Dear readers, the annual report on anti -Semitism in Italy 2024, curated by the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center, in which it is evidenced – has been released these days – it is sad to have to say it – a “strong increase in documents (anti -Semites) compared to 2023”. Following 1,384 reports, I am 877 episodes of anti -Semitism recognized as such in 2024 in Italy; Of these, 600 on the net and 277 material acts.
These are data that must make us reflect, because behind the cold numbers there are stories of people, who feel an insecurity and a continuous threat on themselves. Senator Liliana Segre, an exceptional witness of the Shoah, at 94 years of age runs under escort because of the threats received. We can add the Synagogues manned by the police, the vandalized Jewish tombs, the Writing of hatred on the walls of our cities …
In his book Beyond evil, Edith Bruck He tells of his childhood in the 1930s in a small Hungarian village: “Since I came to the world I have always seen the hatred of anti -Semitism around me … As a girl I have been insulted, denuded, I was forced to sit for skin naked on nettles ».
Speaking of that childhood “between accusations, offenses, attacks”, he recalls that he often returned home crying: “” Mom, why do they tell me that we killed Jesus? “”. It is the accusation of “deicide”, used from the first centuries by Christians against the Jewish people. The Christian anti -jeudaism, founded on the accusation of “deicide” and then fed by other factors, is the root from which the subsequent anti -Semitism then arose, producing a lethal mixture.
On anti -Semitism it intervened on January 27, the day of memory, Pope Francis. And the Observer of the Holy See at theOSCE (organization of safety and cooperation in Europe) spoke to the Conference on the fight against anti-Semitism on 10-11 February in Helsinki, underlining the role of education to combat “ignorance, prejudices, stereotypes” and generate “a sense of respect for Jewish communities”.
On the accusation of “deicide”, we should give us well how much the Vatican Council II. “If Jewish authorities with their followers have worked for the death of Christ”, reads the declarationand our Aetate (n. 4), “However, what was committed during his passion cannot be charged neither to all Jews then alive, nor to the Jews of our time”.
By analogy, this should also be applied to today events that are tearing the Holy Land: If we can speak of responsibility or faults of some (political leaders or other figures or groups), this cannot be attributed to an entire people, even more outside the borders of Israel.
As believers, then, we should do a lot totent also to ecclesial language, when we speak “in bulk” of the Pharisees in a disqualifying way. “The relationships (of Jesus) with the Pharisees were neither completely nor always controversial”reads the Vatican document subsidy for a correct presentation of Jews and Judaism, of 1985. On the other hand, as we remember in the same subsidy, “Jesus is Jewish and is forever.” And as the catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The ancient alliance” (with Israel) “has never been revoked” (n. 121). Judaism is the holy root of Christianity. For this reason, the fight against anti -Semitism is an indispensable Christian duty.
