A Statement by Professor Israel J. Yuval

Researchers of the historical relationship between Christians and Jews have always believed in the power of scholarship to mend old wounds and foster understanding and tolerance between these two sister religions. Our efforts received support following the Second Vatican Council, when the Catholic Church initiated a new chapter in its relationship with Judaism.

I was deeply shocked upon reading Pope Francis’s letter commemorating October 7, addressed to the churches of the Middle East. In this message, he expressed sympathy for the suffering of the people of Gaza yet omitted any mention of the suffering endured by Israeli civilians, Christians, Muslims, and Jews alike. He  neglected to name the agents who unleashed this war on the expense of their own peoples, that is, Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran, depicting, instead, a Manichean battle between the powerful and the weak.

Most of all, the letter points to “our one true enemy: the spirit of evil that foments war, for it is ‘murderous from the beginning,’ ‘a liar and the father of lies’ (John 8:44).”

John 8:44 is the most anti-Jewish verse in the New Testament. It fueled Christian hatred toward Jews for ages. Yet Pope Francis chose this passage to describe the “true enemy” on the anniversary of October 7. The verse reads as follows:

(44) You [the Jews] are from your father, the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

A rhetoric of peace can neither camouflage nor neutralize the violence that accompanies the use of such a verse under the current circumstances. Peter, on whose chair the pope sits, would never have spoken such words against his own people.

Prof. Israel Jacob Yuval

For the full text of the Pope’s letter: (https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/10/07/241007b.html).