Proposal Summary
Spiritual Semites: The Holocaust in the Liberal Jewish-Christian Dialogue, 1939-1976
Sonja Spear
Indiana University
Summary
Spiritual Semites is a history of interpretations of the Holocaust as they developed in interfaith dialogue among American liberals from 1939 to 1976. Drawing on published and archival sources, I argue that American representations of the Holocaust were shaped in a complex dialogue of Jews, Protestants and Catholics. Key to this dialogue were varying Jewish and Christian interpretations of the person of Jesus and of the crucifixion. Jews and Christians alike framed the Holocaust as a crucifixion of the people of Jesus, but they did so for different reasons. Christians distanced Nazi anti-Semitism from the Christian anti-Judaism, but Jews insisted that all forms of anti-Semitism emerged from a misunderstanding of the crucifixion. Ultimately, this complex dialogue contributed to the post-war decline of anti-Semitism and may serve as a model for addressing religious and ethnic prejudice in the future.
Related Publications
| Publishers | Title | Year | Type | Contributor | Contribution | Other Info |
| Indiana University | Jesus the Jew: Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic Constructions of Jesus in an Age of Antisemitism, 1890-1940 | 2005 | Dissertation | Sonja Spear | Author | |