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The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Christian Anti-Semitism

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This volume provides a general introduction to the troubling history of these two great world religions over the last 2,000 years (or so). Starting with a lucid explanation of pagan anti-Semitism in the Greco-Roman world, Cohn-Sherbok takes us through centuries of violence and antipathy that culminated in the Holocaust of the mid Twentieth Century. He also concludes with brief chapters on post-Holocaust anti-Semitism, and on the possibilities for Jewish-Christian reconciliation. The latter, especially, provides a crucial "uplift" for the reader.

This is a very readable text. It is NOT clogged with dense lists of demographic information or by obscure theological discussions. It provides, rather, a general overview of the demographic issues which contributed to Christian violence against Jews through the ages; as well as a digestable level of insight into the theological issues that contributed to and justified this violence.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the cultural causes of the Holocaust, the reasons for the existence of the state of Israel, or the theological differences between Judaism and Christianity. I use this book as my core text in the college course, "Jesus and Judaism," that I teach.

Along these lines, I would also recommend "Liberating the Gospels" by John Shelby Spong and "Why the Jews?" by Prager and Telushkin.

Sherbok has written many books on Judaism. The Crucified Jew is written with emotion and bias, but not scholarship. It surpises me that it was published in its present form. The author cites references and quotes throughout the book but uses no footnotes or endnotes so nothing can be verified or reviewed. He exhibits a poor understanding of Christianity and the Bible. For example he says that according to the Church Fathers the Jews have been an apostate people. Yet, it is not the Church Fathers who determined that, the entire Old Testament (God himself) testifies to their apostasy. Sherbok views the New Testament as anti-Judaism and never considers the fact that criticism of the Jewish leaders may have been valid. He accuses the Christians of calling Jews demons when it was the Jewish leaders who first called Jesus himself a demon (something never mentioned in the book). He says elements of the New Testament were added later for "polemic" purposes, implying they are not true. However, he offers no support for this charge.

Sherbok advocates "Open Judaism" (See the book "Future of Judaism") in which Jews do not have to believe in God, or anything, to be Jewish. This explains his distrust of Scripture because the Word of God does not have to believed, either. This book has some good information, facts, etc. But it is very opinionated and devoid of scholarly support. Accusations are made as if they are truth when in fact they are his interpretation and opinion. Unfortunately the author does not convey this to the reader.