Antisemitism, Christian Ambivalence, and the Holocaust

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Kevin P. Spicer
Indiana University Press, 2007 M05 31 - 361 pages
Thirteen essays exploring the role of antisemitism in the political and intellectual life of Europe.

In recent years, the mask of tolerant, secular, multicultural Europe has been shattered by new forms of antisemitic crime. Though many of the perpetrators do not profess Christianity, antisemitism has flourished in Christian Europe. In this book, thirteen scholars of European history, Jewish studies, and Christian theology examine antisemitism’s insidious role in Europe’s intellectual and political life. The essays reveal that annihilative antisemitic thought was not limited to Germany, but could be found in the theology and liturgical practice of most of Europe’s Christian churches. They dismantle the claim of a distinction between Christian anti-Judaism and neo-pagan antisemitism and show that, at the heart of Christianity, hatred for Jews overwhelmingly formed the milieu of twentieth-century Europe.

“This volume’s inclusion of essays on several different Christian traditions, as well as the Jewish perspective on Christian antisemitism make it especially valuable for understanding varieties of Christian antisemitism and ultimately, the practice and consequences of exclusionary thinking in general. In bringing a range of theological and historical perspectives to bear on the question of Christian and Nazi antisemitism, the book broadens our view on the question, and is of great value to historians and theologians alike.” —Maria Mazzenga, Catholic University of America, H-Catholic, February 2009

“Sheds light on and offers steps to overcome the locked-in conflict between Jews and Christians along the antisemitic path from Calvary to Auschwitz and beyond.” —Zev Garber, Los Angeles Valley College and American Jewish University, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1 Fall 2008

From inside the book

Contents

II Christian Clergy and the Extreme Right Wing
103
III Postwar JewishChristian Encounters
171
IV Viewing Each Other
235
List of Contributors
309
Index
313
Copyright

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Page xiv - Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
Page 69 - They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ.
Page xiv - No one has greater love than this. to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Page 140 - Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
Page 297 - Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator by defending myself against the jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord...
Page xiv - Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Page 238 - Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God.

About the author (2007)

Kevin P. Spicer, C.S.C., is Associate Professor of History at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. He is author of Resisting the Third Reich: The Catholic Clergy in Hitler's Berlin.

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