Antisemitism is often discussed as a modern political problem. Yet, some of its oldest and most dangerous ideas are still present in ordinary settings, including the classroom. Indeed, some children are still being taught versions of Christian history echoing one of the most enduring antisemitic accusations of all, that Jews bear collective responsibility for Jesus’s death, writes Marcus Sheff.

This was rejected by major churches decades ago and is recognised as antisemitic under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. However, it continues to surface in classrooms in Christian-majority countries. The deicide accusation is never just a historical slip: it reveals a broader pattern in which Jews, Judaism, and Jewish history are framed through distortion, moral blame, and quiet hostility.

Ireland provides a particularly troubling example. Despite being an IHRA signatory, Irish religious textbooks have previously portrayed Jews as people who “did not like Jesus” and who brought about his death. Although this material was revised in 2024, removing this single example amounts to little more than cosmetics. Antisemitic narratives in textbooks persist, including the shocking mischaracterization of Auschwitz as a “prisoner of war” camp. This distortion strips the Holocaust of its antisemitic core, and recasts extermination as an unfortunate wartime excess.

In another example, a Grades 7-9 Religious Education textbook presents different religions under the heading “Understanding of Peace and War.” Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam are described as inherently peaceful and non-violent, while Judaism is claimed to value violence and war as necessary to achieve peace, and is thus portrayed as uniquely aggressive.

Ireland’s response amounts to plastering a scratch while ignoring the gaping wound beneath. By treating the deicide allegation as a one-off mistake, the education system has avoided confronting antisemitism as a structural issue within the curriculum. Ireland has mistaken token removals for real reform, while antisemitic narratives persist across the curriculum.

Ireland is not grappling with antisemitism in the abstract. Recent research shows a worrying rise in antisemitism among Irish Christians, including the belief that Jews are hated “because of the way they behave” and that they wield excessive power. One academic noted that belief in Jewish responsibility for the crucifixion is more widespread in Ireland than in the United States. When textbooks repeatedly frame Jews as morally aggressive, historically blameworthy, or politically illegitimate, prejudice is normalized.

In Poland, another IHRA signatory, textbooks used from primary school onwards depict Jews as responsible for Jesus’ arrest and death. Jesus is rarely identified as Jewish, while Jews are presented as a powerful group threatened by his teachings.

To Poland’s credit, its government has acknowledged the scale of the problem. A new national strategy to combat antisemitism, announced for 2025–2030, represents an understanding that antisemitism in education is systemic rather than incidental, and must be addressed at a curricular level. By contrast, Ireland has limited its response to surgically removing a single example, without acknowledging that antisemitism is a pervasive problem infecting its curriculum.

Ireland’s failure to fully expunge antisemitism is especially striking when compared to countries with far less historical contact with Jewish communities, which teach this material more responsibly. Nigeria, a country with a large Christian population that is not an IHRA signatory, offers textbooks identifying Jesus as Jewish and avoid accusing Jews of deicide. While there are historical inaccuracies and ambiguities, these stem from imprecision rather than from deeply embedded theological blame.

The solution, however, is not to secularise education or strip Christianity from the curriculum. Sweden for example, a Christian-majority country and an IHRA signatory, demonstrates that it is possible to teach Christian and Jewish history without perpetuating antisemitic tropes. Swedish textbooks explicitly present Christianity as emerging from Judaism, Jesus and his followers as Jewish, and openly address the false accusation that Jews killed Jesus. Rather than sidestepping the issue, the curriculum explains how this lie fuelled centuries of persecution.

This approach exposes a myth: that teaching about Jews in a fair and historically accurate way somehow undermines Christian tradition. On the contrary, it aligns education with modern Christian theology. Since Nostra Aetate in 1965, the Catholic Church has rejected collective Jewish guilt and affirmed Christianity’s Jewish roots. Education that reflects this is long overdue, and the warning is clear: If education does not change, antisemitism will not remain confined to textbooks. Ireland has seen rising hostility toward Jews, framed through moralised narratives of blame and power.

Education determines which historical lessons are confronted and which are quietly repeated. If Ireland fails to reform its education, it risks ensuring that antisemitism continues to find new believers, long before children are old enough to question it. Removing the oldest antisemitic myth is not enough if newer distortions are allowed to take its place.

Marcus Sheff is CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education.