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/GlitteringPotato1346 → u/blishbog]

By citizenship he was Roman with a lesser citizenship because of his parentage, religion, and land of birth.

His ethnicity was Aramaic. (No longer exists but neither Palestinians nor Israelis as we know them today existed back then)

His religion is pretty obvious given that he was frequently seen at the og temple.

All that can be said for certain is that he was a non white Jew who was taller than an average infant and smaller than the temple, the Roman government did not like him, and a bunch of stuff he probably said

[u/loselyconscious → u/GlitteringPotato1346]

His ethnicity was not "Aramaic." Arameans had not been around for a long time, and the concept of ethnicity is a historical. He was a Jew who spoke Aramaic and lived under Rome and its Judean clients. (I don't think there is any evidence he was a citizen. Word like "Palestinian" or "Israeli" would be meaningless to him and the people fo that time.