Gabriel Wilensky (born April 23, 1964) is an American author, software developer and entrepreneur. He was born in

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

, where his Eastern-European grandparents had emigrated to before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He is the author of the book ''

Six Million Crucifixions ''Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust'' is a 2010 history book by author Gabriel Wilensky. The book examines the role Christian teachings about Jews played in enabling the racial eliminati ...

'' (2010), which traces the history of antisemitism in Christianity and the role it played in the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

Software development

Wilensky co-founded the software company Gryphon Software in the early 1990s. The company produces the software product

Morph Morph may refer to: Biology * Morph (zoology), a visual or behavioral difference between organisms of distinct populations in a species * Muller's morphs, a classification scheme for genetic mutations * "-morph", a suffix commonly used in tax ...

, which introduced the computer graphics effect of morphing. Gryphon Software then developed a pioneering new line of edutainment products, the Activity Centers. Gryphon developed many products in that line, some of which used well-known characters from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

, Warner/DC Comics, and others. The Activity Center line of products introduced video from the feature films and cartoons in the application. Gryphon was acquired by Cendant Software (then CUC International). Wilensky contributed to the development of these various products in the areas of software and user interface design, product management, audio and video production and new research and development work on audio/video compression. His software was used to make some of the special effects of several feature films, such as Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) and others. After Gryphon Software Wilensky worked on the development of other software products in the areas of user interface software for wireless devices, web site development, and TV broadcasting for mobile devices. Most recently he was responsible for the development of the

GoPro GoPro, Inc. (marketed as GoPro and sometimes stylized as GoPRO) is an American technology company founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman. It manufactures action cameras and develops its own mobile apps and video-editing software. Founded as Woodman La ...

software applications.

Research and writing ''Six Million Crucifixions''

Wilensky spent years of research into the question of why the

happened. He used his technical background for a methodical study of the question and then wrote '' Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust'', published in 2009. ''Six Million Crucifixions'' provides an account of the almost two-thousand-year-old Christian teaching of contempt for

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, and argues that it was this relentless animosity and even hatred toward Jews and

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

in predominantly Christian lands that laid the foundation on which racial

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

stood, and which eventually led to the

. As Holocaust scholar

John K. Roth John King Roth is an American-based author, editor, and the Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in Claremont, California. Roth taught at CMC from 1966 through 2006, where he was the founding direct ...

argued in the foreword of the book, "Absent Christianity, no Holocaust would have taken place." The book provides an account of how antisemitism developed from the very early days of the

Christian movement A Christian movement is a theological, political, or philosophical interpretation of Christianity that is not generally represented by a specific church, sect, or denomination. Religious * The modern 24-7 Prayer Movement: a movement spanning ...

into full-blown hatred by the time of the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

. ''Six Million Crucifixions'' shows how anti-Jewish sentiment stemmed out of

Christian Scriptures A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning " rule" or "measuring stick". The use ...

and the teachings of the Church Fathers, until it became second-nature to European Christians. As Dr. Carol Rittner, Distinguished Professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies at The Richard Stockton College wrote, "Too many of those hate-filled words had their origin in the Christian Scriptures and were uttered by Christian preachers and teachers, by Christians generally, for nearly two millennia." The book also describes the role of both the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

churches in the period leading to and beyond the

, and sharply criticizes the Catholic Church (in particular), as well as the Protestant churches for their lack of loud and clear objection to the extermination of the Jews, for the assistance some members of the clergy gave the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s in their persecution of the Jews and the help some members of the Vatican gave to people who should have been regarded as war criminals to escape justice after the war. As

scholar and Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute Michael Berenbaum wrote, "Gabriel Wilensky's ''Six Million Crucifixions'' is a powerful and passionate indictment of the Vatican for acts of omission and acts of commission." ''Six Million Crucifixions'' further presents material that he asserts could have been used for a potential indictment of any Christian

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

who may have been guilty of crimes of incitement and/or persecution against

before, during and after World War II, had the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

pursued another international prosecution after the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

Awards

* Two

Software and Information Industry Association The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

Codie award The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...

s *

BYTE Magazine ''Byte'' (stylized as ''BYTE'') was a microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. "''Byte'' magazine, the leading publication serving the homebrew market ..." '' ...

Award of Excellence *

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

Connect Most Innovative New Product Award * Bronze Award in New Media Magazine's InVision Contest * Two

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

Editor's Choice Awards - Finalist * Discover Magazine Award for Technological Innovation - Finalist

Published works

*''Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Teachings About Jews Paved the Road to the Holocaust'', San Diego : QWERTY Publishers, 2010,

References

External links