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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Inappropriate to name play The Final Solution
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I WAS appalled to read last Saturday ('Churches big and small mark Christ's crucifixion') that City Harvest Church had named its Easter drama The Final Solution.
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's name for its systematic genocide of the Jewish community before and during World War II, which we now more commonly refer to as the Holocaust. For a church to have given its Easter play the same name as this dark page in history smacks of gross insensitivity.
Easter is a particularly sensitive time for Jewish-Christian relations as Christian anti-Semitism was based on the misinformed assumption that Jews were complicit in the death of Jesus Christ. This misunderstanding has been a longstanding historical cause of religious hatred.
Calling an Easter play The Final Solution is thus a gravely contentious act on several levels. In its cold-blooded systematic slaughter of millions, the Holocaust was a crime not just against the Jewish community but against all people of all times.
Consideration for other faiths and ethnicities has always been the foundation of Singapore's existence. Religious and racial communities of all sizes have contributed to our history, and Singapore's Jewish community is no exception. City Harvest Church's naming of its play thus strikes at the very heart of Singapore identity.
It appears that Singapore's much-vaunted inter-religious dialogue has not lived up to its reputation, and in these delicate times, such a deficiency must be rectified immediately, by both the Government and religious groups. Rayner Teo
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->I WAS appalled to read last Saturday ('Churches big and small mark Christ's crucifixion') that City Harvest Church had named its Easter drama The Final Solution.
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's name for its systematic genocide of the Jewish community before and during World War II, which we now more commonly refer to as the Holocaust. For a church to have given its Easter play the same name as this dark page in history smacks of gross insensitivity.
Easter is a particularly sensitive time for Jewish-Christian relations as Christian anti-Semitism was based on the misinformed assumption that Jews were complicit in the death of Jesus Christ. This misunderstanding has been a longstanding historical cause of religious hatred.
Calling an Easter play The Final Solution is thus a gravely contentious act on several levels. In its cold-blooded systematic slaughter of millions, the Holocaust was a crime not just against the Jewish community but against all people of all times.
Consideration for other faiths and ethnicities has always been the foundation of Singapore's existence. Religious and racial communities of all sizes have contributed to our history, and Singapore's Jewish community is no exception. City Harvest Church's naming of its play thus strikes at the very heart of Singapore identity.
It appears that Singapore's much-vaunted inter-religious dialogue has not lived up to its reputation, and in these delicate times, such a deficiency must be rectified immediately, by both the Government and religious groups. Rayner Teo
