To quote one verse, “The person who sins will die. A son will not suffer the punishment for the father’s guilt, nor will a father suffer the punishment for the son’s guilt; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.”

To me that excludes any racism or bigotry whatsoever! Background doesn’t matter; beliefs and actions do.

https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/11/01/you-cant-get-there-from-here/#comment-945533

FM says:
November 1, 2023 at 3:45 pm
First job I had out of college one very senior coworker had been drafted into the Wehrmacht, handed a rifle, and sent to go fight Russians on the eastern front, survived that, and when thing were falling apart managed to get to where he would be captured by Americans, did the denazification thing, got to the U.S… just in time to get drafted, handed a rifle, and sent to go fight Chinese in Korea. After that he got advanced degrees in nuclear physics on the theory that with that kind of knowledge in his head he would never again be handed a rifle and sent to another really cold place to get shot at by more communists.

He said when he looked back on the political stuff he bought into back when he was a kid in Germany he just couldn’t believe he was that dumb, but when everybody is telling you the same thing, you can believe the most crazy stuff.</b.

There was at least one group putting their beliefs into action.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/texas-baptist-men-provides-thousands-of-meals-in-israel.html
“TBM volunteers are working alongside an Israeli partner in a secure location. The volunteers are rotating in and out of Israel, with 20 in place on Oct. 24 and another team slated to head there in early November.
In addition to the mass-feeding volunteers, TBM provided $150,000 to transport medical professionals from the United States to help treat people affected by the war.”

True, the Roman Catholic Church has given up its historical effort to be the Bible’s gatekeeper for people. And, to be sure there are Catholics well-versed in the Bible.

With a few exceptions the lay Catholics I’ve known didn’t know the Bible beyond what they heard at Mass. The exceptions were Catholics who had gone off the reservation into the Charismatic movement.

In parochial school we were mostly taught Catholic doctrine with occasional scriptural quotes. Perhaps that has changed.

An ex-Catholic friend I had met at an Episcopal Church said he had started a Bible study group while he was in Catholic seminary and the powers that be shut it down. There may be more to the story than I heard..

I didn’t notice politics or anti-Semitism with Catholics. It did seem just about all the Catholics I knew were Democrats and I saw lots of pictures of JFK and RFK.

Back then the Catholic Church was less ecumenical and more interested in asserting its position as the One True Church.

Palestinian children today, and perhaps Muslims in general (and, really, everyone), are going to be a complex case, but I suspect that God can separate the willing from the duped.

Some remarks on the subject of religious denominations and the Jews from people directly concerned:

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/10/catholics-against-anti-semitism
Outstanding essay by Mary Eberstadt.

Many evangelical and mainstream protestant churches support Israel and the Jewish people, but it’s more of a mixed bag, not surprisingly.
I didn’t find any statements BY evangelical leaders, but here are some from the Jewish perspective.

https://www.deseret.com/2023/10/11/23911456/israel-hamas-american-christians-jews-evangelicals
“Faithful Christians have long been vocal in their support of Israel, both culturally and politically” By Naomi Schaefer Riley Oct 11, 2023

https://www.newsrael.com/posts/9vp0ako21kg
“The support of members of Congress for Israel does not happen only because of their personal faith, it takes place in a space where millions of Christians define to their members of Congress the importance of supporting Israel.” by Kobby Barda Nov 1, 2023

https://reason.com/volokh/2020/01/20/why-do-evangelical-christians-support-israel/
“Because they have a favorable opinion of Jews” by DAVID BERNSTEIN | 1.20.2020
Bernstein has several posts up now about the war; click on his byline in the post.

Short and worth quoting in full, because he dismisses some of the favorite tropes about evangelicals and Jews that are found in most media.

A new academic paper published in Politics and Religion [LINK] explores the source of evangelical Christian support for Israel. There are a host of complicated religious and political factors, some of which are benign, and some of which will undoubtedly make some Jews uncomfortable–many evangelicals believe that the establishment of Israel is a necessary prelude to Jesus’ Second Coming, which according to many will involve Jews converting to Christianity.

The most important bit of information I gleaned from the study, however, is that by far the strongest correlate of evangelical support for Israel was their opinion of Jews. In other words, evangelicals who are favorably inclined toward Jews (a strong majority) are strongly inclined to support Israel, and the minority of evangelicals who have an unfavorable opinion of Jews tend not to support Israel.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that evangelical support for Israel masks an underlying antisemitism, that evangelicals only support Israel so that Jews can be gathered in one place to be destroyed as part of the Second Coming, and thus their support for Israel is actual a reflection of anti-Jewish hostility. This turns out to be wildly wrong; whatever their theological views of the Second Coming, pro-Israel evangelicals are also pro-Jewish.

My statistical skills are pretty basic, so I checked with one of the authors to make sure I was reading this right. He responded, “I agree with you 100%. They [evangelical supporters of Israel] are not antisemites, but philosemites.”

To huxley’s point, when scripture comes up in conversation I often joke with my Protestant, Baptist and Jewish friends; “I’m Catholic. We don’t read the Bible.” It’s a fun joke, but, truth be told, most Catholics I know are fairly well versed in the New Testament, especially the Gospels, and I know Catholics who are very conversant in all of the Bible. Most Catholics I know, including Priests, aren’t Bible fundamentalists. It’s a common canard I hear with historical precedent, but I know of no active movement among Roman Catholic leadership to discourage independent Bible study and interpretation. Every Priest I know personally enjoys debate, even on religious topics*.

Regarding antisemitism, I don’t see it in Catholicism outside of immigrants. I heard a lot of antisemitic statements growing up in Chicago in the ’60s and ’70s, and a fair amount was from practicing Catholics, but they were pretty much all first generation immigrants from Europe. I don’t recall anyone I knew who was born in the U.S. that was antisemitic. Antisemitism was also prevalent among the followers of Chicago’s black leaders; Reverend Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan.

This seems to correlate with what I see lately on my TV and computer screen; antisemitism in immigrant groups in the U.S., England, Australia… Yes, as with the pussy hat marches and the BLM protests; there are a lot of homegrown morons marching and protesting in support, but I think a lot of young people do this out of a sense of “allyship” for friends whom they believe are marginalized.

Thinking back to my childhood, it seems antisemitism was more common among eastern European immigrants than those from the Mediterranean, or West. For example; I don’t recall Irish or Italians seeming to have any concern about Jews. But that could just be the random sample of people I encountered growing up. I was always very pro-Judaism and had a lot of Jewish heroes (Groucho Marx among them), so it was never a topic I introduced into conversation, but, unfortunately, it was not rare to hear someone say something disparaging about “Jews.” I remember being very saddened when I went to my first bathroom stall in College. I was glad to be out of the working class environment I had been raised in, and looked forward to interacting with more enlightened people at University. That stall had some of the worst antisemitic and racist graffiti I had ever seen. It was very disappointing, and unfortunately, the norm for the rest of the campus.

There is a common, odd trait that many people feel the need to comment on someone being Jewish. For example, if discussing “Indiana Jones” “Oh, did you know Harrison Ford is Jewish?” Whereas, if “Mission Impossible” comes up no one ever says, “Oh, did you know Tom Cruise was raised Catholic?” I’m not sure why that is, but it seems to only happen when someone is Jewish. Funny thing is, I think many Jews do the same thing when discussing famous people.

*I’ve found a lot of Americans who do not attend church assume there are a lot of political edicts issued by clergy. That is certainly not the case in any Catholic church I have attended. Even on the issue of abortion. The topic often appears in sermons leading up to major elections, but I’ve never heard a Priest name a political party and I’ve never, ever heard a Priest connect practicing faith properly with voting a certain way. There will often be a collective, sincere prayer offered for wisdom and guidance for our political leaders, but that’s about as specific as things get. I have heard many good sermons on moral decay, the effects of social media on people, especially youth, etc… But even then the emphasis is on individuals doing the right thing and parents getting involved in their children’s lives; not instructing parishioners to vote for certain policies or politicians likely to enact certain laws.

Yes, one of the things about Jews is that they’re a “live and let live” religion; they don’t try to convert the world or subjugate it.

And it seems they’re hated for that too.