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No, he isn't, but his movie The Passion is being labelled as anti-semitic. Also, he has a running feud with the Vatican now about whether the Pope gave the movie a thumb up.
2 Jewish Leaders Upset After Viewing 'Passion'
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: January 23, 2004
wo of the nation's most prominent Jewish leaders said yesterday that they had watched recent versions of Mel Gibson's unreleased movie "The Passion of the Christ" and found it anti-Semitic and incendiary in the way it depicted the role of the Jews in Jesus's death.
One said he was angered that a scene he and other Jewish leaders had found particularly offensive remained in the version of the movie he saw, though Mr. Gibson had once said publicly he would remove it.
The leaders — Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York — have been critical of the movie during the last year as scripts and versions of the film have leaked out. But until recently neither man had seen the movie because Mr. Gibson and his company, Icon Productions, had declined to provide them with a copy or to allow them into special screenings.
Rabbi Hier said yesterday that he had seen a version of the movie provided to him several weeks ago by a friend, whom he would not identify. Mr. Foxman said that he saw the movie on Wednesday night, sneaking into a screening for pastors and other religious leaders held at a large church near Orlando, Fla. Mr. Gibson answered questions after the screening, Mr. Foxman said.
While it is not known whether the version either man watched will be the final cut, Rabbi Hier and Mr. Foxman said they were angered and saddened that Mr. Gibson, despite his insistence that the movie is not anti-Semitic, had included many scenes that place the blame for the Crucifixion squarely on the Jews, not the Romans.
Mr. Foxman said that he respected Mr. Gibson's religious convictions and believed that artistically "he is a genius," but felt that the film, at least in the version he watched, would fan anti-Semitism and would set back the dialogue between Jews and Christians by decades.
"Do I think it will trigger pogroms? I don't think it will," he said. "But will it strengthen and legitimize anti-Semitic feelings? Yes, it will."
Rabbi Hier said he was "horrified" by the movie, which he said depicted all Jews, except those who were Jesus's followers, as villainous, with dark beards and eyes, "like Rasputin."
A spokesman for Mr. Gibson, Alan Nierob, said he would not comment on the criticisms, other than to say, "The filmmakers completely respect these gentlemen's right of freedom of expression, and expect the same in return." He said that Mr. Gibson was still working on the film and was unavailable to comment. The film is to be released nationwide on Feb. 25, which is Ash Wednesday.
Mr. Foxman said that in one scene in the version he watched, the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring, of the Crucifixion: "His blood be on us, and on our children." In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 27, Verse 25, the only place in the Bible in which that statement appears, it is said to come from a crowd of Jews shouting for Jesus's death. The message of that passage, that the Jewish people were guilty of deicide, was repudiated by the Second Vatican Council. Mr. Gibson practices a traditionalist form of Roman Catholicism that does not recognize the changes of Vatican II.
In an article in The New Yorker last year, Mr. Gibson said he had decided, with some regrets, to cut the scene in which the high priest makes the statement. If he had left it in, he told the magazine, critics of his depiction of the Jews would "be coming after me at my house; they'd come to kill me."
But in the version of the movie that Mr. Foxman saw, a version that is also being screened for specially selected audiences in Chicago and Dallas, the scene remained. Rabbi Hier said the scene was not in the version he saw several weeks ago.
Rabbi James Rudin, senior inter-religious adviser for the American Jewish Committee, saw the movie in August in Houston at a screening for Jewish and Christian leaders, and then saw it again on Wednesday, when he openly attended the screening near Orlando, at Calvary Assembly in Winter Park.
He said it was "highly disturbing" to discover that the scene depicting the verse from Matthew, which was not in the version he saw in August, had been re-inserted. He said that even the most noxious Passion plays omit that verse, which he called "the religious taproot for what has become the blood libel, and collective guilt and the charge of deicide against the Jews."
Mr. Nierob said that the film was being edited and that he did not know if the version being screened for large groups around the country was close to the final version or whether the scene involving the high priest would be kept.
The movie's distributor, Newmarket Films, says it plans an initial release on 2,000 screens and has called the flood of ticket requests "a tsunami."
Mr. Foxman said that at the Winter Park screening audience members were asked to sign an agreement that, according to a copy he read to a reporter over the telephone, required them to keep confidential their "exposure, knowledge and opinions of the film" and of a question-and-answer session with Mr. Gibson. But the agreement, as read by Mr. Foxman, added that "pastors and church leaders are free to speak out in support of the movie and your opinions resulting from today's exposure to this project and its producer."
Mr. Foxman said he did not sign the agreement. He said he had initially felt bad about sneaking into the showing, but later changed his mind. "I decided yesterday, `Why am I uncomfortable? Let him be uncomfortable,' " he said, referring to Mr. Gibson. "For him to say, `You can only see it if you love it?' I felt it was my moral duty to see it."
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: January 23, 2004
wo of the nation's most prominent Jewish leaders said yesterday that they had watched recent versions of Mel Gibson's unreleased movie "The Passion of the Christ" and found it anti-Semitic and incendiary in the way it depicted the role of the Jews in Jesus's death.
One said he was angered that a scene he and other Jewish leaders had found particularly offensive remained in the version of the movie he saw, though Mr. Gibson had once said publicly he would remove it.
The leaders — Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, and Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York — have been critical of the movie during the last year as scripts and versions of the film have leaked out. But until recently neither man had seen the movie because Mr. Gibson and his company, Icon Productions, had declined to provide them with a copy or to allow them into special screenings.
Rabbi Hier said yesterday that he had seen a version of the movie provided to him several weeks ago by a friend, whom he would not identify. Mr. Foxman said that he saw the movie on Wednesday night, sneaking into a screening for pastors and other religious leaders held at a large church near Orlando, Fla. Mr. Gibson answered questions after the screening, Mr. Foxman said.
While it is not known whether the version either man watched will be the final cut, Rabbi Hier and Mr. Foxman said they were angered and saddened that Mr. Gibson, despite his insistence that the movie is not anti-Semitic, had included many scenes that place the blame for the Crucifixion squarely on the Jews, not the Romans.
Mr. Foxman said that he respected Mr. Gibson's religious convictions and believed that artistically "he is a genius," but felt that the film, at least in the version he watched, would fan anti-Semitism and would set back the dialogue between Jews and Christians by decades.
"Do I think it will trigger pogroms? I don't think it will," he said. "But will it strengthen and legitimize anti-Semitic feelings? Yes, it will."
Rabbi Hier said he was "horrified" by the movie, which he said depicted all Jews, except those who were Jesus's followers, as villainous, with dark beards and eyes, "like Rasputin."
A spokesman for Mr. Gibson, Alan Nierob, said he would not comment on the criticisms, other than to say, "The filmmakers completely respect these gentlemen's right of freedom of expression, and expect the same in return." He said that Mr. Gibson was still working on the film and was unavailable to comment. The film is to be released nationwide on Feb. 25, which is Ash Wednesday.
Mr. Foxman said that in one scene in the version he watched, the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring, of the Crucifixion: "His blood be on us, and on our children." In the Gospel of St. Matthew, Chapter 27, Verse 25, the only place in the Bible in which that statement appears, it is said to come from a crowd of Jews shouting for Jesus's death. The message of that passage, that the Jewish people were guilty of deicide, was repudiated by the Second Vatican Council. Mr. Gibson practices a traditionalist form of Roman Catholicism that does not recognize the changes of Vatican II.
In an article in The New Yorker last year, Mr. Gibson said he had decided, with some regrets, to cut the scene in which the high priest makes the statement. If he had left it in, he told the magazine, critics of his depiction of the Jews would "be coming after me at my house; they'd come to kill me."
But in the version of the movie that Mr. Foxman saw, a version that is also being screened for specially selected audiences in Chicago and Dallas, the scene remained. Rabbi Hier said the scene was not in the version he saw several weeks ago.
Rabbi James Rudin, senior inter-religious adviser for the American Jewish Committee, saw the movie in August in Houston at a screening for Jewish and Christian leaders, and then saw it again on Wednesday, when he openly attended the screening near Orlando, at Calvary Assembly in Winter Park.
He said it was "highly disturbing" to discover that the scene depicting the verse from Matthew, which was not in the version he saw in August, had been re-inserted. He said that even the most noxious Passion plays omit that verse, which he called "the religious taproot for what has become the blood libel, and collective guilt and the charge of deicide against the Jews."
Mr. Nierob said that the film was being edited and that he did not know if the version being screened for large groups around the country was close to the final version or whether the scene involving the high priest would be kept.
The movie's distributor, Newmarket Films, says it plans an initial release on 2,000 screens and has called the flood of ticket requests "a tsunami."
Mr. Foxman said that at the Winter Park screening audience members were asked to sign an agreement that, according to a copy he read to a reporter over the telephone, required them to keep confidential their "exposure, knowledge and opinions of the film" and of a question-and-answer session with Mr. Gibson. But the agreement, as read by Mr. Foxman, added that "pastors and church leaders are free to speak out in support of the movie and your opinions resulting from today's exposure to this project and its producer."
Mr. Foxman said he did not sign the agreement. He said he had initially felt bad about sneaking into the showing, but later changed his mind. "I decided yesterday, `Why am I uncomfortable? Let him be uncomfortable,' " he said, referring to Mr. Gibson. "For him to say, `You can only see it if you love it?' I felt it was my moral duty to see it."
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