The old-world antisemitism in a Christmas pageant near you [View all]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP)

The pageant isn’t short on spectacle: The Holy Family, richly robed wise men, armored Roman soldiers and peasants dressed in bright Ukrainian embroidery all catch the eye. But even amid that explosion of color, the Jew is easy to spot.

He appears on stage as a caricature of a Hasidic innkeep, including payot sidelocks. The character’s name is Moshko the zhyd — a slur for “Jew” — and he is there to remind audience members of the evil in their midst.

“If you need to borrow money, Moishe Yakovlevich will gladly provide,” Moshko says, tempting the shepherds and wise men away from celebrating the Nativity.

"You lend money, then kick people out of their homes,” a shepherd replies.

Moshko responds by cursing the believers, summoning the Devil as well as “the Roma” — the other ethnic villain of the play — to help him defeat Jesus.

This vestige of medieval antisemitism was just publicly live-streamed by St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Catholic Church in Orlando, Florida, whose Facebook page invites viewers to “immerse yourselves in the magic of Christmas.” But I don’t mean to single out this church; its pageant is not unusual. Every winter, hundreds of Moshkos don the Jewish equivalent of blackface and scuffle onto stages in churches and community centers from New York to Chicago, Connecticut to Ohio, Dublin to Dubai. And many of the pageants, called verteps, are propagated by a branch of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Washington Post