Until very recent decades, most Christians believed that the Jews broke the covenant when they crucified and then later spurned Jesus Christ and His apostles. Jesus Christ made salvation available for Jews as well as anyone else, but there was no longer any special relationship for the people who rejected God and his Son. A New Covenant was established between God and all who accepted the salvation of Christ. The Catholic catechism and most Protestant churches persisted in this view until very recent times. Below are some of the scriptures on which this view was founded. I find the underlined passages of particular interest for this discussion.

     For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race...
     But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,...
     This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants...
     As indeed he says in Hosea,
     Those who were not my people
I WILL CALL 'MY PEOPLE,'

     ...And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,'
     they will be called 'sons of the living God.'. . .
     What then? Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,
     (Romans 9:1-3, 6-8, 24-26 and Romans 11:7-8)¹

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament makes very clear that there was an end put to the old covenant and a new one formed through Christ for those who accept Him as Lord.

     For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah:
     Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. (Hebrews 8:6-7, 9-10)²
     Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it...
     And when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke of them.(Matthew 21:43-45)³

One can argue effectively from a New Testament perspective that the Pharisees crucified Jesus because he challenged Jewish power and practices. Judaism of today traces its lineage directly to the Pharisees. Just days before the crucifixion, Christ raised their ire by turning over the moneychangers' tables in the temple. He struggled with them all of his life and issued one of the most damning statements ever made against them, calling them the father of the lie.