Cantor's Corner by Eric Schulmiller

In the early 1960’s, the Catholic Church convened the Second Vatican Council, which produced landmark decisions concerning forms of worship, and groundbreaking advances in Jewish-Christian relations, namely the statement that not all Jews then or now were responsible for the death of Jesus. This lead to further positive developments by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that went even further in documenting what was, and what was not appropriate in depictions of such historically anti-semitic productions as the Passion. These positive steps culminated at the turn of the millennium with Pope John Paul II’s dramatic efforts at reconciliation for the Church’s past sins against the Jewish community at large.

With both Easter and Pesach approaching, and Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of The Christ” standing to earn more money than all the Lethal Weapon movies combined, I would love to be able to say that after viewing the film with an open mind, I came away at least inspired by an artistic vision of a seminal event in Christian history. Unfortunately, from a cinematic perspective, this movie has more in common with Wes Craven and Bruckheimer/Bay than Scorcese (or even DeMille). And after witnessing the reaction (or lack thereof) from the mainstream Christian community, I feel we all will have a lot of work to do to recover from this major step backward from Vatican II.

From a Jewish perspective, this film is a ghastly hodgepodge of anti-Jewish/Semitic tropes - “lowlights” included: Money-hungry, bloodthirsty Jews of all shapes & sizes, a Pilate who could not possibly be more sympathetic if we were still under Roman rule, a campy, deviant King Herod, an evil High Priest who is willing to defy the Torah’s prohibition on priestly proximity to a dead body to gloat by the dying Jesus’ feet, and even the infamous line from Matthew – “May his blood be upon us and upon our children!” True, if I hadn’t taken Aramaic at Hebrew Union College I would never have picked that up, but wait until the DVD or overseas versions come out! I’m sure the line will be subtitled by then. The few “positives”? The Virgin Mary quoting the Maxwell House Hagaddah (“Ma nishtana halayla ha zeh?”), the cross-bearing Simon (with a big neon “sympathetic Jew” sign around his neck), and the wonderfully spoken Aramaic which at least places Jesus in the linguistic, if not cultural and religious context of his fellow Jews.

Many of these anti-semitic instances are not even documented in the New Testament, but are based on the writings of a notoriously anti-semitic 19^th century nun. And Mr. Gibson seemed to pick and choose the most anti-Jewish passages from each Gospel as he assembled this film – in direct violation of the Catholic Church’s doctrine on dramatic depictions of the Passion. Not only does Mr. Gibson not recognize current papal authority, but scoffs at a century of New Testament scholarship that shows that these anti-Jewish sentiments were an effect of the political and socio-religious climate of the early Jewish-Christians who wrote the Gospels, and therefore were not true to the original message or history of Jesus, who lived his life in a thoroughly Jewish context and with almost entirely Jewish followers. What is most distressing is that Icon Productions has managed to manipulate Mel Gibson’s assault on the post-1960’s Catholic Church as a battle of Christian vs. Jew, instead of ultra-orthodox Catholic vs. mainstream Catholic.

From a Christian perspective – well, I can’t speak to this - but James Caroll, whose masterpiece “Constantine’s Sword” ought to be a required companion piece (along with The Life of Brian) to this movie, called it “obscene,” and even the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who frustratingly seemed to have turned the other cheek at Gibson’s betrayal of Vatican authority, said the movie has “muted Christ’s teachings” since the “how” of Christ’s death is lingered on at the expense of the “why?”

So, that’s just one cantor’s perspective. We can only hope the interfaith dialogue inspired by this movie will outlast the negative effects this unfortunate film may engender.