The Gospel Libel Volume I — Anonymous

NOTE: This is Vol.I of II
PURPOSE/NEED FOR THIS PUBLICATION

The early Christians said to the Jews, "You have no right to live among us as Jews," and sought to make them Christians. Then, political Christendom said, "You have no right to live among us," and created the ghettos of physical separation. Finally, the Nazis said, "You have no right to live," and the world remained silent.

Anti-Semitism, past and present, is a natural concomitant of the Gospel libel, which was causal and manifest in the Holocaust. As anti-Semitism is again on the rise, and, as ignorance is not only prevalent, but also rampant, inculcating the uneducated and misinformed masses with the truth may possibly and hopefully result in a diminution, if not a culmination of anti-Jewish hostility.

This treatise is a depiction of the most important trial in the annals of history - a trial dealing with the most tragic libel in the history of the human race - a libel that was causal in crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, Holocausts, and other crimes against an innocent people for more than nineteen centuries. Rectifying this ongoing injustice is the primary purpose of this publication!

A CHALLENGE

For more than nineteen centuries, Christians have been accusing Jews of having shed innocent blood, the blood of their lord Jesus Christ. They claim that almost two thousand years ago, the Great Sanhedrin, the highest tribunal in the land of Judea, unjustly convicted Jesus of the capital offense of blasphemy, and delivered him to the Roman Procurator to be crucified.

This accusation based solely upon the testimony of the Four Gospels, has never been brought to trial in any court of law. No verdict and no decision of guilt against the Jews has ever been handed down by a competent tribunal. Yet, Christians have ever since been depriving the Jews of their legal and natural rights without due process of law.

The Jews cannot forever stand accused of this heinous crime by a unilateral opinion and suffer untold misery. They are entitled, at long last, to have their day in court and to refute this long-standing accusation. It is for this reason this case is being brought to the attention of the world.

Your first impression, as Christians, of course, will be that this is a special pleading; that the author, as a Jew, was prejudiced and biased in presenting his case, and that it is therefore nothing more than a one-sided affair. You will naturally say, that the author, as a Jew, based his contentions on arguments, which are necessarily anti-Christian and faulty.

Hence, worthy Christians, this thesis is presented to you, proving that the Jews cannot be held guilty of having shed the blood of Jesus, and you are challenged to refute it.

If you are unable to disprove this contention, or if you conveniently choose to ignore it, and thus tacitly admit that it is irrefutable and true, then we demand of you, in the name of justice, and of humanity, and of the very tenets of your religion, that you openly admit and proclaim henceforth in all your houses of worship and in your parochial schools, that the Jews are innocent. We demand that you cease indoctrinating the tender minds of your children with the false accusation against the Jews that they were instrumental in causing the crucifixion of Jesus. We demand that you cease inciting your followers against the Jews with your Passion Plays before the approach of Easter. We demand in the name of justice that you begin now to right the deadly wrong committed against the Jews, by revising those chapters in the Four Gospels that tell of the trial of Jesus, and by deleting from the New Testament texts all accusations against the Jews. We demand in the name of all that is decent in Christianity and in the name of the conscience of mankind that, y