Passion plays have been a staple in Europe for centuries. In fact, one town (I can't spell or pronounce its name)makes a decent percentage of their tourist income from their regular presentations.
I have no idea whether or not those townsfolk are anti-semitic. I do know that, in many countries, passion plays have been followed by pogroms perpetrated by inflamed, inspired peasants. Jews, who have been the victims of these atrocities, are more than a little aprehensive about their presentation. Let's face it, European Jews have an understandable edginess about some Christian traditions.

An edginess that is certainly well founded in history, agreed. So the question is what is to be done? Should Oberammergau abandon its tradition (together with a major part of its income, as you point out)? Perhaps it should change the story? Either seems more likely to inflame the more extremist Christians than continuing. Or should we do what Malcolm suggested way back when: It is an issue that needs to be addressed carefully in order to avoid misunderstanding and injured feelings ... Understanding must always be the first step in matters of this kind.

It,s worth reflecting on the photo Malcolm linked to and Azizi found disturbing. The first thing to say is that there are two different traditions at work here. In one, all characters in the play are disguised, and that seems to be the case in the post that started that thread. As I said before, as far as I am concerned greening/blueing the face or wearing masks would be an easy way of resolving this issue in keeping with both the sensibilities of observers and with the tradition.

This photo represents the other situation where only certain characters as blacked. In particular the two characters concerned are the Turkish Knight and a sweep.

For my money, both are insensitively made-up for modern tastes in this specific photo, but I see no reason why the sweep in particular should not continue to black-up.

WhenI was a child, you could see these figures at least weekly near where I lived. I have no doubt that in certain places, in both the UK and the US, you can still see them today:

White coal miners with blackened faces ... and its nothing to do with race.
White men delivering coal with blackened faces ... and its nothing to do with race.
White kitchen "skivvies" with blackened faces ... and its nothing to do with race.
White steam engine firemen with blackened faces ... and its nothing to do with race.
Elsewhere, you could also see white oilworkers with blackened faces ... and its nothing to do with race.

So, you see see while I am perfectly happy to agree that a white person blacking up can be (and frequently has been) a racist act, I don't agree that it necessarily is. I wonder, in particular which of our guests have been offended by the racism implied by the sweep characters in the 'Mary Poppins' film?