r/JewsOfConscience • u/Educational_Board888 Non-Jewish Ally • 15d ago
News Vatican removes nativity display featuring baby Jesus lying on keffiyeh
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/vatican-removes-nativity-display-featuring-baby-jesus-lying-on-keffiyeh-fvrdcbbfThe wooden statue was criticised by Jewish groups for reinforcing the trope that Jesus was a Palestinian.
The backlash came almost immediately from religious entities and individuals worldwide.
On Monday, B’nai B’rith International described feeling “disturbed by the Vatican display of a Palestinian-made nativity scene featuring Jesus on a keffiyeh and the pope’s appearance with it.” The group said the display “isn’t just politicisation, but revisionism. It presents (only) Palestinians as innocent victims—and Jesus as a Palestinian, not a Jew.”
In response to the display’s removal, David Parsons, senior vice president and spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, noted that “we are relieved at reports that the Vatican has decided to remove the provocative nativity display with an infant Jesus resting on a black-and-white keffiyeh, which is an unmistakable symbol of Palestinian nationalism.”
He said “This crèche not only denigrated Jewish heritage, it also undermined core tenets of the Christian faith. Indeed, millions of Christians worldwide were instantly incensed by this exhibit ahead of the Christmas season. The Vatican did the right thing in taking it down.”
Parsons described the display as “theological malpractice for the Holy See to allow this display to remain. For if Jesus was a Palestinian Arab, then he would not have qualified to be Christ, the promised messiah and savior of the world.”
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u/KS-ABAB Jewish Ancestry 15d ago
I don't support what happened here, but I find it funny that the very institution that ordered the crusades was forced to back down from a political statement over a fear of upsetting Jews. Like that time a few decades ago that Josef Ratzinger had to apologise to Muslims for quoting an anti-Islam medieval text.
Pope Urban II would be rolling in his grave!