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More Power to Mel
By Don Feder FrontPageMagazine.com | February 10, 2004 Is Mel Gibson the intellectual heir of The Black Hundred (the notorious progromists of Czarist Russia) or is he merely indifferent to the fact that his cinematic project will “fuel and legitimize anti-Semitism?” Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ” is scheduled to open in 2,000 theaters
nationwide on Ash Wednesday, February 25.
From the outset, controversy has dogged the popular actor’s
$25-million project based on the Gospels’ account of the final 12 hours in the
life of Jesus. In one scene, deleted from the final cut of the film, the High
Priest Caiaphas says of the condemned Jesus, “His blood be on us and our
children.”
This incensed Abraham Foxman -- national director of The Anti-Defamation
League and the film’s most scathing critic. A movie Christian leaders are
hailing as the greatest religious work of art since the ceiling of the Sistene
Chapel “can fuel, trigger, stimulate, induce, rationalize, legitimize
anti-Semitism,” warned the kosher Chicken Little.
Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a man I respect far more
than Foxman, has been nearly as censorious.
Writing in The Boston Globe, James Carroll (one of those “Catholic
scholars” whose stock in trade is denying the essence of Catholicism) claims,
“Even a faithful repetition of the Gospel stories of the death of Jesus can do
damage exactly because those sacred texts themselves carry the virus of
Jew-hatred.” Which raises an intriguing question: How can a text both be sacred
and carry the seeds of anti-Semitism?
Besides the deleted “his blood be on us” scene, Foxman charges the movie,
in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles, “unambiguously portrays Jewish
authorities and the Jewish mob as the ones responsible for the decision to
crucify Jesus.” But it also unambiguously portrays Jesus, his mother (played by
the daughter of Holocaust survivors), his disciples and his followers as
Jewish.
Prominent Christians have come to the film’s defense. Evangelist Billy
Graham says he was “moved to tears” at a private screening. The Crystal
Cathedral’s Robert Schuller calls it a “powerful masterpiece.”
The film has been shown at the Vatican to rave reviews. James Dobson, whose
Focus on the Family radio show reaches an estimated 9 million listeners each
week, says “The Passion” is “easily the most heart-wrenching, powerful portrayal
of Christ’s suffering that I have ever seen.”
Farther Augustine Di Noia, an under-secretary of the Church’s Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, declares, “Speaking as a Catholic theologian, I
would be bound to condemn anti-Semitism or anti-Judaism in any recounting of the
passion and death of Christ – and not just because of the terrible harm that has
been done to Jewish people on these grounds, but also because…this represents a
profound misreading of the passion narratives.”
Di Noia goes on to express what I believe to be the true Christian
perspective -- that humanity itself is responsible for Christ’s suffering and
death, and not just those involved in his trial and execution.
“It is always a serious misreading of the passion stories in the Gospel
either to try to assign blame to one character or group in the story, or, more
fatefully, to try to exempt oneself from blame,” says Di Noia. “The trouble with
the last move is that, if I am not one of the blameworthy, then how can I be
among those who share in the benefits of the cross?”
Critics have a serious problem. The script of Gibson’s movie comes directly
– almost word for word -- from New Testament sources. If “The Passion”
fuels, legitimizes and rationalizes Jew-hatred, then so does the Christian
Bible.
At least Foxman has the intellectual honesty to follow his argument to its
logical conclusion. “You know, the Gospels, if taken literally, can be very
damaging, in the same way if you take the Old Testament literally,” the ADL
leader observes. By the way, Abe, your Bible isn’t called the Old Testament but
the Torah, and – yes – there still are some Jews who take it quite literally,
including the parts that make you uncomfortable.
So, if not literally, how are Christians to interpret their Scriptures –
metaphorically, symbolically, allegorically? Why can’t a Christian (one of the
few in Hollywood) make a movie about his faith, which is true to his faith,
without provoking charges of bigotry or insensitivity?
There’s a major flaw in the reasoning of Foxman and Friends. If the movie
and the Gospels on which it’s based are anti-Semitic, then why are those
Christians most faithful to the New Testament among the strongest supporters of
Israel?
Most evangelical Christians are fervent defenders of the Jewish state. A
decade ago, the term Christian Zionist was an oxymoron. Today, Christian
Zionists outnumber their Jewish counterparts. Their organizations include
Christians Israel Public Action Campaign, Christians for Israel, Religious
Roundtable, Battalion of Deborah, Friends of Israel, Bridges for Peace,
International Christian Zionist Center, International Christian Embassy in
Jerusalem and National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel.
In October, 2002, the Christian Coalition – an organization whose founder
was once reviled by Foxman – held a massive rally in support of Israel, which
drew more than 10,000 to Washington, DC. I know, because I helped to organize
it.
Christian fervor for Israel is based on the type of biblical literalism
that Foxman considers a conduit to anti-Semitism. The evangelical perspective on
Zion is also unambiguous: God gave the land to the Jews. God’s promises are
eternal. End of story.
Christian philo-Semitism goes beyond support for Israel. The most forceful
opponents of the new anti-Semitism, which festers throughout the Islamic world
and has spread to Europe, include Pat Robertson, Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes, Dr.
Dobson, Joe Farah, Elwood McQuaid, Jan Willem Van der Hoeven, Janet Parshall,
Earl Cox, Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs and D. James
Kennedy.
They believe the same Bible which teaches that Jesus is their savior
also tells them to honor and defend the Jewish people. This is a far cry from
the Christianity of the Middle Ages.
The idea that “The Passion” is going to excite an American Kristallnacht is
truly twisted.
Today, organized Anti-Semitism is almost exclusively a Moslem phenomenon.
Hatred of Jews thrives in mosques and madrashes. It’s propagated by Islamic
religious authorities, from mullahs to ayatollahs.
At last year’s Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, Mahathir
Mohamad, then-prime minister of Malaysia, delivered an anti-Semitic rant that
would have done Goebbels proud. Egyptian television produced a 41-part
dramatization of the Czarist fraud “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Zion.” When John Paul II visited Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, the latter
lectured the pope on the wickedness of the Jews, how they “corrupt all
religions.” Only in the Middle East is the Medieval Blood Libel (the obscene
belief that Jews use the blood of non-Jews in their rituals) still taken
seriously.
A Jew can’t live in Saudi Arabia or own land in Jordan. The Saudis are
particularly energetic in financing the anti-Jewish internationale. The schools
they build from Indonesia to America teach Jewish conspiracy theories and the
other intellectual baggage of anti-Semitism.
The Palestinian Authority has spent the past decade inculcating a virulent
Jew hatred in the young. Suicide bombers don’t just happen; they are shaped and
formed in a controlled environment.
Across Europe, mobs of Moslem youth burn synagogues, attack Jewish day
schools and beat Jews in the streets. None of this is the result of reading the
Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27.
In this world war, Christians are the natural allies of the Jewish people.
Why insult them by condemning a tribute to their faith?
As a Jew, I take anti-Semitism very seriously. I was born the year after
World War II ended. I’ve chocked with emotion while walking through Yad Vashem,
the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. I look at the faces in the faded photographs
and think: That could have been my aged mother. The children being herded into
the gas chambers could have been mine. In a sense, they were.
As a columnist, I spent nearly 20 years exposing Nation of Islam fascism,
Moslem fundamentalism and the anti-Semitism (in the guise of anti-Zionism)
spreading on our college campuses.
Jesus isn’t part of my religion. With all due respect to my Christian
friends – who are legion – I do not believe that Jesus was God incarnate. (In
the words of The Shema, I believe God is One.) I respect those who believe
otherwise, as I hope they respect beliefs of mine with which they
disagree.
Still, while disagreeing about His nature, Christians and Jews worship the
same God. We share a moral code going back to Sinai, as well as the moral
teachings of patriarchs and prophets.
I have been humbled by the acts of loving kindness I’ve seen Christians
perform.
If all of this weren’t enough, the same forces which would pull down the
Cross also seek to smash the Star of David and trample the Torah under their
bloody boots. If Christians and Jews do not unite in the face of this
international jihad – and make common cause with Hindus and Buddhists as well –
we are all lost.
With the raw sewage being pumped out of the open cesspool that calls itself
a creative community – songs the celebrate rape and the degradation of women,
films that glorify violence and legitimize perversion and sexual anarchy – it’s
ironic that some have chosen to attack a film that dramatizes sacrifice and
redemption.
More power to Mel, say I. It’s rare to see a man with such power and
influence willing to stand up for his faith in the face of a hostile culture.
Instead of opposing him, Jews should be looking for someone like him willing to
propagate the wisdom, beauty and truth of Judaism.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don Feder is a former Boston Herald writer who is now a political/communications consultant. |
