Every week observant Jews celebrate the holiday of the Sabbath, commemorating the creation of the world, and once a year, other holidays centered around more recent events in our history, such as our escape from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Given this, it should not be surprising that we also remember that in 1555, Pope Paul IV published a Bull that stressed that we, the "Christ-killers," were by nature slaves and should be so treated, or that in 1581, Pope Gregory XIII said that our guilt regarding Jesus' death grew deeper with time, requiring our perpetual slavery. We also remember the anti-Jewish quotas at US universities that persisted into the early 20th Century.
In fact, there are Jews alive today who remember having the "christ killer" epithet hurled at them while either fleeing from or recieving a beating by zealous Christian bullies.
Now, I do recognize the pronounced irony in this position, the Church simultaneously stating that Jesus Christ "freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father," and that "by his death he has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men,"1 while on the other hand reviling Jews for our supposed role in his death, and that "christ killer" has no place in a modern understanding of Christianity.
But I don't think that it is entirely unjustified, given the place of that epithet in living memory and recent history (less than 500 years ago), for Jews to express concern about how people who have never read the Catholic Catechism and don't even really understand their professed faith might interpret this film, or about what kind of overt or subtextual message is presented in the film.
That expression of concern isn't an accusation.
Personally, I tend to agree with the JPFO press release - there's people out there who, film or no film, will hate Jews and want to do us harm. Our so-called Jewish leaders should focus on the real threats to Jews, such as Arab fundamentalism, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia, rather than on Mel Gibson and his cinematic profession of Christian faith.
I do agree with you about that, and about the suffering of Jews under Hitler. However, I would like you as a Jew, and other Jews to condemn the killing of Christians under Arab, and Moslem majority governments. The sympathy that you get from Christians about your holocaust should be appreciated and matched with support and sympathy towards the Holocaust of Christians in the Sudan, Indonesia, Egypt,…