Grappling with anti-Semitism at Easter

Easter meant little to me as a child. It was chocolate eggs, magical rabbits, films about Jesus on television. I had three Jewish grandparents and, though not raised with any particular religious identity, there was a sense of cultural Jewishness in the home. But those Easter movies must have made an impact, because I became a Christian in my mid-twenties and am now an Anglican priest.

I am, however, deeply aware of Christian anti-Semitism – something that is once again becoming grimly fashionable. Anti-Semitism is especially poignant at Easter, the epicentre of the Christian calendar. We remember the great commandment to love one another, and take shelter from an increasingly unforgiving world under the divine promises of Christ personified in the resurrection. Yet it’s also the time when we read of ‘the Jews’ condemning Jesus. The phrase ‘the Jews’ – hoi Ioudaoi in the original Greek – is used more than 60 times in John’s Gospel, and more than two dozen of those references are painfully accusing.