Abraham Foxman is not the only Jew who believes that The Passion of the Christ is like dynamite, and that certain issues must be very carefully handled. Is it political correctness to be aware of how a story has produced an unfortunate 2000 year history, and as a result to be careful not to add unnecessarily to the part of the story that could be perceived to build on that tradition? 

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center spoke calmly about this on Dennis Miller's show a couple of nights ago. Other talk shows had Jackie Mason, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and others seriously debating the history of passion plays, and the charge of deicide and the connection of this history to this movie. Serious people can disagree about the protrayals in the movie, without being mean—spirited.

 
I have not seen the movie yet.  But I do not fear it. Personally, I do not think we need to be concerned about American pogroms by Christian believers. The fact that America is a much more religious (and tolerant) country than those in Europe is one of America's strengths, and is one of the primary reasons why Jews have fared so much better here than there.

Nazi paganism killed the Jews in the holocaust, not Christianity. Dennis Prager has said that traditional Jews have much more in common with religious Christians, than with secular Jews or secular Christians.  When the Nazis went after the Jews of Europe, they could find many of them easily. Outside of Germany's most sophisticated cities, they did not just fit in like today's safe "Bobo" Jews can in their latte towns and urban hangouts. 

 
Those secularists jumping in to protect the Jews from Mel Gibson, would never defend Israel, and don't care much about Christians condemned to brutality, or slavery by Muslims in Africa. The real problem for many of those who don't like this movie without having seen it, is that it has a strong appeal for people they regard as aliens — religious Christians.  It also drives some of these people nuts that religious Christians who are drawn to this movie, find very strong spiritual and political connections between America and Israel. This is very threatening in particular to the "progressive" Jewish camp. The phenomenon of Jews peeling away to vote Republican is viewed the same way as converting to Christianity, since the real religion of  many "progressive Jews" tends not to be  Judaism, but secular liberalism.

 
It has been very interesting to read the commentaries of those Christians on the Lucianne.com website who have seen the movie. The pre—movie controversy about possible anti—Semitism  in The Passion, has, if anything,  appeared to better sensitize many Christian viewers  to Jewish history, and the danger of the deicide charge.

But I do not in any way fault Jewish groups or leaders for being concerned about how the story of Jesus' crucifixion, or the four gospels is portrayed.  Jews are allowed to be nervous. History demands it. But in my opinion, Jews (and all Americans) have much more to fear from radical Muslims hijacking airplanes and crashing them into tall buildings, than with Christians in America  being more drawn to their faith by this movie.

Posted by Richard  02 27 04