(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
A plea for eradicating anti-Jewish prejudice from the minds of Christians was made by the Rt. Rev. Henry Russell Wakefield, former Bishop of Birmingham, in an article published in the “Daily Express” on the occasion of the approaching Easter.
“Now, 1,900 years after the crucifixion, is it compatible with the highest principles of Christianity that the Jewish people be held responsible for the greatest crime of history?” Dr. Wakefield asks in his article.
“Prejudices are long lived, but this prejudice is one of which Christians may well be ashamed. It generates a misconception of the character of the Jewish people. Even making every admission of guilt of the Jewish nation with regard to Christ, we ought not to condemn the Jews in this century for a sin of their distant forefathers,” he says.
“Some people argue,” he continues, “that the feeling against the Jews is not connected with the treatment of Christ in Jerusalem. On what then is this prejudice founded? Is it the power of the Jew in the realm of finance? If so, we must remember that we forced him to this kind of business. In the second place it is unquestionable that the Jew is the most capable financial citizen and we are often in great difficulty without him. Thirdly, we must remember that the Jew is equally interesting and powerful in many other directions,” he writes.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
