Jewish deicide

Jewish deicide is the notion that the Jews as a people were collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus. A Biblical justification for the charge of Jewish deicide is derived from Matthew 27:24–25. Some rabbinical authorities, such as Maimonides and, more recently, Zvi Yehuda Kook have asserted that Jesus was indeed stoned and hanged after being sentenced to death in a rabbinical court. The notion arose in early Christianity, the charge was made by Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century. The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. In the catechism which 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. 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". Most other churches do not have any binding position on the matter, but some Christian denominations have issued declarations against the accusation. Antisemitism and the New Testament A justification for the charge of Jewish deicide has been sought in Matthew 27:24–25: So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!" The verse which reads: "And all the people answered, 'His blood be on us and on our children! is also referred to as the blood curse.

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Related concepts (16)

Timeline of antisemitism

This timeline of antisemitism chronicles events in the history of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as members of a religious and/or ethnic group. It includes events in Jewish history and the history of antisemitic thought, actions which were undertaken in order to counter antisemitism or alleviate its effects, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.

Anti-Zionism

Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine – the biblical Land of Israel – was flawed or unjust in some way. Until World War II, anti-Zionism was widespread among Jews for varying reasons. Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism on religious grounds, as preempting the Messiah, while secular Jews felt uncomfortable with the idea that Jewish peoplehood was a national or ethnic identity.

Anti-Judaism

Anti-Judaism describes a range of historic and current ideologies which are totally or partially based on opposition to Judaism, on the denial or the abrogation of the Mosaic covenant, and the replacement of Jewish people by the adherents of another religion, political theology, or way of life which is held to have superseded theirs as the "light to the nations" or God's chosen people. The opposition is maintained by the appropriation and adaptation of Jewish prophecy and texts, and the stigmatization of the very people who transmitted those texts.