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Jews and Deicide
The accusation of Deicide (God-killing), which has been held against the Jews for nearly 1900 years, has been a major cause of hatred and persecution in Christian societies.
In order to understand the origins of this charge it is necessary to examine the execution of Jesus, as described in various narratives in the Gospels. These provide the basis to apportion blame for the arrest, trial and sentence of Jesus on the Jewish Sanhedrin and then on the Jews in general. Archetypal statements can be taken from Matthew (27:20- 27:25) – “Good News Bible”
The chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask Pilate to set Barabbas free and have Jesus put to death. But Pilate asked the crowd, "Which one of these two do you want me to set free for you?" "Barabbas!" they answered. "What, then, shall I do with Jesus called the Messiah?" Pilate asked them. "Crucify him!" they all answered. But Pilate asked, "What crime has he committed?" Then they started shouting at the top of their voices: "Crucify him!" When Pilate saw that it was no use to go on, but that a riot might break out, he took some water, washed his hands in front of the crowd, and said, "I am not responsible for the death of this man! This is your doing!" The whole crowd answered, "Let the responsibility for his death fall on us and on our children!"
In addition to this, it is necessary to appreciate that mainstream Christian theology regards God in terms of a trinity of persons, each of whom share a single Divine nature. Jesus, as part of this trinity, is regarded as divine and by being responsible for his death the Jews have committed deicide.
Another significant contribution of Christianity is the idea that the world is a battleground between God and the Devil (Satan) a powerful yet evil demon, for the souls of all. It then follows that as the Jews have committed Deicide, they must be on the side of the Devil. Thus, any objectionable characteristics and actions applicable to the Devil must also be relevant to a description of the Jews.
It is not surprising then that during the Middle Ages, the Black Death was blamed on the Jews (for poisoning wells) and that verbal and physical attacks on Jews invariably increased around Easter. As society become more complex and insecure, Jews were consistently blamed for destabilizing society – only a truly demonic group could achieve this. Whether we consider the French Revolution, the rise of large scale Capitalism, the rise of Communism, the increasing secularism of society, invariably the Jews were to blame. The classic work which emphasizes these myths is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
By the twentieth century these ideas were so pervasive that the prominent American-English Christian poet and Nobel Prize winner T. S. Eliot could write in “Burbank With a Baedeker: Bleistein With a Cigar”
On the Rialto once.
The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
Money in furs. The boatman smiles,
Hell, the residence of the Devil is “underneath us” and symbolically from this place the demonic Jew plots to undermine (the foundations of) and corrupt (with money) Western Civilization.
It is not then surprising that during the Holocaust that the common response to the fate of the Jews (with a few notable exceptions) was as best indifference.
In 1965 the Vatican issued the declaration Nostra Aetate, in which Jews are absolved of Deicide and any form of anti-Semitism is condemned. The mainstream Protestant Churches have also condemned anti-Semitism and accusations of deicide. However, various non-mainstream Christian groups still maintain and propagate these long-established prejudices..
Although the concept of Deicide is generally absent from the mainstream Conversation, notions of Jews as secretly manipulating society still persist. The ongoing discussions on the power of the “Jewish/Zionist Lobby” to influence governments and media attest to the force of these ideas. | 
Antisemitism 
