A French court has been asked to absolve the Jews from responsibility for Jesus’ crucifixion and pin it on Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor at the time of Jesus’ death. The case stems from a libel suit lodged by French lawyer Jacques Isorni against a Roman Catholic priest. Father Georges de Nantes.
Isorni, a right-wing politician and lawyer, had written a book published in 1967. “The True Trial of Jesus,” in which he blamed the Roman governor for Jesus’ death. Isorni, who had served as Marshal Petain’s attorney at France’s liberation, claimed in his book that Jesus was crucified not because he asserted that he was the son of God but because he had belonged to an anti-Roman guerrilla movement.
Father de Nantes, who leads an ultra-right wing splinter group from the official Catholic church, has accused Isorni of “falsifying the New Testament” in order to serve the Jews and clear them of their collective guilt. Father de Nantes also said that Isorni “has opted for the Jews against the church.”
Isorni, who is asking for a symbolic one franc compensation, has asked the court to find Father de Nantes guilty, “as otherwise you will be justifying him for preaching the massacre of the Jews.” Isorni also told the court that de Nantes seeks to justify the Nazis’ anti-Jewish crimes on the basis of their collective guilt in Jesus’ death. The court verdict is expected in about two weeks.
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.
