There's a long European tradition of associating Jews with the devil and Judiasm with devil worship, frequently allied with various blood libels. Horns on Jews in Passion Plays are nothing new, I believe Oberammergau kept the tradition up until the 1980s. IMO to think this represents some insight into the dress of the time rather than the millenia long canard of Jews as devil worshippers is naive.
Actually, my first thought was the wings of the cherubim over the Ark as the reached out to each other.
In the early middle ages, a distinctive feature of Jewish dress was the pointed or a funnel shaped hat worn by Jewish men throughout northern and western Europe. Its use was so widespread that by the twelfth century, the hat had become a Jewish symbol, proudly displayed on Hebrew manuscripts, medieval seals, and coats of arms.
(Image from A History of Jewish Costume)
>>There's a long European tradition of associating Jews with the devil and Judiasm with devil worship, frequently allied with various blood libels. Horns on Jews in Passion Plays are nothing new, I believe Oberammergau kept the tradition up until the 1980s. IMO to think this represents some insight into the dress of the time rather than the millenia long canard of Jews as devil worshippers is naive.<<
I'm Polish and Catholic. From this picture, if I were in charge, I would tell Stash to lose the horns and Star of David on those charaters.
To think that the complaint by the Simon Wiesenthal Center has anything to do with any legitimate concern, as opposed to exciting its donor base, is naive.
If those are supposed to be horns on their heads than I would agree with you. When I saw the picture it didn't occur to me that they were horns... I would think of horns on a head being like what people depict on Vikings. I just thought that they were funny looking hats. Are we sure that they are supposed to be horns as opposed to funny looking hats?
From Jewish Encyclopedia.com:
Owing to the representations of the old painters and sculptors, it has become a wide-spread belief that Moses, when he came down from Mount Sinai with the tables of the Law, had two horns on his forehead. This strange idea, however, is based upon a wrong interpretation of Ex. xxxiv. 29, 35,Michaelangelo's Moses has horns . . . and you needn't go to the Koran for the horns on Alexander the Great, they were on all his coinage.("And behold the skin of his face shone"), in which
means "to shine" (comp. Hab. iii. 4,
= "brightness was on his side").
The old translations give "shine," with the exception of Aquila and the Vulgate, which read "his face had horns." This misunderstanding, however, may have been favored by the Babylonian and Egyptian conception of horned deities (Sin, Ammon), and by the legend of the two-horned Alexander the Great (see the Koran, sura xviii. 85).
Probably the confusion wasn't helped by the expression "horns of the altar".
So while it may now offend, it has little or nothing to do with the Blood Libel or the devil . . .
I will say that after all the hue-and-cry over The Passion, I am inclined to take this outrage with a grain of salt. Somebody who is looking for a reason to be insulted can ALWAYS find one.