Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, believes anti-Semitism will last as long as Christians accept the New Testament's "lie" that the ancient Pharisees were responsible for the death of Christ.
In his recent book, Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, Foxman claims this "deadly" deception has caused untold Jewish suffering through the millennia. Such New Testament-generated hate culminated in the Holocaust, he claims - but it breaks out afresh as the "Christ-killers" charge is inferred in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and readings f
rom the "anti-Semitic" Christian story at Easter.
Foxman says another wave of global anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews could be on the way unless Christia
ns agree to ignore large sections of the New Testament.
What sections will probably be on his "must censor" list? Certainly, it would include Christ's incendiary attacks on the Pharisees, whom He called "whitewashed tombs, full of dead men's bones." Foxman would also censor the Apostle John: "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son does not have the life... Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." In the book of Revelation, recorded by John, Jesus says those Jews who reject Him are "the synagogue of Satan," another passage Foxman would certainly cut out.
But most importantly, Foxman would censor the multitude of passage
s in all the Gospels that reveal a pharisaic conspiracy to entrap and finally murder Christ. The book of Acts squarely lays blame for the crucifixion upon the Pharisees and the nation of the Jews. To please Foxman, St. Paul's clear indictment must a
lso be omitted: "The Jews...killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God but hostile to all men."
Foxman claims Jews were not responsible for the crucifixion and that Roman officials masterminded Jesus' death. But only one "Roman official" is mentioned in the New Testament as authorizing the crucifixion; Pontius Pilate was a weak-willed political opportunist, reluctant to condemn Christ. He was coerced by an entire Jewish Sanhedrin and a mob of Jewish citizens who screamed, "Crucify him! His blood be upon us and on our children."[/b]
