(Jewish Group) Burning Judas, deriding Jews: Antisemitic Easter traditions persist in Europe
At a festive procession in Pruchnik, a small town in southeastern Poland, townsmen watch the ceremonial burning of a kippah-wearing effigy they’ve named Judas as part of a Christian event. In a small Dutch municipality, dozens of men wearing matching attire march through their city’s streets singing of the Jews’ murder of Jesus Christ.
These medieval-sounding scenes aren’t anecdotes from Europe’s rich history of antisemitism: Both are contemporary, yearly Easter events.
A testament to the deep, abiding roots of Jew-hatred on the continent, the events held last week are among several traditions that persist in 21st-century Europe, despite repeated protests by Jewish and other critics.
The effigy on display in Pruchnik is part of an annual march in which locals play out a trial for Judas Iscariot, who according to the canonical gospels of Christianity betrayed Jesus, leading to his execution. The locals beat the effigy and set it on fire.
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