1950s, Rabbi Daniel Landes remembers his beatings and bloodied noses on Good Friday. The same boys he played street football with the rest of the year would hurl taunts that day. They called him a dirty Jew. They accused him of crucifying their Lord. Then they kicked out one of his teeth.
``I didn't know what `crucified' meant,'' said Landes, senior rabbi at Temple Bnai David-Judea in Los Angeles and director of education at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitism worldwide. ``I knew the word `Lord,' but what could I possibly do against God?''
The Gospel accounts of Jesus' arrest, trial, abuse and crucifixion to be read today in churches throughout the world have long served as a fountainhead of anti-Semitism. Some Biblical scholars and religious leaders say the time has come for renewed efforts by Christians to put the Gospel accounts in their proper - and Jewish - historical context.
Concern over the impact of the Passion narratives comes as Jewish agencies report disquieting signs of rising anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, Spain and South America.
Christian and Jewish leaders say expressions of hate against Jews would not be possible without a history of anti-Jewish stories and religious imagery in Christian churches.
``New converts to Christianity as well as those who are rediscovering their Christian faith after decades of suppression in eastern Europe are reading the New Testament as an anti-Jewish book,'' said Irvin J. Borowsky, founder and chairman of the American Interfaith Institute, based in Philadelphia.
To be sure, Christian churches have come a long way since the ninth through 11th centuries, when a Jew was brought into the cathedral of Toulouse each year and given a symbolic blow during Holy Week.
In 1965, the Roman Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council issued a historic statement that Jews as a people are not collectively responsible for the death of Jesus and should not be seen as accursed or rejected by God.
Protestant churches issued similar statements. Lutherans have repudiated the 16th-century anti-Jewish statements of their founder, Martin Luther, who among other things, called for the burning of synagogues, the destruction of Jewish homes and the confiscation of their sacred writings. Last month, the Alliance of Baptists urged its members to seek dialogue with Jews instead of trying to convert them.
In one of the most significant symbols of change, Pope John Paul II established diplomatic relations with Israel in late 1993 - a final sign that the Catholic church had forever rejected the theology of ``perpetual wandering,'' which held that Jews were condemned to be without a homeland because of their role in the death of Jesus.
Today, for most Christians, the blame for the crucifixion does not rest on Jews as a people, but on all humanity because of its sinfulness.
Yet for all the progress in Christian-Jewish relations, a growing cadre of scholars and leaders of both faiths say much remains to be done.
While overt anti-Semitism disappeared long ago from Good Friday sermons and official doctrine, the Gospel narratives of Jesus' passion continue to convey powerful messages that remain open to anti-Judaic interpretation.
Part of the problem is that many Christians do not realize the Gospel accounts were written by Jews about other Jews in the midst of inter-religious disputes.
``First-century Christians, whether you like it or not, were a Jewish group,'' said biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan, whose new book ``Who Killed Jesus?'' has just been published. ``Jewish groups were fighting one another for the future and leadership of their own people. They said nasty things. They called one another names.'' But it was hardly anti-Semitism.
``It is like you and I might say, `Gee, Americans are just too violent.' We don't really mean we're not Americans. We're meaning other Americans except our group,'' Crossan said.
But problems developed as the early church severed its Jewish roots. Non-Jewish Christians read the same scriptural passages from their own perspective, and ``the Jews'' became someone ``other.''
``The mythic statements of the narratives of the liturgy always speak louder'' than the conciliatory messages ministers deliver from the pulpit, Landes said. ``It's not the (sermon). I'm a rabbi. I know what a sermon is and that's really secondary.''
In Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran and Orthodox churches the stark symbolism of the Good Friday liturgy and symbols can be jarring for churchgoers.
Altars have been stripped of their ceremonial linens, a black or purple shroud is draped over the cross, and the sanctuary candle - which burns throughout the rest of the year to signify the presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine - has been snuffed out to signify his death.
Jesus' arrest and crucifixion is recounted aloud with the reading of John 18:1 thru 19:37. The entire congregation, playing the role of the crowd, cries out, ``Crucify him, crucify him!'' The phrase ``the Jews'' is used at least nine times to describe those hostile to Jesus and who want his death.
In some churches there is a mournful tolling of a bell and sound effects mimicking an iron hammer relentlessly driving nails through human flesh and history.
Said Crossan: ``It's those scenes once they get into your imagination (that) have to be cauterized very carefully and the only way you can cauterize them is to try to understand exactly what was happening.''
(Optional add end)
What does the term ``the Jews'' mean? Jewish religious leaders? All Jews of that time? Jews for all time?
Few scholars - either Christian or Jewish - dispute that Jewish religious leaders were implicated in the arrest and subsequent execution of Jesus, which was carried out by authorities of imperial Rome.
``That the Jewish authorities or Jews were not involved is a modern idea,'' wrote Raymond E. Brown, a noted Roman Catholic scholar is his critically acclaimed ``The Death of the Messiah.''
Even Jewish writings outside the Christian tradition strongly point to a belief by ancient Jews that their ancestors ``were involved in and even responsible for the death of Jesus,'' Brown said, citing an ancient passage from the Babylonian Talmud, completed in the sixth century.
But should all Jews for all time be blamed? Officially, no. Catholic and Protestant churches alike since the mid-1960's have rejected the charge of ``deicide'' - the killing of a god - against the Jews.
Yet, the Gospel accounts remain open to anti-Judaic interpretation.
A large part of the problem is that many Christians today do not realize that the Gospel accounts were written by Jews about other Jews in the midst of inter-religious disputes.
``First century Christians, whether you like it or not, were a Jewish group,'' said Crossan. ``Jewish groups were fighting one another for the future and leadership of their own people. They said nasty things. They called one another names ... '' But it was hardly anti-Semitism.
``It is like you and I might say, `Gee, Americans are just too violent.' We don't really mean we're not Americans. We're meaning other Americans except our group,'' Crossan said.
But problems developed as the early church severed its Jewish roots. Non-Jewish Christians read the same scriptural passages from their own perspective, and ``the Jews'' became someone ``other.''
by CNB