Addressing European Anti-Semitism

What can contemporary Christians do to address Christian anti-Semitism? And how can this help abate anti-Semitism in the modern world?

I agree entirely with Professor Kertzer's conclusion that "the historical role of Christianity" in propagating what Jules Isaac called the "teaching of contempt" against Jews and Judaism must, as Pope John Paul II has stated time and again, be honestly faced by the Church. And I agree entirely that the Church today must be among the loudest voices condemning anti-Semitic lies from whatever source. The website of Boston College's

, for example, already has a helpful section devoted to rebutting in detail anti-Semitic material that has appeared on one such radical Islamist website.

Kertzer's case would be strengthened, however, if he could control his own tendency to overstate it. He charges, for example, that in France and Italy, "Catholic priests were ... champions and publishers" of the Protocols. This is true but only half the truth. The rest of the truth is that Catholic priests were also in the forefront of debunking the forgery, producing analyses that were translated and published, for example, in major Jesuit journals both in Europe and in America. It is also not quite the whole story to say that "the Vatican actively promoted the ritual murder charge," especially given the fact that Popes over the centuries publically condemned the charge as false. Half truths, I believe, will in the long run provide poor antidotes to the lies that Jews and Catholics need to fight in common.

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