IS HE TRYING TO MAKE ABE FOXMAN'S HEAD EXPLODE?:

A 'Passion' for the Holocaust? (NATHAN BURSTEIN, Dec. 8, 2005, , THE JERUSALEM POST)

A production company owned by accused anti-Semite Mel Gibson is developing a TV miniseries about the Holocaust, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Con Artists Productions, Gibson's television production company, has been brought in by American TV network ABC to produce the miniseries, though Gibson's precise role in the project is not yet clear.

One of Hollywood's most bankable stars over the past two decades, Gibson ignited one of the film industry's most acrimonious controversies last year with The Passion of the Christ, a film some critics and Jewish groups accused of promoting anti-Semitic interpretations of Jesus' crucifixion. The controversy helped launch the film to massive box office success and makes Gibson's production company a surprise choice to produce the new miniseries, which will be based on the story of Flory A. Van Beek, a Dutch Jew who spent the Holocaust in hiding but lost family members in the Nazi camps. After surviving the sinking of a passenger liner torpedoed by a German submarine, Van Beek and her husband returned to Holland, where they spent three years in hiding with the help of three Christian families. [...]

[L]anguage was hardly the only distinctive feature of The Passion, which earned condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League and some religious scholars for its graphic rendering of Jesus' final hours on earth, during which he suffers gruesome beatings and is nailed to the cross with the seeming approval of his fellow Jews. Gibson denied any anti-Semitic intentions behind the film's production, saying that the script was written merely to provide viewers with an accurate sense of Jesus' suffering and martyrdom.

Opponents of the film criticized its portrayal of its Jewish characters and said they feared it would add to a resurgence in global anti-Semitism.

Happily, no one will care if this series leads to a resurgence in global anti-Germanism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 8, 2005 8:23 AM