Soccer Dad

Fruits of Passion

I have not seen "The Passion of the Christ," nor do I have any intention of doing so. I do not feel qualified to judge the movie for its content. However, Jeff Jacoby did see the movie and did weigh in on it.

I failed in part because I am not a Christian but a believing Jew. I don't believe that Jesus was God come to earth in human form -- I believe that God is one, incorporeal and indivisible. To me, the Passion is not a manifestation of divine love but a vicious and evil ordeal inflicted on a victim who didn't deserve it. As a Jew I cannot look at the savage murder of an innocent man as anything but a grievous sin. And as a Jew, I could not watch a movie about the crucifixion of Jesus and not be aware of all the other Jews, scores of thousands of them, who also died on Roman crosses.

Jacoby hit the nail on the head here. Judaism has no concept of someone being punished for someone else's sins. Jews are discomfited by Mel Gibson's "Passion" in part because it illustrates a theological concept that is alien to Jewish belief.
The other reason that Jews are uncomfortable with "Passion" is the history of Passion plays:

But there is no getting around the fact that the parts of "The Passion" that are the most unflattering to Jews -- the bloody-minded and hateful Temple priests, the Judean mob howling for Jesus' death -- come straight out of the Gospels. I shudder at those depictions and reject them as historically false, but I cannot call a Christian anti-Semitic for believing in the truth of his Bible. I will not smear Gibson as a Jew-hater.

But neither will I pretend that he is unaware of the long and horrid history of Passion plays or of the millions of Jews who died at the hands of killers demonizing them as "Christ killers." It is not unreasonable to worry about the effect of a movie like "The Passion" at a time of surging anti-Semitism.

It is a point that Thomas Hibbs also makes in his praise of the movie:

Of course, the theological and artistic merits of the film remain under a cloud because of charges that the film is anti-Semitic. Despite the progress that has been made in Jewish-Christian relations during the current papacy, the tragic history of Christian anti-Semitism is undeniable. Indeed, medieval Passion Plays occasioned attacks on Jews and Hitler was a fan of the Passion Play at Oberammergau, which he praised for its convincing portrayal of the "menace of Jewry," although it is interesting that the character Hitler finds most admirable in the Passion Play is not Jesus, but Pilate.

I will accept Jacoby's judgment that "Passion" is not antisemitic. But that doesn't mean that I can't be uncomfortable with the movie.
The Washington Post criticized Mel Gibson, but I find myself unconvinced that it's really concerned about Jews.

And one has to worry as well how such a movie might inflame prejudice in countries where anti-Semitism has not been as decisively rejected as it has been here.

Except if we go back to April 2002 we find an editorial in the Post criticizing Israel for attacking the Palestinian Authority's civilian ministries:

That seems a worthy goal, and to some a valid comparison -- and yet it doesn't explain why Israeli troops would have raided and deliberately destroyed the civilian ministries of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. At the Ministry of Higher Education, the Israelis stripped all the computers of their hard drives, then piled them together and blew them up. They also destroyed Palestinian television studios, knocked down radio antennas and looted Palestinian banks. Perhaps some of these acts were carried out by undisciplined troops. But the pattern of destruction also suggests a crucial distinction between Israel's campaign and that of the United States. Both invasions are aimed at crushing terrorist organizations that have carried out savage attacks on innocent civilians. But Israel also has another target: the Palestinian national movement, which aims at ending the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and creating a Palestinian state in its place.

The problem is that every institution of the Palestinian Authority was used to promote hatred of Israel and Jews. The textbooks used in the PA schools were designed to teach hatred of Jews. And the media reinforced those lessons when children came home. It's disingenuous to imply that the "Palestinian national movement" that Israel targeted is some benign ideology. It represents an ideology that denies a Jewish connection to the land of Israel and blames Jews for many of the evils of the world. And the PA made sure that this ideology was transmitted to its citizens pervasively. There was nothing here for the Post to condemn, if the Post is so concerned about how Jews are perceived.
Rather, I think that the Post was more concerned with Gibson's Christian beliefs. However uncomfortable Jews might be with the movie, it is but one medium. I doubt by itself it will lead to the death or injury of anyone. The same cannot be said for for the PA's education and media.

Posted by SoccerDad at February 26, 2004 1:44 PM