The Anti-Defamation League criticized the leader of the Coptic Church for accusing Jews of killing Jesus. Shinoda III, the Egyptian Coptic patriarch, allegedly said in an April interview that the New Testament says the Jews killed Christ and that the Vatican was wrong to apologize for 2,000 years of Church-based anti-Semitism. “It is disturbing, but not surprising, that there are still Christian leaders in the Arab world who not only wholeheartedly ascribe to the deicide charge but who teach it to their congregants as a core tenet of their faith,” said Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s national director. “It shows the persistence of anti-Semitism among Arab Christian leaders and contributes to the already virulent anti-Semitism that is part of the mainstream in many Arab nations.”
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