I Love Making These T-Rex Skulls, Every Change Of Glass Gives It A New Personality!

I love making these T-Rex Skulls, every change of glass gives it a new personality!

Jews wanting to know if someone is Jewish is very different from goyim wanting to know if someone is Jewish

Okay, with Good Friday tomorrow, it is time for us to talk about antisemitism, the Christian Holy Week, and the Passion.

The Christian Holy Week is a time of prayer, joy, and scripture for many Christians. For Jews it is traditionally a time of fear.

Synagogues traditionally bulk up security during Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, and Christian Holy Week. When I tell you this week, Good Friday in particular, is scary for us I am not exaggerating. Our institutions don’t cough up money for security just for fun.

The Christian Holy Week, going back centuries and continuing to this day, has often been closely tied to vicious and even violent antisemitism. This is when the gospels’ portrayals of Jesus’ death are read, the Passion dramatically acted out complete with Christians playing Jews and violently screaming for the crucifixion of Jesus, and the “Prayer for the Jews” said. It is when we are, in Christian scripture, tied to the crime of alleged deicide. A permanent sin by the Jews, in much of Christian theology. The accusation of deicide by the Jews has led to pogroms and violence against us for centuries, more often during this week than any other time of year.

Does it matter that much of the death of Jesus was likely written as it was for political and theological purposes, rather than as a reflection of what happened? Nah. That these accounts were written anywhere from 50-150 years after the purported death of the Jesus figure? No. What about the fact that the Judas character in the gospels is the least likely to have actually existed and it’s suspicious his name translates to “Jew”? Why would any one worry about that?

Does it matter that even the gospels’ depictions of Jesus’ death indicate that Jews were not responsible for the crucifixion? Of course not. In much of Christianity Jews’ guilt is the truth, even if the disciplines of history and historiography disagree. (Fun facts: Crucifixion was never used by Jews for the death penalty, Pontius Pilate was so notoriously cruel even Romans thought he was too much, and claiming to be king of the Jews didn’t violate Jewish law even if it made people think you were a little nuts.)

Some strains of Christianity have begun the hard work of reckoning with the antisemitism traditionally, doctrinally, and liturgically present in Christianity’s Holy Week. They’ve begun changing liturgy, and altering or even removing Passion plays and the “Prayer for the Jews.”

But not enough of Christianity has. So please, Christian and Christian-adjascent decent people, be aware of the Christian Holy Week’s long, deep, and indeed religious ties to antisemitism, and often violent antisemitism at that. Try to disconnect your theology and traditions from a narrative that posits us as the murderers of Jesus, which if it happened as described was actually an action taken by Rome for violations of Roman law. Do not use your holiest of weeks to demonize us. We’re already scared.

Caity Birmingham

Yo! I'm also a Jewish cat person and used to live in Spain!! If I could I'd be applying for PhD programmes back in Madrid, it's absolutely my favourite place. I wanted to say hello!

Hi there! I lived in Madrid for a few years. I still miss it. There's technically a train that goes from here to there, but I never have the time or the funds for the trip. :C Great city, though!

Do you have cats (and pictures of them)? Cats are an unalloyed good in this world