Christianity
This novel is at least partially a criticism of Christians who hold Anti-Semitic views. The Christian identity that defines these character's self-esteem is experienced to the reader through imagery, like the imagery of a polite Christian neighborhood. The imagery of order and respect is established firmly, and the characters openly discuss their shared Christian virtues, but this imagery is only established so that it can be overturned with irony. Ironically, they betray their Christian virtues to hate their neighbor, literally.
Anti-Semitism
The Christians in this novel are concerned about Jewish people moving into the neighborhood. They hate Jewish people, and they tie that hatred to their deepest religious convictions, believing that the Jews are now cursed or something. In reality, they have much in common, but their prejudice makes them into enemies of Jewish people. Although Jesus Christ was himself a Jew, and although he taught to love one's neighbors, these people hate their Jewish neighbors, and they often discuss programs to remove them to camps.
Jewish Appearances
The novel has a divine sense of humor. When Newman speaks boldly about his hatred for the Jews, his fate takes a strange turn. He is given glasses that make him look Jewish (proving that it isn't easy to tell which people are Jewish in the first place). Then, he suddenly becomes the target of anti-Semitism, which is ironic, because he isn't Jewish at all. Even his own wife turns him over (like Judas), to be attacked by the masses because he "looks Jewish."
Community and drama
The dramatic imagery of the novel rises to its peak in a crisis where Newman's experience of community is drastically changed. He is not a Jew, but he has been hired by a Jewish company. He has glasses that make him look Jewish, whatever that means, and his wife has rejected him, turning him over to the masses. She sets up a sting so the town can attack him with hopes of killing him or scaring him out of town. Who defends him? The Jewish man! Finkelstein and Newman fight off the mob together and win. Who has betrayed him? The Christians: Gertrude, his neighbors, his ex-coworkers, his church friends—all hell-bent on his destruction. The imagery is clear. It reminds one of the religious imagery of Samson and Delilah or even of the Passion sequence of the Gospels.
