- Feb 5, 2002
- 166,342
- 56,056
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
When I came across a video of Jews being assaulted by “pro-Palestine” protestors outside a restaurant in Los Angeles last month, I stopped in my tracks. How could this be happening in the United States? In the days that followed, similar attacks took place in New York and Florida as thugs channeled their anger over clashes between Palestinians and Israelis into random, violent attacks upon any Jew they could find.
The event that triggered these attacks was a 10-day battle between Hamas (an Islamist Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip) and Israel. But while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict evokes powerful emotions for ethnic and religious groups around the world, no emotion justifies harming innocent civilians 7,000 miles away from the battlefield simply because they carry Jewish ancestry. Furthermore, calls to dismantle the State of Israel do not help the Palestinian people but rather empower Hamas to continue terrorizing Israelis and the people of Gaza.
Catholics have a unique and urgent responsibility to confront antisemitism wherever they find it. In the words of Nostra Aetate, the first Catholic document to condemn antisemitism in all its forms, Christians are linked to the Jewish people by a “bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock.” On last year’s anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, I reminded my fellow Catholics of the tumultuous history we share with Jews and called on Catholic educators to take a more active role in the fight against antisemitism. The spike in anti-Jewish violence over the last three weeks compels me to extend that call to all American Catholics.
Continued below.
Being Catholic Means Standing Up for the Jews
The event that triggered these attacks was a 10-day battle between Hamas (an Islamist Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip) and Israel. But while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict evokes powerful emotions for ethnic and religious groups around the world, no emotion justifies harming innocent civilians 7,000 miles away from the battlefield simply because they carry Jewish ancestry. Furthermore, calls to dismantle the State of Israel do not help the Palestinian people but rather empower Hamas to continue terrorizing Israelis and the people of Gaza.
Catholics have a unique and urgent responsibility to confront antisemitism wherever they find it. In the words of Nostra Aetate, the first Catholic document to condemn antisemitism in all its forms, Christians are linked to the Jewish people by a “bond that spiritually ties the people of the New Covenant to Abraham’s stock.” On last year’s anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre, I reminded my fellow Catholics of the tumultuous history we share with Jews and called on Catholic educators to take a more active role in the fight against antisemitism. The spike in anti-Jewish violence over the last three weeks compels me to extend that call to all American Catholics.
Continued below.
Being Catholic Means Standing Up for the Jews
