Dutch Catholics Pull ‘Jews Killed Jesus’ Video
A Dutch Catholic public broadcaster has apologized for and pulled off the air a video clip featuring a song which accuses Jews of plotting to kill Jesus.
The video, which was aired earlier this month at the end of a children’s program on the Rooms-Katholiek Kerkgenootschap, or Roman Catholic Church Association, television station, featured a song by Pearl Jozefzoon, about how Jews regarded Jesus. “Do not follow him. He is mad. Break him, break his heart. Kill him. Bury him with criticism, do not love him,” the lyrics said.
The station, known as RKK, pulled the video off the air last week following complaints by the Dutch Israelite Religious Community umbrella organization, or NIK. The Dutch Trouw daily newspaper reported last week that the broadcaster apologized in a statement for airing the video.
“Vilifying the Jewish people’s past is to vilify present-day Jews, especially when the audience are youths,” Ruben Vis, the NIK’s secretary and vice president of the European Jewish Congress, told the Dutch daily Trouw. He added that “the church has done this for a very long time, and very well and effectively.”
RKK’s broadcast of a Papal address received 4.2 million viewers earlier this year.
The Dutch government currently provides subsidies of $18 million to nine religious broadcasters, including the the Dutch community’s Jewish broadcaster Joodse Omroep and RKK.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO