More than 500 Christian clergymen of many denominations have affixed their names to an appeal warning of Christian responsibility for anti-Jewish feeling in this country, it was announced today by the Council Against Intolerance in America. The “Appeal to Christian Leaders” goes far beyond the encouragement of brotherhood and the tolerance of religious faiths. It stresses dangers not clearly recognized here tore.
The appeal suggests that frightful as has been the ordeal of anti-Semitism to the Jewish people, “it may be that the injury is even more terrible to the Christian world unable to prevent it, and tempted to offer excuses or disclaim responsibility.” It urges that the Christian world must take account of what happens to its own fellowship and the spirit of its own people when they foster anti-Jewish feelings, condone them, or are unable to prevent their terrible consequences.
The appeal points out that one of the most subtle and powerful influences in arousing anti-Semitic feeling is the careless or unwise use of Christian source materials, including the New Testament. The Bible itself may be unwittingly used with harmful results if there is not a clear understanding of its origin and background, the appeal says. Thus the Gospel of John, the statement points out, was written around the end of the First Century A.D. when the antagonism between Jew and Gentile had developed to unhappy proportions.
The statement contends that the Jewish people have precisely the same faults and virtues possessed by Gentiles. If there is any differences, the Jew can boast of longer cultural heritage, but the primary reason that Jews have suffered discrimination and persectuion is that they were a minority. “They have never been strong enough to prevent other people yielding to the baser motives of discrimination,” the statement says. It makes an appeal for the closer unity of all peoples and religions, because this unity is “the one hope of overcoming the evils which threaten Jew and Gentile alike.”
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.
