Is that Marvelous or Malevolent Mel?

By Rabbi Aaron Parry

...many of my co-religionists go so far as to lump him in the same category as those nefarious Nazi propagandists of WWII Julius Streicher and Joseph Goebbels. Is that assessment fair?

The email forwards are rapidly filing into my Jews for Judaism mailbox. Needless to say, there is much passionate debate over The Passion raging in the religious community. Some hail this production as "equivalent to a lifetime of sermons," (Billy Graham). Others denounce Mel Gibson's film as a malevolent fomenter of hate and anti-Semitism. At this point, were I to conduct a poll, I would have to conclude that notwithstanding Mel's masterful marketing ploy, there isn't much to cheer about on either side of the debate. In fact, many of my co-religionists go so far as to lump him in the same category as those nefarious Nazi propagandists of WWII Julius Streicher and Joseph Goebbels. Is that assessment fair?

The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, told The New York Times he flatly rejected that the terrorist group led by Usama bin Laden had any thing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11.

Let's take a look again at that infamous interview of March 9, 2003. The actor's father, Hutton Gibson, told The New York Times he flatly rejected that the terrorist group led by Usama bin Laden had any thing to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Sept. 11.

"Anybody can put out a passenger list," the elder Gibson told The Times.

"So what happened? They were crashed by remote control."

He and the actor's mother, Joye Gibson, also told The Times that the Holocaust was a fabrication manufactured to hide an arrangement between Adolf Hitler and "financiers" to move Jews out of Germany to the Middle East to fight Arabs.

"Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body," Hutton Gibson told The Times. "It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now six million?"

Said Joyce Gibson: "That weren't even that many Jews in all of Europe."

By not repudiating their words in the strongest terms, Mel becomes guilty by association

Since when did the Gibson matriarch become a demographer? And here lies the problem for Mel. One of the emails arriving at the Jews for Judaism desk came from a Jewish neighbor of the Houstonian Gibsons. In short, “Rebecca” says that the Gibson clan is “totally meshugana” (Yiddish for “crazy.”) I am not kidding, those were the neighbor's exact words. He claims to have distanced himself from their sentiment, but to borrow one of Mel's biblical quotations (he uses many in the movie) “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.” By not repudiating their words in the strongest terms, Mel becomes guilty by association.

The non-historical and biased New Testament depicts the Jewish role in the demise of Jesus as overwhelmingly negative and culminates in the ultimate crime: deicide -- the murder of God. The NT is consistently hostile toward the Jews, while making the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, a meek patsy of the Jews.

I do not blame Mel or his family for their religious beliefs. Why not? Because they are merely following fundamentalist (read: literal) interpretation of Christian Scriptures, (more about that in a moment). Furthermore, Mel Gibson is part of a far-right fringe movement in Catholicism, partly surrounding the group, Opus Dei, whose founder rejects, through his writings, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of the 1960's. Part of those reforms included (finally) rejecting the notion that Jews "caused" Jesus' death. Not surprisingly, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and his priest son, Paul Scalia, are members of Opus Dei. What about those literal interpretations influencing their worldview? The non-historical and biased New Testament depicts the Jewish role in the demise of Jesus as overwhelmingly negative and culminates in the ultimate crime: deicide -- the murder of God. The NT is consistently hostile toward the Jews, while making the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, a meek patsy of the Jews. After being "forced" by the Jewish mob to sentence Jesus to death, Pilate symbolically washes his hands and proclaims: "I am not responsible for the death of this man! This is your doing. The whole crowd [the Jews] answered back: Let his blood be on our heads and the heads of our children." (Matthew 27:24-25) Historically, Pilate was a cruel and sadistic man, whom, according to Josephus Flavius, was called back to Rome by his superiors for his lawless behavior in Judea.

Paul goes out of his way to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus

In the same section of scripture where Paul, the orchestrator of the majority of Christian Scripture, while announcing his prosyletizing ploys; "To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews…to those who are without law, as without, that I might win those who are without law…I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some ," goes out of his way to blame the Jews for the death of Jesus: "[the Jews] killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us. How displeasing they are to God! How hostile they are to all men." (I Thessalonians 1) Frankly, Paul is a bit too schizophrenic for my tastes.

And the coup de grace appears in John 8:44: " You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father's desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer, " a scathing indictment against all Semitic descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

So how can a fervently naïve and eternally trusting devotee of “holy” and “divinely inspired“ words think differently? How should one feel toward a group of people whom one believes is responsible for killing his god?

So how can a fervently naïve and eternally trusting devotee of “holy” and “divinely inspired“ words think differently? How should one feel toward a group of people whom one believes is responsible for killing his god? That's Mel's dilemma. For his part, Gibson consistently affirms that he is being faithful to scripture, “just the way it happened. It's like traveling back in time and watching the events unfold exactly as they occurred…We've done the research. I'm telling the story as the Bible tells it.” (NewsMax Wires March 10 2003) We hear you Mel, but can “accurate” portrayals of The Passion prove beneficial to Jewish-Christian relations?

Among those recent callers to Jews for Judaism was a supporter from Dallas. He called because of his concern for witnessing the spectacle of 5000 people converging on the Southern Baptist Church directly across the street from where he lives. Our friend's major concern, upon hearing pre-release reviews of the rather graphic torture scene, was of an indignant mob pouring out of the church and looking for the next externally identifiable Jew to attack. I told him to remain calm – probably will never happen on these benevolent shores (not so sure about Europe, though). He should be grateful that there is no Muslim lore blaming Jews for the death of Mohammed.

I heard the story about a Pentecostal reverend somewhere in Denver who posted a sign on his church shouting the message “The Jews Killed Jesus!”
[related link]

Today, however, I heard the story about a Pentecostal reverend somewhere in Denver who posted a sign on his church shouting the message “The Jews Killed Jesus!” Fear of incitement to violence from Baptist churchgoers in Dallas is remote, but provocations emanating from fundamentalist like our Denver pastor sure sound a bit daunting, no? Regardless, I feel even these legitimate concerns are not the real problem; there is something even more sinister. And it lies with what the Jewish people represent to the world and how this film dramatically alters it to the detriment of all.

The historian Arnold Toynbee once described the Jewish people as anachronistic, a mere relic of an ancient culture. Fortunately, in recent times he has changed that assessment

I dare say that Judaism will bring a new message to the world.... to spread Judaism in its authentic form...over the whole world and human race!-- Arnold Toynbee

“ I dare say that Judaism will bring a new message to the world. Looking from the outside, it seems extraordinary that twice in the course of history the Jews have allowed outsiders to run away with their religion to spread it over the world in garbled form. I am talking, of course, of early Christianity and Islam. It is something almost comic that outsiders should seize some of the essential truths of Judaism and put them in, what must seem to the Jews, a garbled form of Judaism, and make a worldwide religion of them while the Jews themselves kept their religion to themselves.

Is not the real future of the Jews and Judaism to spread Judaism in its authentic form rather than its Christian and Moslem forms over the whole world and human race! After all, the Jews must have a more authentic form of Jewish monotheism than the Christians or Moslems have. And is that not going to be the ultimate solution of the relations between Jews and the rest of the world?”

The greatest disservice Mel has provided the world is perpetuation of the unfortunate canard of Jews perceived as money-hungry backstabbing dual loyalists of whom mankind can do nothing else but loathe.

Professor, we could not have expressed it better ourselves. The greatest disservice Mel has provided the world is perpetuation of the unfortunate canard of Jews perceived as money-hungry backstabbing dual loyalists of whom mankind can do nothing else but loathe. Contrast that with a clear thinking Quaker, John Adams, Harvard graduate and second President of the United States, said of the Jewish people:

 

“They have done more to civilize men than any other Nation. They are the most glorious Nation that ever inhabited the earth. The Romans and their Empire were but a bauble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of Mankind more, and more happily than any other Nation, ancient or modern.”

In that spirit I suggest Mel stick to safer subjects of “passion,” like simple comedies, you know, “What Do Women Want?” – and leave religion and philosophy to the scholars.