On Saturday, May 15, the Oberammergau Passion Play—the monumental, once-a-decade series of performances infamous historically for its characterization of Jews in the story of Jesus’s final days—kicked off in Germany. Some 2,000 people are staging the nearly 377-year-old passion play, which is expected to draw around half a million viewers with 102 performances through October.

B’nai B’rith International is one of five liaison members—four Jewish agencies and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops—of the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR), an association of educational centers and academic institutes in the United States and Canada devoted to enhancing mutual understanding between Christians and Jews. CCJR, on the initiative of the Anti-Defamation League and with the support of BBI and other partners, convened a panel of scholars to assess the ways in which the world’s oldest passion play portrays Jews and their religious faith at the time of Christianity’s origins.

The CCJR study, based on a script of the 2010 play, reports on both improvements and remaining problems reflected in the play in light of historical and scriptural research as well as modern church teachings on Jews and the proper presentation of the passion in particular.

The participating experts acknowledged scriptwriters’ efforts to try avoiding anti-Jewish portrayals, while they concluded that the play’s highly negative (and sometimes, in their assessment, inaccurate) depiction of Jewish leaders and others who did not profess belief in Jesus risks broadcasting negative perceptions of Jews in general.

The reviewing scholars noted that plays utilized for centuries to express Christian devotion to Jesus "have also typically depicted the Jewish people as unfaithful to God and as 'Christ killers,' a depiction that has contributed to hostility, sometimes violent hostility, towards Jews."

Recognizing that the play’s current condition is closely tied to the performances of the past, the scholars offer recommendations for a more sensitive script in the future.

The report, with an executive summary, may be found at http://www.ccjr.us/news/813-ccjr2010may14.