Film about Christ raises concerns of anti-Semitism

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI ^ | 8/11/03 | AMY WESTFELDT

[DPB101]

Film about Christ raises concerns of anti-Semitism

But Gibson defends 'Passion' as an
authentic crucifixion account

By AMY WESTFELDT
Associated Press

New York - Those who have seen Mel Gibson's film about the final hours of Jesus Christ have called it beautiful, magical, and a great and important work.

Those who fear "The Passion" could fuel anti-Semitism, however, until this weekend hadn't been allowed to see the film. Seven months before its release, this extraordinary vanity project is stirring passions over Gibson's exclusionary screenings and the potential for a negative depiction of Jews.

On Friday, it was shown in Houston to an audience that included for the first time an official from the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism. Audience members signed confidentiality agreements before attending the screening.

"We still have grave concerns," Rabbi Eugene Korn, director of the ADL's Office of Interfaith Affairs in New York, told the Houston Chronicle in Saturday's editions.

Not just Jews are concerned. The film was first questioned by a nine-member panel that included Christians. Gibson is a member of a Catholic movement that rejects the Vatican's authority over the Catholic church.

The action-movie star and Oscar-winning director of "Braveheart" has spent nearly $30 million of his own money to produce, co-write and direct "The Passion," starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus and Monica Bellucci as Mary Magdalene. Filmed entirely in Aramaic and Latin, it has yet to secure a distributor.

According to the official Web site for the film, "The Passion" may not reach theaters until June.

In recent weeks, the actor-director had been building support with invitation-only screenings for film industry insiders, conservative commentators, evangelical Christians and sympathetic Jews.

Ted Haggard, president of the National Evangelical Association, saw a screening in June with about 30 evangelical scholars. The scholars are very strict about adherence to scripture, so Gibson "had no assurances that we would be friendly toward that movie."

But Haggard loved it. "I thought it was the most authentic portrayal I've ever seen."

However, critics of "The Passion" - who have not seen the film - worry that it will attract millions to see a violent, bloody recounting of the crucifixion that portrays Jews as a frenzied mob eager to watch Jesus die.

"For too many years, Christians have accused Jews of being Christ-killers and used that charge to rationalize violence," said Sister Mary C. Boys, a seminary professor on a committee that read an early draft of the script. "This is our fear."

While Gibson said "The Passion" will be the most authentic account ever of the crucifixion, Boys said the script presented the Jews as more culpable than the Romans who executed Christ.

It only recounts the last 12 hours of Christ's life, she said, and therefore lacks the context to explain the Jews' portrayal.

In a June statement, Gibson denied that he or the film were anti-Semitic: "My intention in bringing it to the screen is to create a lasting work of art and engender serious thought among audiences of diverse faith backgrounds (or none) who have varying familiarity with this story."

[Northern Yankee]

Critics of The Passion - who have not seen the film...

Now there's some reliable resources.

[Cachelot]

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

You're a member of Larry's old coterie, I take it?

[DJtex]

There has been over 1,000 years of Christian on Jew organized violence, from the Ghettos, to the Pogroms, to the Holocaust. Hopefully, it's on the wane now. The Romans were quite violent and harsh in their occupation of Israel. They appointed the Herod's from out of Syria and made them "King of the Jews" because they were reliable tax collectors for the Romans.

True Jews hated the non-Jew Herods and their desecration of the Temple and the Herods eliminated John the Baptist and Jesus with the help of the Romans. Jesus was a Jew, as were his Apostles. It is a terrible misunderstanding of history that the Jews were condemned by the Christian "Holy Roman Empire" for rejecting their own Messiah and for killing Jesus.

[veronica]

Your daily anti Jew post. Once more your obsession with what Jews do and think comes to the surface. You are 100 times more concerned about Jews than Jews are concerned with your religion (?) and national origin (?) Funny the way that always seems to work.

To anti-semites, Jew-baiting, Jew-hating, Jew paranoia is a religion. All you have to do is take a peek at Vogelin's other playground and you can see that.

You know this film is becoming like the USS Liberty. A drum anti-semites bang incesantly. Soon Gibson too, will have to issue a disclaimer, distincing himself from all the internuts trying to highjack his film in their quest to slime Jews.

[TigersEye]

"For too many years, Christians have accused Jews of being Christ-killers and used that charge to rationalize violence," ...

I have never heard of Christians accusing Jews of killing Christ. Until now. There has been quite an onslaught of articles suggesting that Mel Gibson's movie will support that accusation but not one of them gives an example of anyone making it or rationalizing violence with it. Is that some sort of Skinhead logic, that Jews killed Christ? That's what they're worried about? That Mel is making an agit-prop film for the Aryan Nations? I guess that makes The Ten Commandments an agit-prop film for Zionists!?!

[GigaDittos]

No, if you don't like the article, read another.

[veronica]

You have to wonder just how many times this type of article will come up?

Free speech. It's a terrible thing, isn't it? :)

You know this film has been defended in terms of Gibson's right to express his vision, by some very high profile Jews, like Michael Medved, David Horowitz, etc. Dennis Prager has seen it too, and he is of the mind that the film might, at least the version he saw, create some anti-semitic animus in Arab countries and in Europe, where people are not as enlightened as Americans. And In fact, changes, edits, have recently been made to the film, according to someone from ICON who I saw on TV last week.

But as I have posted before, this movie is not sacrosanct, it's a film, and like all films, it will be critiqued, and like all art, it will be seen through the eyes of the beholder. Mel Gibson is no more immune to the critics that Martin Scorcese was when he made a film about Jesus.

[Cachelot]

No, if you don't like the article, read another

You know about the old, banned posters LarryLied and RCW2001, of course. This critter is LarryLied (aka Voegelin on LibertyForum).

This has nothing to do with articles, but with the agenda of this poster. The poster's point wasn't content, but the opportunity to point to a journalist and "who pays her salary".

But you knew all this, of course ;)).

[GigaDittos]

Then maybe you should make this point in the thread, if you know something others don't. I can only comment on what I read.

[dennisw]

New day ... but same old obsession with what Jews think and do. Some folks seem to place such great weight on Jewish opinion.

Perhaps we should be flattered?

[ultima ratio]

The pre-emptive strike was on the part of the ADL and the Boston College professors who charged anti-Semitism. It is they who focused on the Jews, rather than the larger implications of the Passion story. And it was they who have argued the Gospels are not factual. The backlash from Christians in defense of Scripture and the movie was predictable. It's a classic instance of a self-fulfilling prophesy on the part of ADL and its associates. They pick a fight, then complain they are being picked on when others respond. By raising a phony issue, they worsen Jewish-Christian relations and provide a cover for real anti-Semitism.

[dennisw]

So you are saying Jews didn't kill Christ but they are trying to kill a movie about Jesus Christ? Thus the backlash from far more numerous Christians on a small bunch of pesky Jews?

To me it comes down to numbers. Since Jews are so small in numbers (with Christian numbers so large) they have no right to complain and raise questions. How dare they! So ya'll can't handle the concerns and criticisms and come down on them like a ton of bricks. N'est pas?

[ultima ratio]

First, this reading of history is not accurate. Jews were clearly involved in the rejection of Jesus and it does no good to falsify history to pretend otherwise. Why impugn the evidence of the Gospels--which are eyewitness accounts?

Second, the equation of anti-Semitism with genocide is wrong and outrageous. Hitler's evil was of a different order of magnitude--but this hasn't stopped liberals from using the Holocaust as a means of getting back at Christianity and the Catholic Church in particular.

[dennisw]

(07/04/2003)
Mel Gets Hell On His ‘Passion’

Eric J. Greenberg

Hollywood hero Mel Gibson may be a straight shooter on the silver screen, but his accusation of theft against a group of interfaith scholars is way off target.

So says the Anti-Defamation League and a group of Catholic scholars, who dismiss as Hollywood fantasy Gibson’s charge that the scholars used a stolen script to criticize as dangerously anti-Semitic his forthcoming movie about the final hours of Jesus’ life.

The ADL last week declared its support for the seven interfaith scholars — four Catholic and three Jewish — only days after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops washed its hands of the interfaith team and its 18-page report.

The report cites numerous anti-Semitic scenes and violations of Roman Catholic teachings in the “The Passion,” which Gibson is directing and co-wrote. Gibson said the film, which is to be released next spring, is based on the Four Gospels.

“ADL fully stands behind their report” calling on Gibson to revise the film.

ADL noted that in the report, made public by The Jewish Week, the scholars “unanimously agreed that the screenplay ... was replete with objectionable elements that would promote anti-Semitism.”

In a new twist to the controversy, ADL said that contrary to Gibson’s claims, his ICON Productions was well aware that the interfaith team had been reviewing the script in late April and early May. At that point, Gibson and ICON “indicated their willingness to consider the scholar’s suggestions,” ADL confirmed.

Rabbi Eugene Korn, ADL’s director of interfaith affairs, told The Jewish Week that on May 2, Gibson was privately sent the scholars’ report, which outlines the anti-Semitic scenes and violations of Roman Catholic teachings. But ICON responded by threatening a lawsuit, Rabbi Korn said.

In a letter dated May 9, ICON for the first time hurled the accusation that the scholars had used a stolen early draft of the script.

Meanwhile, the controversy has caused a rift between the Bishops Conference and four of its top interfaith advisers.

The Catholic members of the interfaith team drafted a strong letter to the Rev. Arthur Kennedy, the conference’s director of ecumenical affairs, expressing their outrage at USCCB capitulation to Gibson’s legal threat. They said the action threatens Catholic teaching and their own credibility. (Their position is posted at www.bc.edu/cjlearning.)

“The charge that we stole [the script] is absurd and insulting,” said the June 25 letter signed by Mary Boys of Union Theological Seminary, Philip Cunningham of Boston University, the Rev. John Pawlikowski of the Chicago Theological Union and the Rev. Lawrence Frizzell of Seton Hall University.

They disputed as “regrettable” the Bishops Conference apology to Gibson and as “misleading” its June 11 press release claiming that the conference did not “establish” the interfaith team to study the script.

“We were in fact assembled by Dr. [Eugene] Fisher [associate director of ecumenical affairs at the Bishops Conference] and Rabbi Korn,” the letter stated.

The scholars called on the Bishops Conference to issue a public clarification that they did not steal the script and support their recommendations.

“We do not deserve being left ‘high and dry,’ ” the scholars said.

The team of scholars has not said how it obtained the script.

Gibson’s critics also warned that he is apparently using as sources an 18th century mystical anti-Semitic book by a German nun, Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich, and a tome by Mary of Agreda, a 17th century Spanish aristocrat. This contradicts Gibson’s claim that he is using only the Gospels.

Emmerich’s book is a diary of the nun’s visions, many of which are anti-Semitic, according to Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Emmerich “told of a vision she had in which she rescued from purgatory an old Jewish woman who confessed to her that Jews strangled Christian children and used their blood in the observance of their rituals,” Rabbi Hier said.

Mary of Agreda wrote that all Jews continue to be afflicted because of their involvement in Jesus’ death.

“For filmmakers to do justice to the biblical accounts of the passion, they must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism,” ADL said.

Asked by The Jewish Week if Gibson has or will consult with interfaith experts before the movie is released, ICON producer Steve McEveety said in a statement: “As is consistent with the filmmaking process, we have, and will continue to consult the resources necessary to create the most accurate and honest presentation of the story as possible.”

[ultima ratio]

Christians don't give a hoot about who actually killed Christ. They believe all men are responsible, but it is the sacrifice of Jesus that is meaningful--not the who-did-what-to-whom.

To you it comes down to numbers, to Christians it comes down to an all-pervasive saturation of the entertainment industry with anti-Christian shinola. You see the Jews as potential victims of a movie, we see Christianity getting clobbered daily while the secular culture stands by and applauds.

As for "How dare they"--even you must admit it takes a lot of gall for the ADL to publicly criticize the Gospels accounts themselves. Its quarrel is apparently not with a movie but with Christianity itself.

[Cachelot]

Second, the equation of anti-Semitism with genocide is wrong and outrageous

You're saying that it's outrageous to claim that antisemitism led to genocide? That antisemitism is generally respectable, and that Hitler was an aberration among antisemites?

Well.. guess we'll have to be careful not to tar all antisemites (particularly those who're just perpetrating the ol' "Christkiller" blood-libel) with the Hitler brush then, won't we?

Sick puppies on display. FR seems to have an unending supply of them.

[ultima ratio]

The ADL and the Boston College professors have no credibility whatsoever. They have not seen the movie and are basing their judgment on an outdated script. If the film were anti-Christian in content, these same critics would have been the first to condemn such a pre-emptive strike.

[wimpycat]

For my part, I have no particular interest in what Jews think and do about this movie or any other Christian related topic.

I am interested in what leftist/liberal/non-observant/atheistic Jews AND Gentiles who belong to political circles and groups who have a clear history of an anti-Christian agenda think and do about Christian-related topics.

Martin Scorcese's "Last Temptation of Christ" tanked because of Christian objection to particular nature of the "artistic license" Scorcese took with scripture. I like Martin Scorcese as a filmmaker, but I have never seen this movie and I never will.

Mel Gibson's movie will only be smothered in the cradle, so to speak, if Christians have objections to the content; i.e., how Gibson interprets scripture on film.

I don't expect a film about Jesus to get the wide distribution in this day and age that a Hollywood film would get, and it will suffer a further handicap by being filmed in a foreign language. Americans in general don't like subtitles, and especially won't like watching a movie in a foreign language without subtitles. But Mel Gibson knew that already, and he's making this film more for personal reasons than wanting to make a blockbuster hit. His target audience is Christians. By the very nature of the subject matter, if there's a lot of criticism coming from people with an anti-Christian agenda about this film, it will only serve to inflate interest in the movie and boost its publicity beyond what it normally would have gotten.

[SJackson]

Second, the equation of anti-Semitism with genocide is wrong and outrageous.

You're kidding, right.

Jew Hating in Germany was unrelated to Jew Killing, just as Christian Hating in Armenia was unrelated to Christian Killing.

[ultima ratio]

Anti-Semitism is never respectable--but then, neither is anti-Catholicism or any other form of prejudice. Hitler's genocidal hatred was not of that order. It was sui generis.