Dutch Easter carollers continue to sing antisemitic song despite outcry from the Jewish community

Easter carol singers in the Dutch city of Ootmarsum have faced criticism for the alleged antisemitic content of one of their songs.

Ootmarsum, about 80 miles east of Amsterdam, has hosted the traditional carolling procession – known to locals as vlöggeln – since at least 1840. It consists of dozens of Catholic men singing as they walk a particular route through the city several times a day on the first and second days of Easter.

They sing a song entitled “Christ Resurrected” and its lyrics, which are printed and handed around to onlookers, excoriate “the Jews who with their false council sacrificed Jesus on the cross”.

It is not only the content of the song that has drawn protests from the Jewish community, but the connotations of how it is organised.

Eight lead singers dressed in raincoats, known as the Poaskerls, lead the carolling. They must be single Catholic men who have no intention of getting married in the next four years. The point is a rite of passage: the eight Poaskerls accept that they are no longer youths and become adults. The oldest of them smokes a cigar. He is the treasurer of the group and given the nickname of the “Judas”.

The accusation of “Deicide” – the belief that the Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus Christ – is part of the classic repertoire of antisemitism, and has led to innumerable acts of violence against and mendacious claims about Jews for centuries. Since 1965, however, the Catholic Church asserted, though “the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ”, Jews cannot be held collectively responsible for this, then or now.

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