Rabbi Balfour Brickner, director of the Commission on Interfaith Activities of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, took issue today with a statement by a Christian minister who declared this weekend that Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ is a “historical act.”
The insistence on blaming the Jews for decide was made by the Rev. Dr. James Daane, a minister of the Christian Reformed Church, in an article in Christianity Today, a leading Protestant magazine. He called on the Jewish people to “admit honestly” that “the Jews desired, plotted and promoted the execution of Jesus.”
In his reply, Rabbi Brickner said the assertion was “historically incorrect and factually untrue.” He noted that the Roman occupation authorities in Palestine at the time of Jesus did not permit the Jews either to impose or to carry out the death penalty. “To accuse Jews of the death of Jesus,” he said, “because Pilate made use of a puppet priest is equivalent to saying Christians are inherently bloodthirsty because of the Crusades.”
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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.
