title: The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
author:  David I. Kertzer 
description: The Vatican's 1998 report "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" purportedly exonerated the Church of complicity in the Holocaust. In <i>The Popes Against the Jews</i>, David I. Kertzer argues that the report is "not the product of a Church that wants to confront its history." Kertzer's book refutes the Church's thesis that the Holocaust grew out of "an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious." In fact, Kertzer asserts, those dimensions of European anti-Semitism developed "in no small part due to the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church itself." The racial laws of fascist Italy and the Nuremberg Laws of 1930s Germany, for example, were directly modeled on the Church's own rules governing treatment of Jews: until the collapse of the Papal States in the late 19th century, Jews living in these territories were forced to wear yellow badges and live in ghettos. Kertzer's arguments make for compelling reading because they're presented in story form, based on the actions of the popes themselves. Access to long-sealed Church archives allowed Kertzer to reconstruct some of the most shocking, secret conversations that occurred in the Vatican in the decades leading up to World War II. <i>--Michael Joseph Gross</i>
zlib_text: Papal Protection and the Jews in the Context 
  of Crusading, 1198-12451
  Rebecca Rist
  University of Reading
  Abstract 
   Th is article is concerned with the often ambivalent role of popes as protectors of the Jews 
  but also as contributors to the view growing in Europe in the thirteenth century that Jews 
  were enemies within Christian Europe. Papal protection for the Jews in the context of 
  crusading remained generally consistent between 1198 and 1245. Th e tone of their letters, 
  however, suggests that the popes of this period had diﬀerent personal views about the Jews 
  and that some showed more sympathy for their plight than others. Yet despite subtle 
  diﬀerences in the language and rhetoric of their letters, all the popes encouraged and 
  reﬂected to some degree in their correspondence the idea that Jews, like heretics, were a 
  threat to Christian society. Th is article proposes that a crusade-centered approach when 
  examining the popes’ written correspondence adds to our understanding o