Denver Synagogue Vandalized(Passion of Christ Blamed)

9News .com (Denver) ^ | 3/6/2004 4:44:35 PM | Paola Farer

[justshutupandtakeit]

Are you hallucinating? I posted no link.

Any examination of my previous postings should convince you that I am neither an anti-semite nor anti-Jew but am one of the strongest supporters of Israel on this site.

There is a chance that this event is the work of screwballs but I doubt it. It is not the work of Christians I am fairly sure. Certainly no one who follows the teachings of Christ no matter what they call themselves.

All the heroes in the Passion are Jewish but for the centuron, Longinus. All Jesus's followers were Jewish.

[SJackson]

See 398, I know it wasn't you, and I apologize again, I pasted your name out of the post to me by mistake.

You know, these things are common. I've no doubt there have been a number of these incidents since the movie opened. The next day a few Jewish kids lockers at the local high school were vandalized in the same way. Because of the movie, no. Could it be fake, sure, not likely, people just don't fake these things every week. The callers who characterized the incident to the press are morons, the newspaper is doing it's obligatory rabble rousing. And a 400 plus post thread with many posters (not you) accusing the local Jews of defiling their own Synagoge is obscene, absent evidence other than the various posters opinions of "Jews". Sorry again for confusing you.

[M Kehoe]

They shot-out the windows that seemed to show the 'Virgin Mary' each sunset. I had seen it, and it was quite striking!

Yes it was. Minding it's own business on US 19 when some religious extremist or secular liberal/socialist/communist destroyed it.

Odd how this incident didn't make the alphabet soup in any news cycle. You know, Petey Jennings saying something like, "...it's those Islamic fascist who destroyed that shrine," or Ran Dather, "...another Christian church was destroyed today...," or Brokejaw, "...the movie Lawrence of Arabia caused the destruction of the Virgin Mary shrine in Clearwater..."

T'is cool how the Left is so exorcised (hehehe) about The Passion isn't it. 8^)

5.56mm

[SauronOfMordor]

My father, a WW2 veteran, died 10 years ago. How is it that there are holocaust survivors still around to be quoted? I mean no offense, but how is that possible? I'm a Vietnam vet, and I'm getting long in the tooth.

1945 was 58 years ago. Somebody who is 70 now, would have been 12 then, so there are still a bunch of survivors kicking around. Those who were adults then are mostly dead now, though.

The point is, who qualifies as a "holocaust survivor"? Is it only (a)those who actually went into the camps and survived, (b)those who were in Nazi-occupied Europe, or (c)any Jew who was alive in 1945 anywhere in the world, even safe in the USA. I tend to go with (b).

How many Jews of category B now live in the United States? I doubt that many.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I'll take your word for about them being vile. I have no interest in even reading crap like that.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Let me clarify my intended statement. I do not claim that this was done by anyone in the Synagogue but by someone who wants to give the impression that the Right (represented by Gibson) is anti-Sematic.

[SJackson]

Let me clarify my intended statement. I do not claim that this was done by anyone in the Synagogue but by someone who wants to give the impression that the Right (represented by Gibson) is anti-Sematic.

Could be. These things do happen every week, you just don't read about them. It's a non-story which, with the right spin, is an event. If you're including the press in someone who wants to give the impression that the Right (represented by Gibson) is anti-Sematic, you may be getting very close to the truth.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I include the RATmedia in almost all Evil perpetrations. As best as I can determine its only function is the spread of Evil.

[SauronOfMordor]

Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie. He doesn't mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie, a device that only students of medieval anti-Semitism would notice. In fact, one reason that today's viewers do not notice the hatred of Jews in the movie is because, mercifuly, they are not familiar with the medieval tropes that signal evil and that Gibson trafficks in. Gibson knows.

I saw the movie, and came away with a very different interpretation: that the conflict was not "The Jews" versus Jesus, but Satan versus Jesus. That what was happening was not a result of "evil Jews", but of particular Jews being manipulated by an evil force. That evil can take human form and walk among us.

The Christians in the audience did not interpret that scene as Jewish children being demons -- they interpreted it as demons being able to assume any disguise, no matter how initially innocent-looking. That was the message Gibson was trying to convey

[tubavil]

There are many cases of Jewish youth being found guilty of having defaced Synagogues with swastikas. Their motive is clear..

Since there are "many," why don't you list five. Provide citations.

[HostileTerritory]

This is most certainly the work of a Jewish perpetrator, designed to enlist sympathy.

You're disgusting. We had chalk swastikas marked on my synagogue growing up. Impossible to catch who did it, but hey, I guess by your theory, it's the Jews.

Then people spray-painted swastikas on my high school. (My town had a large Jewish population; many neighboring towns had very small Jewish populations.) I guess that you assume Jews did that, too.

How do you explain, then, the high school senior who was directed off the road by a car behind him flashing its lights, and went over to help the guys in the car, only to get jumped on by three or four guys who beat the sh!t out of him while calling him a dirty Jew because he lived in our town? Was that a group of Jews who did it?

If it helps, the guy who got beat up was a Protestant. The hooligans just assumed he was Jewish because he lived in my town. This was in 1992. So don't waste your time even pretending that he did the unthinkable and faked his own attack.

Your attitude is sick. Sometimes you have to accept that the world works in a way you don't want it to work, and blaming the people you don't like can't explain everything.

[Polybius]

Gibson .... favors the Tridentine mass, a relic.......... He believes that all non-Catholics are going to hell, another heresy. ............. He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews, and, as such, is an act of aggression against Catholicism ........... Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie.......... He doesn't mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie, a device that only students of medieval anti-Semitism would notice.

Veronica, please see my Post 345.

Is this another instance of two vastly different ancestral cultures looking at the same thing and coming to totally opposite conclusions?

In every such article, vitriol is directed at Gibson and categorical statements and innuendoes are thrown out.

"Gibson thinks every non-Catholic is going to hell.".......I have no idea what he believes and I have never heard him say that. Can a link be provided to document such an accusation?

"Gibson...favors the Tridentine Mass, a relic."........Ummmm, sounds ominous. I wonder what evil rite the Tridentine Mass is? Let's see. According to the link, it's a Mass dating back to the early Church in the 6th Century, codified in the 16th Century and, in 1988, Pope John Paul II, in the instruction Ecclesia Dei Adflicta, stated that there was nothing wrong with attending such a Mass. Yep, sounds pretty bad. Just like the politician that accused his opponent of ambulating right in front of a 13 year old girl.

"He is clearly and palpably anti-Semitic. His movie is an act of aggression against Jews".......Based on what? On the fact that Passion Plays in 19th Century Czarist Russia had a very deliberate "Jews killed Christ" message which translates into the belief that any dramatization of the Passion by 21st Century American Christians have a deliberate "Jews killed Christ" message?

"Charles notes how Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Jews in the movie".......Well that's a good one. The American Christians see Satan walking in a crowd in a city and they think, "Satan walks upon the Earth and he could be right next to us."

It's a crowd in Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago. Except for the Romans, everyone there from Jesus, to Mary to the Apostles to Caiphas to the Pharisees to Caipha's rent-a-mob is Jewish. Who else is supposed to form a crowd in Jerusalem 2000 years ago? Scandinavian Vikings?

What was the message in "Faust"?......That Satan walks and lives and breathes among the Germans?

What was the message in "Damned Yankees"?......That Satan walks and lives and breathes among those who are not New York Yankees fans?

"He doesn't mention that young Jewish children actually turn into demons at one point in the movie".......In one interview I saw, Gibson commented that he wanted to show Satan can disguise himself as even an innocent thing and what could be more innocent than a child. The adjective "Jewish" was never brought up.

Again, if you are going to portray "children" in a movie set in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, should you cast Norwegian children?

A Google Search of "Jewish children, demons" yields no dark secrets except some interesting facts about Jewish demon superstitions.

Without the perception, real or created, of anti-Black racism in America, Al Sharpton would be a nobody.

Without the perception, real or created, of anti-Semitism in America, Abe Foxman would be out of a job paying over $400,000 per annum.

The "Jews Killed Christ" dogma that was an intentional part of the anti-Semitic propaganda of 19th Century Czarist Russia is not a part of American Christian tradition. The American Christian believes that his own personal sins killed Christ. The American Christian does not believe that Caiphas and his rent-a-mob portray the entire Jewish people. They are merely the "Bad Guys in Authority" that are necessary in every such drama.

The "Jews Killed Christ" Eastern European libel would not have ever occurred to the millions of American Christians flocking to see this movie.

However, thanks to the Abe Foxman's of America, the Eastern European "Jews Killed Christ" libel has been taken out of it's well deserved obscurity and given more coast to coast and world-wide mass media publicity than that the authors of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" could ever have dreamed of.

[Polybius]

Did a search for "false hate crimes" Got two sites.

I don't want to get into the argument of whether this was a false hate crime or not. However, to make a Google Search point, it makes a big difference if you search for:

"false hate crimes" with quotation marks

or

false hate crimes without quotation marks.

The former gets you two hits. The latter gets you 141,000 hits.

[Spirited]

" it was predominantly American Christians who that went to Germany to fight and die to eradicate the Nazis. Do we hear about that?"

Not likely. My own family exemplified this.

Not likely to hear, either, that if it was not for American and British Christians the Israelis would have been forced out of their territory years ago.

Deception to imagine that the liberals, the unchurched and the Islamics are their protectors while the Christians who most value and revere the Tanach and the God of the Tanach would harm a synagogue.

[DallasMike]

I feel that in Hollywood, shots against Christianity are all too prevalent. The slurs would NEVER stand if they were against Judaism these days, but against what Christians believe, it's "cool." We need to keep calling them on it.

Agreed, but I would also argue that true anti-Semitism is on the rise in America. It's not Christians or even mouth-breathing rednecks who are anti-Semitic but rather highly educated atheists or agnostics in positions of power, like college professors and mainstream media reporters. It used to be subtle (like calling terrorists "freedom fighters") but they aren't even trying to be subtle these days.

I fear one day that people who practice their faith -- both Jews and Christians -- will be persecuted in this country.

[DallasMike]

I do not claim that this was done by anyone in the Synagogue but by someone who wants to give the impression that the Right (represented by Gibson) is anti-Sematic.

In 2001 there was a big hate crimes vote in the Texas legislature and a day or two before the vote a prominent and politically active black church here in Dallas was conveniently vandalized. It was a huge story until the Dallas Morning News reported that the suspects were black youths. All of a sudden the church, the politicians (the mayor of Dallas was a member of the church), and the police department didn't want to push the investigation any further. The "hate crime" served its purpose though and the bill passed.

I don't believe for one moment that it was Jews or Christians who defaced the Denver synagogue but rather that it was commited by (a) some stupid kids; or (b) somebody who wanted to generate negative publicity about The Passion.

[SJackson]

I agree, no point in argueing whether it was a false hate crime, there's nothing to base the accusation on. These things happen, imo all that's different here is a new angle for the press. A month ago you'd be reading about it in the police blotter of the local paper, if at all.

As to the quotes, who knows? One leads to an on topic article reverencing the misrepresentation of hate crimes, among other thing, the other to 140,000 or so articles, some related I'm sure, others unrelated. We can all draw our own conclusions on why it was suggested.

[sobieski]

Perhaps those calling the station should have had some proof that Mel's movie was at fault.

[SauronOfMordor]

You can also google for "hoax hate crime" without the quote marks and get 18K hits

[A. Pole]

WHat a shameful behavior on the part of my co-religionists!

What is you religion, may I ask? How do you know it was done by your people?