The Transformation of the Celebrated, Centuries-Old Oberammergau Passion Play

In 1930 and 1934, Adolf Hitler journeyed to Oberammergau, Germany, home to the country’s—if not the world’s—best-known passion play, which has been performed at least once every decade since 1634 and is often viewed in person by half a million pilgrims. These performances, traditionally held on or shortly before Easter, dramatize the final days of the Christian messiah. As Noam Marans and Peter Pettit note, Hitler appreciated the play: “Never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed,” he said.

This week, following delays related to the coronavirus pandemic, Oberammergau will once again begin to host performances of the play, though in a new form that seeks to mitigate its anti-Semitic elements.

Passion plays originated in the Middle Ages in Christian Europe as a way to celebrate and teach the story of the last days of Jesus’ life, and from the beginning embodied the anti-Judaism derived from the depiction of the Jewish religious authorities in the Holy Week Gospel readings. Passion plays regularly triggered anti-Jewish violence by repeatedly affirming in the minds of Christians and others who viewed passion plays the powerful spectacle that Jews are devilish, manipulative, legalistic, and bloodthirsty Christ-killers.

With the post-Holocaust transformation of Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism, Passion plays began to change for the better. Jewish caricatures were increasingly challenged on both historical and theological grounds, and the shows have de-emphasized the role of Jewish figures and the idea that blame for Jesus’ death lay on the Jews as a people.

But change came very slowly to Oberammergau, Germany [which] resumed its play after the Holocaust as if nothing had happened. It remained unaffected by the evolution of Christian attitudes regarding Jews, which was enshrined in the Catholic Church’s 1965 teaching Nostra Aetate.

Read more at Religion News Service

More about: Anti-Semitism, Germany, Jewish-Christian relations, Theater

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023