Gibson’s Christ film under fire from Jews

REPRESENTATIVES of two Jewish groups who attended screenings of Mel Gibson’s forthcoming film, The Passion of the Christ, said it contained offensive stereotypes about the Jewish role in the crucifixion.

The American Jewish Committee, which sent its interfaith experts to church screenings in Florida and Illinois, said yesterday that the movie contained “unnecessary and destructive imagery of Jews” and “represents a disturbing setback” to relations between Jews and Christians.

National director of the Jewish rights group Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman, who has accused Gibson of holding anti-Semitic views, saw the film on Wednesday night in Florida. He said it is an “unambiguous portrayal of Jews as being responsible for the death of Jesus”.

Gibson, who directed, funded and co-scripted the film, has repeatedly denied that his movie maligns Jews.

Jewish groups have been worried that Gibson’s script would ignore modern teaching by the Roman Catholic Church and many other denominations that Jews were not collectively responsible for Christ’s death. The notion of Jewish guilt fuelled anti-Semitism for centuries.

An article about the film in The New Yorker magazine last September indicated that Gibson would keep a biblical verse out that upsets Jews and has been used to justify anti-Semitism: “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25). That verse was not included in a version of the film reporters saw last month.

But the Jewish groups’ representatives say the verse is now in the film. The film is scheduled to be released on Ash Wednesday, February 25.