Jewish group slams Polish religious rite as anti-Semitic

Middle East Times ^ | April 27, 2006

[lizol]

Jewish group slams Polish religious rite as anti-Semitic

April 27, 2006

WARSAW -- A Jewish rights group on Wednesday protested to the Polish government over an Easter ritual held at a famous Roman Catholic sanctuary in southern Poland, claiming that the ceremony was tainted by anti-Semitism.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Polish foreign minister Stefan Meller to discipline organizers of the Stations of the Cross ceremony at Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, a site to be visited by Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to Poland in May.

Shimon Samuels, director for International Relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which tracks down Nazi war criminals and fights anti-Semitism, urged Poland "to take measures to discipline the organizers in order to ensure that this anti-Semitic desecration is never repeated".

Samuels protested against costumes worn by people taking part in the ritual, which he said were "Jewish stereotypes in garb, beards and Stars of David".

The Kalwaria Zebrzydowska sanctuary hosted its annual Stations of the Cross ceremony on Good Friday, April 14, a ritual that involves scenes depicting the Passion of Christ.

The procession draws tens of thousands of the faithful. This year it was presided over by the Archbishop of Krakow, Stanislaw Dziwisz.

"This ceremony contravenes Polish responsibility to combat anti-Semitism under its obligation to the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [OSCE]," Samuels said in a statement.

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska was a favorite site of Polish-born Pope John Paul II, where he came to pray as a child and that he visited during pilgrimages to his homeland.

John Paul's successor Pope Benedict XVI is to visit the sanctuary on May 27 during his four-day trip to Poland.

[Cinnamon Girl]

I wasn't trying to misstate the chronology. Speaking of chronology, I'm not sure how the funnel shaped hat, which today is unmistakably negative, got involved in a discussion about the weird horn hats shown in the picture. Any history on those?

[ArrogantBustard]

OK.

Hey Simon Wiesenthal Center!

Buzz off!!!

[rmlew]

I think the Simon Weisenthal Center is creating anti-Semitism here.

[Grzegorz 246]

"Though I don't approve the Wiesenthal Center's complaint to the Polish government, I think that you guys are well overboard with your Polonophobia accusations. All I could see there was political correctness in extreme, certainly not some special fear of Poles or Catholics."

I don't think this is about fear, in some cases probably a different kind of feeling.

If someone claims that "horns" were added to associate Jews and Judaism with devil worship, call the whole event anti-Semtic and call Kalwaria "sanctuary" [with quotes (from the original text )] that is definitely anti-Catholic and anti-Polish behavior.

These guy are supposed to wear historical clothes and some of them have "horns" as much as Vikings and some people in almost every other ancient culture had. I checked pictures from that ritual and noticed (after a while) guys with "horns" only on the third picture from the bottom posted by lizol in #2. It means that guys from the center were probably desperately looking for a "prove" of antisemitism and that's anti-Polish behavior.

This:

Samuels concluded, "To do otherwise would endorse a message to Polish youth that is in contradiction with this new era of Polish - Jewish reconciliation."

is ridiculous, cose without Simon and other guys making noise around the whole world because of two guys with "horns" few would even notice the "horns"

[Grzegorz 246]

"So you really think that it is incorrect to state with absolute certainty that Jews do not and have never had horns on their heads?"

Even more. I am sure that some of them actually had horns. Just like many others.

[murphE]

A damn good reason to put the horns back on the Jews, I agree

Did you know a Catholic Bishop's miter, the symbol of authority to defend and teach the faith, has 2 "horns". That originally the "horns" were on the side and then moved to the front and back (in which century I am not sure).

I have read explanations that the two "horns" of the miter are

1)are reminders of the rays of light that came from the head of Moses when he received the Ten Commandments

2)are also symbolic of the Old and New Testaments.

These two "horns" of authority are symbolic of the militant way the Bishop is to defend the faith using that which they represent.

[lizol]

Notice the second and third from the right, in the upper row.

Mitre

[lizol]

From about 1125 a mitre of another form and somewhat different appearance is often found. In it the puffs on the sides had developed into horns (cornua) which ended each in a point and were stiffened with parchment or some other interlining. This mitre formed the transition to the third style of mitre which is essentially the one still used today: the third mitre is distinguished from its predecessor, not actually by its shape, but only by its position on the head. While retaining its form, the mitre was henceforth so placed upon the head that the cornua no longer arose above the temples but above the forehead and the back of the head

[Grzegorz 246]

Maybe that's the point ?

[rmlew]

idiot.
Your behavior is giving the left exactly what they want. By breeding such anti-Judaism, the Simon Weisenthal Center remains in business after the Nazis have died.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

I'm not sure how the funnel shaped hat, which today is unmistakably negative, got involved in a discussion about the weird horn hats shown in the picture.

Almost all of the fashions from the middle ages seem odd by todays standards. I have no reason to believe that the hats in the pictures above had anything to do with horns or any other specific imagery. All the head wear from that period looks funny to me. Pointy shaped hats, however, were a common and freely chosen Jewish symbol long before there was any negative connotation attached to them, assuming that they ever did hold a real negative stigma. That form of dress seems to have fallen out of use by the fourteenth century.

[Cinnamon Girl]

You doubt that the pointed hat had a negative stigma? Please read more about it. How something is regarded today is relevant. Consider the swastika. I saw it on a soap tin at an antique shop and learned it used to be a symbol for purity. It really doesn't matter what it used to be. Today, the swastika is an unmistakable symbol of evil.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

You doubt that the pointed hat had a negative stigma? Please read more about it.

I had never heard about these hats before this thread. Do you have any links where I can read more about their negative connotation?

How something is regarded today is relevant.

And who is doing the regarding is just as relevant. The hat in question may be historical and thus it might be fitting for a historical procession like the one in the article. Clearly, costumes like this shouldn't be used if they are intended to create offense to any group. At the same time, it would also be wrong to impugn malevolence where there is none. My understanding is that the meaning of antisemitism is an intention or a deliberate act, not an interpretation or a reaction. Since I have no idea what the people in this procession were thinking, I would rather attempt to give them the benefit of the doubt before condemning them. I may well be naive, but I think this it is just a silly looking hat from the middle ages without any symbolism or deliberate negative stigma.

Consider the swastika. I saw it on a soap tin at an antique shop and learned it used to be a symbol for purity. It really doesn't matter what it used to be. Today, the swastika is an unmistakable symbol of evil.

I can only imagine how offensive anything having to do with genocide can be to the surviving members of the targeted group, but the shape of the swastika can be found in many cultures and in historical mosaics around the world. Although I would never advocating using that template for any new construction or product, I also wouldn't necessarily advocate destroying century old artwork or buildings simply because they happen to have been created with something that later became a political symbol. The communists may have killed as many or more Jews than the nihilists of Germany, but I've never heard of any boycott against buying "Red Star" yeast. In the same way, I don't want to see the label of the evil of antisemitism cheapened by false accusations against what might instead be an innocent misunderstanding.

[nkycincinnatikid]

Thank our Lord that gentle Poles and Americans are on guard and sacrificing life and limb and treasure in the middle east today so that these complaints can continue to be expressed.

[Cinnamon Girl]

A pretty straight forward description from Wikipedia:

The Judenhut (German for "Jewish hat"; Latin: pileus cornutus) was a yellow cone-shaped pointed hat that was required for adult male Jews to wear while outside a ghetto in Medieval Europe in order to distinguish them from others. In 807 Harun al-Rashid ordered all Jews living as dhimmi under Muslim rule to wear yellow, pointed hats and yellow belts. With frequent variations (yellow veil, wearing a wooden golden calf around the neck) these orders remained in force well into the 19th century, when Mahmud II issued them anew (and for a last time) in 1837. In Europe, the Fourth Council of the Lateran of 1215 ruled that Jews must bear this stigma. This decision was upheld by the Council of Vienne. Pope Paul IV determined in 1555 that it must be a yellow, peaked hat. A Judenhut could also be used as a stigma for usurers and magicians, not necessarily Jews. As an outcome of the Jewish Emancipation its use was discontinued. Another medieval stigma was the yellow badge, reintroduced later by the Nazis. Parts of this article are translated from de:Judenhut of 13 July 2005

I agree that people shouldn't fly off the handle at everything and throw around the term "anti-semitism" without serious contemplation. Since the passion plays have a history in certain parts of rallying townsfolk to attack Jews, some people tend to be a little wary of it. Frankly, I find the costumes the Jews are wearing in the pictures idiotic and without any historical foundation except with regard to forced stigmas, but that is just my opinion.

This is from Christianity Today:

"The menace of Jewry" With the bubonic plague once again sweeping across Europe in 1633, the town leaders of Oberammergau, a Bavarian village, gathered together to beseech God for a miracle. If the Lord would spare little Oberammergau, they promised to thank him by performing a play every 10 years to commemorate Jesus' crucifixion. After this vow, not one Oberammergau villager died of the plague. The town first performed the play in 1634. More than 350 years later, Oberammergau still remembers its promise. In 2000, nearly half of the town's 5,000 residents participated in the fortieth Oberammergau Passion Play, which drew nearly a half million tourists from around the world. Yet in the late 1970s, Oberammergau began to draw the ADL's ire. Sensitized by the Holocaust, Jews, especially in Germany, turned a more skeptical eye on Passion plays. Oberammergau, in particular, had been a source of tangible pain. Adolf Hitler had visited the 1934 performance, giving it his eager blessing. "It is vital that the Passion play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the time of the Romans," Hitler had said. "There one sees Pontius Pilate, a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry." To make matters worse, the Dachau concentration camp had performed its horrific duty not far from Oberammergau. While Hitler's brand of murderous anti-Semitism owed far more to scientific determinism than Christianity, he preyed on a history of faith-based persecution. When convenient, Hitler and his Nazi henchmen dredged up the anti-Semitic writings of an elderly Martin Luther to justify their hatred for Jews. Hitler employed Oberammergau in a similar fashion. He remembered that during and immediately following the Middle Ages, enraged Passion play spectators sometimes invaded the ghettos to exact revenge on Jews for killing Jesus. He hoped Christians would react similarly after viewing the Oberammergau Passion Play. This and other Nazi overtures to the racism simmering barely below the surface of German religious culture produced mixed results, with some churchmen eagerly advocating Nazism and others opposing Hitler on Christian grounds. Yet as Pope John Paul II acknowledged in 1997, many sincere Christians looked the other way during the Holocaust because in their estimation the Jews were getting what they deserved for rejecting Christ. "The erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their presumed guilt circulated for too long" and "contributed to a lulling of many consciences at the time of World War II, so that, while there were 'Christians' who did everything to save those who were persecuted, even to the point of risking their own lives, the spiritual resistance of many was not what humanity expected of Christ's disciples," the Pope told a group meeting to discuss "The Roots of Anti-Judaism in the Christian Milieu."

[Neophyte]

Sorry I had no time for forums couple of days, so this reply is obviously late, but I nevertheless feel compelled to address your post.

If you had relatives who lived in eastern Europe, like grandparents or great-parents...

I was born and bread in Moscow, a virulent ant-semitic environment, though not Christian but atheistic in my time. And I came to think that the only effective answer to a real anti-semitic assault is balls' ripping. Discussions just don't do... and any censoring of old rituals even less so.

They are not representing real people of the time.

Of course they don't! And they were not meant to. The ritual is not a documented enacting of the past, and even if certain details of it could be interpreted by someone as not flattering towards the Jews, so what? These details may represent the one-time feelings, and who are we to edit them all that centuries later?

How can some of us possible call ourselves Christians when we hate Christ's people?

Indeed. But this is not the case with the ritual in question. In Poland, like everywhere else, there are decent people and there are scoundrels, there are Jew-haters (America-haters, Russian-haters, even Pole-haters) and those who saved Jewish lives.

What I am pleading for, is not to blow this event's significance out of all proportion.

[Pelayo]

In the not too distant past, "Passion Plays" in Europe were frequently followed by riots against Jews, whipped up by fanatic "Christians" who really were just a few generations past howling pagan barabarism.

You know for all I hear about that, I've never run into a primary source which gives an example. Sure I've read sources that detail riots against Jews, and forced conversions etc... But I've never read any that connect them with a particular passion play. Chaim Potok in his history of the Jews gives only one sentence to this idea, and gives no examples, which is unusual for him.