me gibson afriad jews will kill him
Mel Gibson Says Jews May Try to Kill Him
Gibson said: "He [his father] never denied the Holocaust. He just said there
were
fewer than six million."
Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame
the Holocaust on the Roman Catholic Church."
By Marcus Warren in New York
Daily Telegraph, (U.K.) Sept. 9, 2003
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/09/wmel09.xml&sec
ureRefresh=true&_requestid=209725
Mel Gibson turned on critics of his film The Passion, about Jesus
Christ, over claims that it is anti-Semitic but his language has ignited
a new controversy.
The ...actor and director said he was the target of "vehement
anti-Christian sentiment" but admitted that the row over his £16 million
self-financed film was good publicity.
In one of a series of inflammatory remarks quoted in this week's "The
New Yorker," Gibson accuses "modern secular Judaism" of trying "to blame
the Holocaust on the Roman Catholic Church."
"It's a lie. And it's revisionism," said Gibson, a follower of
Traditionalist Catholicism that still performs the Latin Tridentine
mass. "And they've been working on that one for a while."
His film, due to be released next Easter but so far without a
distributor, has been described as likely to fuel "hatred, bigotry and
anti-Semitism" by the Anti-Defamation League and has been criticized by
some Roman Catholic theologians.
Its commercial appeal is also open to question as it has been shot
entirely in Latin and Aramaic, the everyday language of Jesus and his
disciples. It is unclear whether it will be subtitled.
Its director portrays himself as caught up in a huge conflict between
"big realms that are warring and battling. You stick your head up and
you get knocked," he said.
"I didn't realise it would be so vicious. The acts against this film
started early. There is vehement anti-Christian sentiment out there and
they don't want it."
Gibson is not averse to dishing out venomous attacks of his own,
however, with one target Frank Rich, a New York Times columnist, who
implied that Gibson's father was "a Holocaust denier".
"I want to kill him," Gibson said of the columnist. "I want his
intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog."
Gibson said: "He never denied the Holocaust. He just said there were
fewer than six million."
As proof of his desire to avoid confrontation, Gibson cited his decision
to cut a scene in which Caiaphas says "his blood be on us and on our
children" soon after Pontius Pilate washes his hands of the captive
Christ.
"I wanted it in," he said. "My brother said I was wimping out if I
didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be
coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me."
+++++++++++++++++++
"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their
jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli
policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."
-- Rabbi Michael Lerner
Published on Sunday, April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times
======================
Confessions of a Philosopher:
It is not the case that a belief is worthy of respect, or is even interesting
merely because it is widely held, though that it is widely held may give one
food for thought. Of the religions I studied, the one I found least worthy of
intellectual respect was Judaism.