Page 69 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

Jesus is identified with Palestinian children killed by the Israeli Defence Forces (comprised mainly—not entirely—of Jews) in fighting Hamas, then it can be a dangerously short slide for faith-based analogies to slip into saying that baby Jesus is killed by the IDF (mainly Jews), which would seem to echo the age-old deicide charge (‘the Jews killed Jesus’), one of the most toxic distortions of the gospel message in church history.5
This is the way of antisemitism. It is like a virus that mutates. Defeated in one era, it re-emerges in another time and setting. It is the same poison, but in a different guise. It is violence towards Jews dressed up as something seemingly innocuous, or even noble—in this case, as a Christmas message about God’s love for Palestinian children. No one is doubting God’s love for and closeness to Palestinian children! It is the subtle distortion and manipulation of that message that is being probed here.
To sum up, we recap the following points:
• Christians are called to be discerning in their use of Christmas symbols, truthful about the historical origins of Christianity, and awake to their Saviour’s Jewishness, which leaps off the pages of their Bible.
• Christians need to be theologically aware, knowing that the universal ‘Good News’ they proclaim is inseparable from the particularity of the Jew, Jesus, born a son of Israel, of a people with an ancient tradition and a long- established bond with the land we call holy.
• Christians have a moral responsibility to inform themselves so as to better understand antisemitism, what it is and how it is manifested, and to be alert to its ever-mutating guises. If they do not, they run the risk of unwittingly buying into
5 Massimo Faggioli also raises this concern in ‘The Effects of the Israel-Hamas War on Jewish-Catholic Relations’, La Croix International, 4 January 2024, https:// international.la-croix.com/news/signs-of-the-times/the-effects-of-the-israel- hamas-war-on-jewish-catholic-relations/18960.
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