FIRE! YELLED THE ARSONIST

Calif. Rabbi Says 'Passion' Already Fueling Hatred (Reuters, 8/12/03)

Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, told Reuters the Jewish human rights organization had received dozens of hate calls and letters prompted by a handful of private screenings and advance publicity about the movie. [...]

Representatives of the Anti-Defamation League saw the movie in a private screening and the League said on Monday that if it was released in its present form it could "fuel the hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism that many responsible churches have worked hard to repudiate." [...]

But Hier said the bigotry had already started, and that the Simon Wiesenthal Center had received hate mail from people who had seen or heard about the movie, and who accused Jews of killing God's son, praised Adolf Hitler and made veiled threats against the center and Jews collectively.

He's spent months fueling the hatred by accusing Mel Gibson of an anti-Semitic act and trying to prevent the release of a film about the Crucifixion, the central event in the faith of two billion people, and he's surprised he's getting hate mail? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2003 7:34 PM