Soccer Dad

Sean Hannity and Mel Gibson

I was disappointed with Mel Gibson on the Sean Hannity show last Tuesday. Eager to dispel the notiong that the movie "The Passion ..." was antisemitic, Sean prompted Gibson to say that the movie was based on the Gospels and that its critics hadn't seen the movie. (They did not address the 3rd issue as to whether the movie was likely to inflame antisemitism while I was listening.)
The problem is that not all of Gibson's (and the movie's) critics didn't see the movie. Also not everything in the movie was taken from the Gospels. (Gibson in the interview admits to taking 'artistic' liberties with the movie.
In his accusation that the movie was indeed antisemitic, Charles Krauthammer couldn't be dismissed as not having seen it. His harshest charge against Gibson is about Gibson's portrayal of Satan among the Jews. Since these scenes were nowhere in the Gospels, Krauthammer argued that it tarred all Jews by having them associated with Satan. (See "Gibson's Blood Libel"
Alas Sean didn't ask Gibson to address Krauthammer's accusation.
But this was the problem with much of the early criticism of the movie. It allowed Gibson to retreat into a defensive mode and act more sinned against than sinning. This was a problem the Jonathan Rosenblum identified in his "Passion and the Tar Baby". Rosenblum thought it better for Jewish organizations to quietly build support in the Christian community to prevent any negative reactions toward Jews based on the movie. He, in fact, praised the Simon Wiesenthal center for taking such an approach.
Since I haven't seen the movie, not am I likely to, I can't say whether or not it's antisemitic. But I can observe that Jewish and Christian writers have differed quite sharply on the content of the movie. Or more precisely on how they view the content of the movie. (And this is somthing of a generalization.)
Jewish writers (even those like Jeff Jacoby who wrote that the movie wasn't antisemitic) focused on the violence and didn't much like it. Christian writers saw the violence often as a thing of beauty.
The reason for this divergence is one of the central points of departure between Judaism and Christianity. In Christianity, salvation comes through belief. It is the belief that God sacrificed his son as atonement for all sins as a sign of His love for all humanity. The greater the pain of Jesus, the greater love is evident in his (and God's) sacrifice.
But Judaism has no such belief. Judaism believes that a person is punished for his own sins and must repent on that basis.
Sin and forgiveness are not the only points of departure. The fundamental beliefs of each religion are mutually exclusive. A Christian believes that there's a new covenant between God and mankind. A Jew believes that the original covenant is still operational.
Donald Sensing in his "My Last Passion Post" quotes another essay and adds his confirmation:

Your observation that Christians and Jews seem to be viewing two different movies on the same screen is a good one. From my conversations with a few other Jews, it is obvious to me that Jews almost instinctively identify many threads of anti-Semitism that pass right by most Christians. I have either posted or linked to identifications of many of these elements in past posts.

From everything I read, most Christian who viewed the movie focused strictly on the nature of salvation and paid no attention to what Jews would find objectionable.
There is however one person who can't make that claim: Mel Gibson.
Gibson defends himself in part by an appeal to the notion that everyone is responsible for the death of Jesus and that the events leading to his death were pre-ordained. The Jews were only actors in the drama with no choice but to play the role "written" for them. But I don't buy it. As Krauthammer noted:

Gibson contradicts his own literalist defense when he speaks of his right to present his artistic vision. Artistic vision means personal interpretation.

But there's another reason to question Gibson's motives and that is the film is being distributed in the Islamic world. Perhaps if it were being shown only in Lebanon, I could understand it because of the Christian population in Lebanon. But in Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Ramallah? (Egypt has a Coptic minority, but I don't think that's whose asking to see the film. ) The Muslim world - unlike the Christian world - still promotes a medieval form of antisemitism. Consider that a year and a half ago Egypt celebrated the holy month of Ramadan with a blood libelous mini-series "A Knight without a Horse" based on the "Protocols of the Elder of Zion." The target audiences of "The Passion" in the Muslim world are not going for a greater appreciation of salvation, they'll be going to see the way Jews killed a prophet of God. (Which is what Jesus was in Islam.)
I am not willing to condemn Mel Gibson's movie. But taking his artistic interpretation along with his decision to distribute the movie in the most antisemitic region in the world, I think, condemns him and, at least, makes his motives suspect.
(Note: I know that Arafat has declared that the film is not antisemitic. I guess I have to abide by his judgment. He knows the subject quite well.)

Posted by SoccerDad at March 23, 2004 1:15 PM