Tasteless at best. Imagine the fuss there’d be if fans of a team playing a largely-Jewish school dressed as rabbis.
"Alright, I’ll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said: ‘We killed him, signed, Morty.’ "
- Lenny Bruce
My son also attends Catholic school. In my opinion, it’s not funny, exactly, but it’s nowhere near the kind of thing that the OP’s incident is.
What makes the difference is the historical baggage associated with “Jews killed Christ.” This concept was used to justify destruction, violence and murder targeted at Jewish properties and Jewish lives. It’s perfectly expected for rival teams and school populations to be less than respectful towards one another during a game. But the phrase from the OP needs to be placed well outside that zone; it’s unacceptable.
And, indeed, that’s what the authorities did.
How does one dress as a rabbi? Honestly, I wouldn’t know.
Probably related to how one “walks like an Egytian”
I’m not quite sure what the message is they are sending, actually.
And, BTW, I concur with Bricker on pretty much all of this, except the parts about having kids in Catholic school. We definitely have a similar framework on religious bigotry.
Being a person who was in Catholic school before Vatican II, let me just say that we weren’t exactly taught: THE JEWS KILLED JESUS! It’s something you picked up from watching the Passion Play, or being told the story in religious class. Punches Pilot (which is the way we heard it) asked the Jews what he should do with Jesus and the Jews chanted: Crucify him!
Who the hell were they supposed to call “Christ Killers,” Italian kids? I tried it once and it didn’t end well. The Irish and Polish kids were okay with it, but the Italian kids were tougher.
I’d assume fake curly “sideburns” (payot, really), a fake beard that looks long and rarely cut, and a yarmulke or whatever that hat with a brim is called.
Sure, they don’t all look like that, but it is the stereotype.
Same with the priests. About the only thing I’ve seen priest wear with consistency is that white collar. But I bet the costume version also has them wearing a black robe with a cross or crucifix on it.
And there is this. Sorta like who’s at fault for a mob hit, the guy who first approached the Don about it, or the trigger man. The Jewish power structure of the time does bear more than a little responsibility.
That’s the stereotype of certain Orthodox Jewish men.
That’s true. But, set to music and given a good rousing beat, it could be quite the toe-tapper.
The whole point was that the Jewish power structure at the time was subservient to Roman interests. It was the Romans driving the bus.
The message we got as kids in Catholic school (or at least what I got) in the early 60s was that the Jews rejected Christ. As in, they all knew all about him, but rejected him. And the biggest rejection was when they asked the Romans to crucify him. This wasn’t taught in a mean way, though, it was more like: Pity the poor Jews, who had the chance to accept Christ, but rejected him.
But according to the Bible, the Sanhedrin bullied poor Pilate into having Jesus executed. After all, Pontius Pilate would NEVER EVER do ANYTHING to hurt a Jew!
Are you saying the Evangelists lied?
You say" Hello Rabbi "and if you know their last name you say “Hello Rabbi —”
Damn my time ran out when I tried to edit my lost post ! Why do we only have 5 minutes to edit our comments ???
My take was always that Pilate didn’t really give a crap one way or the other. He needed to work with the Sanhedrin (or it certainly made his job easier to be on good relations with them), they wanted some rabble rouser killed (which he wouldn’t have had any problem with anyway), so what the hell?
True, but my recollections of Catholic school and that particular story was that Pilate was very impressed by Jesus and basically wanted to release him back to the Jews, but they wouldn’t have it. Instead, Barabbas got the get-out-of-jail-free card, and Jesus crucified. The Romans did the literal killing, but the Jews sealed his fate.
At any rate, I don’t recall anyone ever really have an opinion one way or another regarding Jews because of this story. Actually, I don’t remember anyone having much of any opinion about the Jews, as there weren’t really any around in my neighborhood. I don’t think I knowingly met my first Jewish person until I got to college. There were Muslims around, though.
That sounds about right, maybe a bit stronger than I remember.
Even in the local Passion Play, “the Jews” were just the local populace and mob, no different from any other people who watched public executions. Except, wait, the Scribes and Pharisees, who were portrayed as petty bureaucrats.
I must have been in my late teens - well out of Catholic school - before I ever heard the term, or, really, the concept of “Christ Killers” and my immediate response was, “but that was the Romans.” I can’t see that all these years later the Brothers would revert to a Medieval mindset on the matter.