A German court has rejected a claim calling for a church to remove a medieval antisemitic carving from its wall.

The 13th century bas-relief, known as “Judensau” (Jews’ sow), sits on the side of the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg and depicts a rabbi looking under the tail of a sow, while another figure suckles on its teat from below.

According to regional broadcaster MDR, a panel of judges at the Saxony-Anhalt state’s superior court found the image “did not harm Jews’ reputation” because it was embedded in a wider memorial context.

Presiding judge Volker Buchloh said: “anyone looking at the relief cannot fail to see the memorial and the information sign the parish put up in 1988”, which explains the sculpture.

The case had been brought after a local Jewish man appealed a lower court’s decision against his claim that the sculpture was offensive to Jews.

Johannes Block, the pastor of the Stadtkirche, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that “attacking Judaism in such a drastic way is gross and tasteless.

“As a pastor, I am also filled with shame and pain that this plastic hangs on the facade of our church.

He added: “We did not ask for this sculpture, but are trying to deal responsibly with this difficult legacy.”

Protestant priest Martin Luther was a preacher at the church. Commenting on the sculpture in a 1543 text, Luther said: “Here in Wittenberg, in our parish church, there is a sow carved into the stone under which lie young pigs and Jews who are sucking.”

He continued: “Behind the sow stands a rabbi who is lifting up the right leg of the sow, raises behind the sow, bows down and looks with great effort into the Talmud under the sow, as if he wanted to read and see something most difficult and exceptional; no doubt they gained their Shem Hamphoras from that place.”

Shem Hamphoras means ‘explicit name’, and refers to the hidden name of God in Kabbalah.

Several other Judensau sculptures can be found in churches across Germany, as well as in Belgium, Poland, France, Austria and Sweden.