Vatican removes nativity display featuring baby Jesus lying on keffiyeh

[u/Educational_Board888]

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/vatican-removes-nativity-display-featuring-baby-jesus-lying-on-keffiyeh-fvrdcbbf

The 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.”

[u/blishbog]

Wasn’t Jesus a Palestinian Jew objectively?

They exist. Like that rare one who took years to officially convert by all the proper channels and then Israel killed him

[u/specialistsets → u/blishbog]

Jesus would have been born in Judea before the region was referred to as Palestine. People then identified with their town or region, hence "Jesus of Nazareth" or referring to Jesus as a "Galilean"

In Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine, "Palestinian Jews" was used to refer to all Jews of all kinds living anywhere in Palestine, though it wasn't a distinct identity on it's own.

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/specialistsets]

though it wasn't a distinct identity on it's own.

Yes it was. "Palestinian" was already an identity by the late Ottoman period. It was not only an identity in Palestine during the Mandate period, it was even how parts of the Palestinian diaspora in places like Honduras and Chile identified themselves when they were petitioning for Palestinian citizenship

[u/specialistsets → u/Thisisme8719]

I am referring to the term "Palestinian Jews", which wasn't a distinct/unified identity

[u/Thisisme8719 → u/specialistsets]

Oh yeah, that's mostly true. Though there actually were a handful of Jews who did refer to themselves as Palestinian (mainly the Arabic speaking intelligentsia). Avraham Elmaliah used the phrase "Yahadut Falastinit" in his eulogy of Shimon Moyal