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-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.”

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u/Discoid 15d ago

Respectfully I don't know what business a Jewish organization has lecturing Christians about depictions of Jesus in the first place.

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u/Anarcho-Flanders 14d ago

They don’t but there is a documented history of examples where public “pressure” has had the church change its ways - heck one can make a claim Jesus was kind of a socialist/communist (though that was not a thing back then); but cold war era nonsense has the USCCB portraying catholicism impossible if one is communist.