Religious and political leaders in West Germany have failed to fulfill pledges that the text of the world-famed Oberammergau Passion Play would be altered to eliminate anti-Semitic references, Dr. Joachim Prinz, chairman of the commission on international affairs of the American Jewish Congress, charged today. He expressed “shock and bitter failure” at their refusal to act and deplored the position taken by the Oberammergau villagers in rejecting charges that their production was “intensely anti-Semitic.”
Rabbi Prinz, however, praised the “responsible and responsive attitude” of the Diocese of Newark, N.J., headed by Archbishop Thomas A. Boland, in giving assurances that the passion play sponsored by the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in Union City, N.J., would be revised in the spirit of the Vatican Council schema on the Jews.
Dr. Prinz, in a press conference today, linked the stand taken by the Oberammergau villagers with “the alarming growth of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party and the festering of Hitlerite ideology in Bavaria.” He noted that six outstanding West German literary figures had endorsed the Congress protest against the Oberammergau production and reported that Leonard Bernstein, the conductor and George Steiner, the British critic had joined the list of writers and artists endorsing the American Jewish Congress call for a boycott of the Oberammergau production in 1970. The modified version of the passion play will be presented in Union City from March 16 through April 17.
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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.
