Norwegian Church Holds Photo Exhibition Claiming Palestinians Are “Crucified Daily”
(JTA) – Several religious groups in Norway are organizing a West Bank photo exhibition, which will be displayed in a cathedral, the text of which says Palestinians undergo “daily crucifixions.”
The exhibit, which has sparked protests from the country’s Jewish community and a pro-Israel group, is part of Church Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, an annual event that takes place in various places in Norway and who in the past presented calls to boycott Israel.
“‘Church Week’ has been problematic with its one-sidedness and demonization of one party,” Ervin Kohn, the leader of the Jewish community in Oslo, wrote Thursday on Facebook. “This year’s event goes even lower,” he added.
The description of the exhibit is the “most problematic” because it evokes an age-old form of Christian anti-Semitism that accuses Jews of Jesus’ death, he added.
The West Bank enjoys divine “protection,” says the text of the exhibit. “In particular, it becomes clear when we look at people. Those who live with daily “crucifixions” but who remain, ”reads the organizers’ text of the exhibition, which began on September 9 and will end on Sunday.
Church Week 2015 featured a prayer for the fall of Israel’s security fence, which the priest who led the prayer called “a wall used for murder.”
MIFF, a pro-Israel group in Norway, wrote in a statement Wednesday that in the description of the exhibit, which is in the Cathedral of Bergen, a city about 150 miles west of Oslo, “The Palestinians are Jesus. The Jews are the horrible criminals who not only crucified Jesus, but also crucified him. Daily.”
Two of the groups hosting the event, the Inter-Church Church Council of Norway and Norwegian Church Aid, did not respond to a request for comment from the Jewish Telegraph Agency.