In a sermon at The Heights Free Synagogue, West 158th Street and Broadway, on the subject, “Modernizing the Bible.” Rabbi J. Max Weis characterized Giovanni Papini as an apostle of hate. “His ‘Life of Christ’,” declared Rabbi Weis, “is an unpardonable blasphemy against the life of that noble figure. He reveals as great an ignorance of the Jesus of the New Testament as Mohammed in the Koran. If Papini read the New Testament at all, he did not understand it. Never has a man sung a song of love in the melody of hate with more malicious effect than Papini in his reference to the Jew in ‘The Life of Christ’. Were Jesus to read this book, he would not hesitate to cast it before the swine.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.