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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.

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?

(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.”

The pre-emptive strike was on the part of the ADL and the Boston College professors who charged anti-Semitism. ...

Qui bono?