Point 1(A): The Jewishness of Jesus

The tensions between power and dominance vs. compassion and caring are particularly intricate for Christians and Jews because of the religious and historical interconnections between the two traditions.

In calling for Christians to combat antisemitism, Point 1 of the Berlin Document draws attention to the Jewishness of Jesus. Over the centuries for diverse reasons, both Jews and Christians have sometimes tended to deny that Jesus was an authentic Jew. This reached a bizarre crescendo in the Nazi era when some Christian theologians claimed that Jesus was really Aryan (see: Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.)