Jewish trivia: Sanhedrin and the Pope

MELVILLE, New York — A body of rabbis in Israel calling themselves the Sanhedrin recently tried Pope Francis in absentia, for “crimes leading to the mortal endangerment of Israel and the Jewish nation.” What specifically did they claim was his crime, leading them to write that “these actions, to our great dismay, are consistent with a long series of actions and stances that … persecute Israel because we refused to accept their Messiah as the Messiah of Israel, and to renounce our faith?”

A. The Sanhedrin tried Pope Francis over his statement about homosexuals, where he said, “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” The rabbis, who had previously worked together with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem (the head of the Catholic Church in Israel) and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (the top Muslim cleric in Israel) to oppose any movement toward acceptance of homosexuality, saw the Pope’s statement as a betrayal of their joint efforts to fight against what they see as a biblical sin.

B. The Sanhedrin tried Pope Francis for recognizing “the organization known as the Palestinian Authority as a nation,” and naming Abu Mazen, “the head of said authority, as an ‘Angel of Peace’.” A letter from the Secretariat of the Court of Mount Zion of the Sanhedrin went on to say, “If His Honor the Pope, and the Vatican, do not apologize within two weeks of receiving this letter, and if he does not change his ways, we shall judge these actions in the Court of Mount Zion, in a court of 71 Jewish elders of Zion, and enact the prophecy of ‘The liberators will rise up upon Mount Zion, to judge the Mountain of Esau and the kingdom shall be God’s (Obadiah 1:21). The court shall judge the Vatican in its presence or in absentia, and it is possible that the Vatican will be found guilty of anti-Semitism, as has been known to be done several times throughout history, and to place responsibility upon the Vatican for all of the outcomes of its actions.”

C. The Sanhedrin tried Pope Francis because of his comments on climate change. Charged Rabbi Yehuda Halevy of the Sanhedrin, “Pope Francis stated that man has contributed to climate change and man must do something to reverse this process. This is blasphemy, as our liturgy clearly states ‘Mashiv HaRuach U’Morid HaGashen. God causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.’ We are disappointed that a man such as the Pope, who claims to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would challenge God’s dominion over the earth, and we intend to hold him responsible before a court of rabbinic sages.”

D. The Sanhedrin tried Pope Francis because of his support of the Iran nuclear deal. The Pope’s spokesman had said “The way to resolve disputes and difficulties should always be that of dialogue and negotiation.” Sanhedrin spokesman Rabbi Yechiel Cohen stated, “There can be no negotiation about the right of Israel to exist. Anyone who believes otherwise is an enemy of Israel, and we will not allow outsiders to lead us down a path of destruction.”

E. The Sanhedrin tried Pope Francis over his red zucchetto, the small skullcap that he regularly wears. The skullcap had fallen from the Pope’s head as he bent to kiss a child during a recent public audience at the Vatican, and writing could be seen printed on the inside. According to Rabbi Eliyahu Aryeh Kiddin of the Sanhedrin, “The skullcap that the Pope wore was clearly stolen from a synagogue, as evidenced by the fact that the inside of the yarmulke read ‘Bar Mitzvah of Jacob Bienenfeld, Yaacov ben Moishe, May 16, 2015, 27 Iyyar 5775’.”