April (Web-only) 2001

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Paul Weyrich accused of being a "demented anti-Semite"
First, a look at a conflict directly about a claim that the Jews killed Jesus. Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation and a founding father of the Religious Right, wrote an Easter column last week which said, in part, "Christ was crucified by the Jews who had wanted a temporal ruler to rescue them from the oppressive Roman authorities. … He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death." That comment got fellow conservative Evan Gahr livid. "Weyrich specifically said the Jews crucified Christ?" he wrote in a commentary for The American Spectator Online. "Which Jew put the nail through him? 'I don't have the names,' [Weyrich's spokesman] replied."

Weyrich's spokesman, Free Congress Foundation director of development Nicholas Sanchez, did have a response, which Gahr quotes: "That is not an anti-Semitic remark. Paul is well-versed in scriptures. He is a Melkite Greek Catholic deacon and the statement from his commentary does say that Christ was crucified by the Jews. This has been taken up by people in recent times as a politically correct cause to say anyone who says Christ was crucified by the Jews is anti-Semitic. It was the Jews who brought him up on trial. They said 'crucify him.' That is a fact and that's what Paul was saying."

But to Gahr, and others, that's not what Paul was saying. "It's a theological ...