Sixty-seven essays edited by Rittner (Holocaust studies, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey) confront Christian antisemitism, and various churches' responses during and after the Holocaust.

How culpable is the Christian Church for its anti Jewish dogma. Have ideas and beliefs changed since they accepted blame for this terrible tragedy for humankind.

"Mark Musser has produced a valuable work showing the clear connections between Romanticism, the National Socialist (Nazi) ideology, and the rise of modern ecological religion. Nazi Oaks explains how romantic Mother Earth loving vibes are no guarantee for pleasant outcomes, for mankind or the earth."Dr. James Wanliss,author of the Green Dragon.

Was Jesus a Nazi? During the Third Reich, German Protestant theologians, motivated by racism and tapping into traditional Christian anti-Semitism, redefined Jesus as an Aryan and Christianity as a religion at war with Judaism. In 1939, these theologians established the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life. In The Aryan Jesus, Susannah Heschel shows that during the Third Reich, the Institute became the most important propaganda organ of German Protestantism, exerting a widespread influence and producing a nazified Christianity that placed anti-Semitism at its theological center. Based on years of archival research, The Aryan Jesus examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach, the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members--professors of theology, bishops, and pastors--viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler's war against the Jews. Heschel looks in particular at Walter Grundmann, the Institute's director and a professor of the New Testament at the University of Jena. Grundmann and his colleagues formed a community of like-minded Nazi Christians who remained active and continued to support each other in Germany's postwar years. The Aryan Jesus raises vital questions about Christianity's recent past and the ambivalent place of Judaism in Christian thought.

"In 1930, about 750,000 Jews called Romania home. At the end of World War II, approximately half of them survived. Only recently, after the fall of Communism, have details of the history of the Holocaust in Romania come to light. Ion Popa explores this history by scrutinizing the role of the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1938 to the present day. Popa unveils and questions whitewashing myths that concealed the Church's role in supporting official antisemitic policies of the Romanian government. He analyzes the Church's relationship with the Jewish community in Romania and Judaism in general, as well as with the state of Israel, and discusses the extent to which the Church recognizes its part in the persecution and destruction of Romanian Jews. Popa's highly original analysis illuminates how the Church responded to accusations regarding its involvement in the Holocaust, the part it played in buttressing the wall of Holocaust denial, and how Holocaust memory has been shaped in Romania today"--back cover.

This volume sheds light on the transformed post-Holocaust relationship between Catholics and Jews. Once implacable theological foes, the two traditions have travelled a great distance in coming to view the other with respect and dignity. Responding to the horrors of Auschwitz, the Catholic Church has undergone a “reckoning of the soul,” beginning with its landmark document Nostra Aetate and embraced a positive theology of Judaism including the ongoing validity of the Jewish covenant. Jews have responded to this unprecedented outreach, especially in the document Dabru Emet. Together, these two Abrahamic traditions have begun seeking a repair of the world. The road has been rocky and certainly obstacles remain. Nevertheless, authentic interfaith dialogue remains a new and promising development in the search for a peace.