NOT KNOWING YOUR ENEMIES FROM YOUR ALLIES:

American Christians Don't Threaten Jews: Critics of "The Passion" look for anti-Semitism in all the wrong places. (ARYEH SPERO, April 5, 2004, Wall Street Journal)

Record-breaking multitudes over a span of many weeks have now viewed Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" in every major and far-flung U.S. locale, and not one American synagogue has been torched or Jewish cemetery vandalized by the Christian faithful who have seen the movie. Having been forewarned that in medieval Europe, passion plays and Easter sermons roused the public to immediate pillaging of Jews and their property, Americans should be proud that the warnings by Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League of anti-Semitic outbreaks did not materialize here.

I never had any doubts, since it has been obvious for decades that American Christianity embodies a warm and symbiotic attachment to the Jewish religion, believing as it does in a Judeo-Christian ethic with strong, literal emphasis on the Old Testament. Such did not prevail in pre-World War II Europe, which viewed the Jewish religion as basically illegitimate. Moreover, Americans, in contrast to Europeans, have repeatedly shown themselves to be philo-Semitic. In America, Jews are not considered "outsiders."

And herein lies one of the most disheartening but salient observations one is forced to make, post-"Passion," about many in the Jewish community: They still don't get it. Even after more than two charmed centuries in America, they confuse contemporary America with medieval and postmedieval Europe, still not realizing how America and American Christians are a category wholly different from those of other nations, other religions and other strains of Christianity. [...]

Anti-Semitism is a real problem in the world today, but it mostly arises from the Muslim world and the political left. It's easy to attack American Christians, schooled on love and forbearance, who will never requite these attacks with any sort of comparable intensity. It takes real bravery to confront the anti-Semitism of militant Islamists and left-wingers who have been inclined to physical violence.

The Muslim world may well use this Christian film to depict Jews as evil and further their anti-Jewish propaganda. They do so steadily with the fictitious and European-based Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and every week some state-sponsored Egyptian newspaper carries editorial cartoons depicting Jews as apes, devils, Nazis. Last week Reuters reported that " 'The Passion of the Christ' is all the rage among Palestinians, curious about complaints by Jews that it is anti-Semitic." Likewise in much of Europe, predisposed as it is to Jew-hatred, the movie may stir continued demonization of Jews.

In contrast, American Christian leaders will continue to use this as an opportunity to show friendship to the Jewish community, ignoring the taunts of Abe Foxman and the vulgarities of Frank Rich. To be sure, even in America there will be occasional incidents of anti-Semitism, as there were before the film, but in a nation of almost 300 million, they will be statistically insignificant.

The heads of American Jewish organizations ignited this world-wide controversy by implying that American Christians are but one movie away from attacking their Jewish neighbors. Now that the evidence is in, will they apologize?

The Holocaust means never having to say you're sorry.

MORE:
-The Passion of the Christ -- Three Reviews and a Letter (Orson Scott Card February 29, 2004, Rhinoceros Times))

Pious films are usually embarrassingly bad -- one thinks of Richard Gere prancing around in a diaper in the mercifully forgotten King David -- primarily because the attempt to inspire and the need to be true to the source material are often incompatible with each other, and both interfere with the requirements of art and entertainment.

Director and co-writer Mel Gibson's artistic achievement in The Passion of the Christ would have been noteworthy had the film been merely adequate, as art or entertainment. Instead, it is superb; I believe that it is, in every way that matters, perfect. [...]

But Jesus' life is well-known, in outline at least, even to nonbelievers; and to believers, every word of dialogue, every single event, is expected.

So the real surprise is how much Gibson was able to step away from the literal filming-of-the-gospels and insert his own (or co-writer Benedict Fitzgerald's) brilliant interpretations, augmentations, and allegorizations.

The most obvious such fictionalization is the way the film depicts Satan. I was astonished, after the fact, to find that Satan was played by a woman, Rosalinda Celentano. But the way Satan is presented, his face a mockery of tenderness and concern, surrounded by images of maggots, serpents, decay, deformity, I could not imagine a better depiction. And when we see, at the point of Christ's death, Satan in the midst of desolation, defeated, it gives the film meaning and resonance that would not have been there had we seen nothing more than the torture and death of Jesus' body.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 18, 2004 8:39 AM