In a study conducted by the American Jewish Committee, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the Korean-horn leader of the Unification Church, is accused of “unrelieved hostility to Jews and Judaism,” and his teachings are described as a “breeding-ground for fostering anti-Semitism.” Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, national director of the AJCommittee’s interreligious affairs department, made the study public at an opening session today of the annual meeting of the Committee’s national executive council, its top policy-making body, which runs through Sunday at the Fairmont Hotel here. The study was conducted by Rabbi A. James Rudin, assistant director of the AJCommittee’s interreligious affairs department.
The study charges that Moon’s book, “Divine Principle,” first published in Korean nearly 20 years ago and expanded in a 1974 English-language edition, is “replete with hostile and vicious anti-Jewish stereotypes.”
Moon, it says, employs the most hostile elements in the Christian tradition to describe the crucifixion of Jesus. Welcome changes on this subject, the study states, have taken place within the Christian community in the past 15 years, but Moon continues to foster hatred of the Jewish people.
The study contrasts Moon’s doctrines with those of Protestants, Catholics, Evangelicals and other Christians who are meeting with Jews “in love and mutual respect.” Moon, it declares, “perpetuates only hateful, destructive and divisive teachings about Judaism and the Jewish people.” Nowhere, the study says, does Moon attribute any validity to Jews or Judaism, either ancient or modern. They are seen only as a people devoid of any genuine faith and spiritual qualities.
According to the AJCommittee study, “Rev. Moon’s ‘Divine Principle’ is a feculent breeding ground for fostering anti-Semitism. Because of Moon’s unrelieved hostility towards Jews and Judaism, a demonic picture emerges from the pages of his major work. One can only speculate on what negative and anti-Jewish impact ‘Divine Principle’ may have upon a follower of Rev. Moon.”
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