Jesuit Kaddish is a long overdue study that examines Jesuit hostility toward Judaism before the Shoah and the development of a new understanding of the Catholic Church's relation to Judaism that culminated with Vatican II's landmark decree Nostra aetate

Although Jesuit hostility toward Jews had a long history, Jesuit resistance during the Holocaust paved the way toward new Catholic teaching on Jews at the Vatican Council II (1962-1965). James Bernauer undertakes a self-examination as a member of the Jesuit order and writes this story in the hopes that it will contribute to interreligious reconciliation. Jesuit Kaddish demonstrates the way Jesuit hostility operated, examining Jesuit moral theology's dualistic approach to sexuality and, in the case of Nazi Germany, the articulation of an unholy alliance between a sexualizing and a Judaizing of German culture. Bernauer then identifies an influential group of Jesuits whose thought and action contributed to the developments in Catholic teaching about Judaism that eventually led to the watershed moment of Nostra aetate.

Bernauer offers us an examination of the Jesuit spiritual insurrections that paved the way for the Catholic Church's transformed teaching on Judaism. His book represents a crucial contribution to the fields of Catholicism and Nazism, Catholic-Jewish relations, Jesuit history, and the history of anti-Semitism in Europe.