The Grey Book | Page 8

and hence
also against Christianity. One of these powerful anti-Jewish elements
which rooted in Christianity, and after having been secularized became
an effective means used by totalitarianism against the Jews as well as
against the Jews as the symbol of non-conformism, as the embodiment
of the human quest for a free existence, for the right to be different and

yet to be, is the very concept of Collective Guilt. Its origin is the idea of
guilt for the crucifixion of God who took on Flesh (Matt. 27. 25; I
Thess. 2. 15), a guilt which lies as a heavy yoke on the shoulders of all
the Jews till the end of the days.
It was applied to social life by various Church Synods (such as Elvira
in 306, Clermont in 535, Orleans in 538, the Lateran Councils of 1179
and 1215) with their succession of repressive measures and
harassments directed against the Jews. It culminated under the
influence of blood libels in the late Middle Ages (Andreas of Ryn p.
1462, Simon of Trient 1475) [29], and in Modern Times (Tisza-Esslar,
Korfu, Xanten, Polna, Konitz) - down to the days of the Third Reich.
By using the very pattern of a Collective Guilt, the Christian projected
on to the Jew the frailties common to all human beings. This
mechanism enabled the Christian to see his own weakness reflected in
the Jew so that by persecuting the Jew, moreover by exterminating him,
the Christian could obliterate his own image as a sinner, and cleanse his
conscience from the burden of guilt. These patterns of thought and
conduct, these models of generalization, projection and prejudice that
originally were established by Christianity with respect to the Jews - to
what extent were they now employed by the Nazi regime against
Humanity, as well as against the Church itself whenever the racial
antisemites attacked its ethical Judaic basis? B. The second
group of questions concerns the problems as to whether the survival of
the Jews on the one hand, and their ultimate Christianization on the
other, are both indispensable to Christianity. Since the promise made to
the Jews in the Old Testament (Gen. 22 .18; II Sam. 7. 12; Isaiah 7.14),
will be fulfilled or perhaps superseded by those of the New Testament
(Rom. 9-11) when the Jews return in penitence and acknowledge Jesus
as the Messiah, it seems that the Christian concern for the fate of the
Jews, even in the days of the holocaust, is unavoidably accompanied by
an interest in his salvation. Alas, his salvation is conceived by the
Christian in terms that are unacceptable for the Jew as long as he
wishes to adhere to Judaism as a religion, a people and an unfulfilled
eschatology.
As we study the documents before us in their total historical context

including parts not directly relevant to the very protest and therefore
not printed in this volume, we are impressed with the following fact;
while the Church raised its voice against the persecution of the Jews
out of human motives, as well as in the hope of thereby strengthening
its own members, the traditional, dogmatic concept of the Jew
continued to be dominant. According to this view the persecution of the
Jews constitutes an error, not only for reasons of humanity, but mainly
because persecution prevents the Jew from seeking redemption among
his persecutors. It prevents the Jew from turning to Jesus as the
Messiah and from seeking in the New Testament that salvation which
not only is promised him, but without which Christianity itself is
doomed to remain unfulfilled. From the theological point of view
regarding the right of Judaism to exist, the Church in its protest against
the Nazis reverted to the original attitude of Luther, as expressed in
"Das Jesus Christus eyn geborener Jude sey" of 1523. When Luther
protested against the anti-Jewish policy of the Church, claiming that the
Church treated the Jews "als waren es hunde", and that under such
circumstances he himself would: "...ehe eyn saw geworden denn eyn
Christe", this very protest was also not based on an acknowledgment of
the right of Judaism to exist as an independent, autonomous religion.
The motive that inspired this protest was the hope that Christianity
would mitigate the persecution of the Jews and apply to them instead
the Christian Commandment of love and tolerance, as written by
Luther: "...Ob etliche halsstarrig sind was ligt daran? Sind wyr
doch auch nicht alle gute Christen...". In that case, and only in that case,
Christians might be hopeful that the Jews would return in penitence and
believe in the salvation brought to them by their own Messiah. Against
this historical background [30] it seems that even during the Holocaust,
Christianity continued to identify the Jew not in his own, authentic,
terms, but according