Jewish deicide is a belief that places the responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole. The implications of this have been huge- the accusation was frequently stated, and used to exhort violence against the Jews. Many of the most violent pogroms (attacks against Jews), were as a result of a local priest preaching on this theme at Easter. Thus this claim can be linked to numerous persecutions of the Jews. The Dominicans were very active in preaching on this accusation – and the murder of 4000 people in Lisbon in 1506AD is directly attributed to preaching by Dominican priests. The Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn’t an anti-Roman movement through history? Jesus himself said, “Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do.” The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism, because Christianity records the historical fact that the Jews crucified Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory. Each individual Jew, as the Bible teaches, shares in the Corporate Guilt of the murder of Jesus Christ. Thus the Jews, both individually and corporately, must repent of their sins. The largest world faith is Christianity followed by Islam and unaffiliated faiths and all three hate Jews for reasons already stated and that’s why most of the world hates them. This is the biggest and most revealing cause of Anti-Semitism which to some extent exposes the irrational and theocratic undercurrents in both Christian and Islamic faiths
