Klinghoffer Stays Course on Passion After Gibson Rant
I interviewed the author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, a conservative columnist for the Forward who wrote this 2003 item defending the film. In light of Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant, I’ll be asking various of those who defended the film against claims of anti-Semitism for their thoughts on whether they’ve changed their minds at all (readers’ takes are here).
Full interview, after the jump.
Given the comments attributed to Gibson, have your feelings about him changed at all, and do you think he is an anti-Semite?
Booze goes in, truth comes out. Yes, it does seem that Gibson has an anti-Semitism problem as of this past weekend. What we don’t and can’t know is whether, if he’d got drunk three years ago and been pulled over for DUI by Malibu cops, he’d also have delivered a disgusting anti-Semitic rant. Is it possible that he wasn’t an anti-Semite before making the Passion, but that the continual and deeply personal attacks on him from the ADL and the rest of the Jewish establishment affected his feelings about Jews? Yes, I would say that’s possible.
You protested the protest against “The Passion” before it came out, saying “It’s hard to believe that Gibson’s movie could be as searing as the Gospels.” I haven’t seen any evaluation from you of the movie since it came out. Have you seen it, and is it more or less searing than the Gospels, and if so/not, did viewing it change your views at all from before the movie was released?
I didn’t care for the film but it’s no more searing than the Gospels are.
Here’s a link to what I wrote after seeing it onscreen:
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=11877
If Gibson is to be taken as an anti-Semite, should that affect the way we view “The Passion”?
If the Passion wasn’t anti-Semitic when it appeared, it’s not retroactively rendered anti-Semitic as of July 2006. It’s the same film. Were Wagner’s operas anti-Semitic? No. Was Wagner an anti-Semite? Of course.
Do you feel that his recent anti-Semitic statements have any impact on your earlier arguments regarding “The Passion”?
No, my main point about the Passion at the time was that the attack on Gibson served no constructive purpose — apart, that is, from helping the ADL raise money. The film produced not one anti-Semitic incident, contrary to the alarmism of Foxman and his colleagues about Passion plays and pogroms. I think that says it all.
July 31st, 2006 at 6:59 pm
What a dishonest individual Klinghoffer is. “It does seem that Gibson has an anti-Semitism problem as of this past weekendand” “SEEM”???! And then Klinghoffer suggests that the ADL caused this antisemitism? We cannot know for sure what caused it, but Gibson has a father who is a holocaust denier, and he chose to highlight interpretations of the gospels which cast the Jews of the era in a particularly horrible light (yes, even more horrible than the gospels themselves) in making his movie. I’m no fan of Abe Foxman, but to suggest that his subsequent criticism of the film caused Gibson’s coarse and apparently quite deeply held antisemitic beliefs (as the Talmud says, booze bring out truth) is just idiotic. It is typical of the (largely religious) Jewish defenders of Republicanism that they attack (often correctly but sometimes questionably) left wing political opinions as being antisemitic and then go searching for excuses for blatant antisemitism by their right wing political bedmates. Klinghoffer is no scholar of religion or science (this guy endorses intelligent design and virtually ignored Judaism’s universalistic aspect in his last book), and after reading this I think his opinions on just about anything should not be taken seriously.
August 1st, 2006 at 9:13 am
Don’t forget to credit those of us who called it anti-Semitic at the time:
...
August 1st, 2006 at 10:36 am
The latest is an apology to the Jews from Gibson. Find it on Drudge, if you really care.
August 1st, 2006 at 10:40 am
That makes for an interesting reading.
As a side note, I would just like to bring to your attention a slight semantic error: when you say “I interviewed the author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, a conservative columnist for the Forward who wrote this 2003 item defending the film. In light of his anti-Semitic rant… ” - the “his” seems to refer to the conservative columnist, which obviously isn’t the case.
In any event, I clearly remember the Passion craze back in ‘03 or whenever that was. My take is that in general, applying the method of “follow the money” can reveal an awful lot about the subject researched. And that’s what I did when the Passionate news came out. I first started by asking myself why the anti-Semitic, pro Al-Jazeera, anti-Israel Old York Slimes was so angry at Gibson’s passion. And I asked myself the same question about “rabbi? Abe Foxman, who conducts most of his business meetings on Shabbos over surf and turf (for those of you good kosher yidden: that’s treif lobster and treif steak). Well, of course, the immediate and obvious answer is that they don’t want a resurgence of Christianity, which would run contrary to their free-sex, anti-abortion, anti-freedom, anti-gun and gay-promotion agendas. But I still wanted to ask myself: what would really benefit the NYT, ADL & Co? Keeping quiet, it seems, would serve their agenda much better -provided they actually believe what they say-; for if the Passion would really cause the blood to flow as predicted, the good old girl network would have had a double winner at their hands: dead Jews and a reason to ban Christianity, not to mention the bullion made over the big news. But apparently they weren’t so sure the angry mobs would actually charge out of theaters to butcher every Jew in the nation.
So maybe they were trying to play the reverse game: creating the anti-Jewish feelings they always try to, by constantly slamming Gibson and his film? It is very much possible, and I actually believe that this is the case.
But how did they manage to get a hold of a preview and entire scripts over seven months prior to the release? I guess Gibson felt he could use a little PR at the time. After all, how would Orthodox Jews feel if a movie about Moshe Rabeinu was released to the big screen? Do you think Catholics want their God paraded on a screen that showed, uhm, some serious schmutz just a few minutes prior? Do you think Protestants agree that the Savior belongs in a theater? I seriously doubt it. So what could ol’ McGibson do to drive the flocks to his farm, uh, I mean his film? I think leaking the information to the right place isn’t a too wild guess. I actually have a feeling that he even gave the ADL a little percent for their good PR, without which no doubt Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would have given him a bad rap. His smart salesmanship earned him a good Rock’N’Roll instead.
As for Klinghoffer clinging to Gibson’s coffers, it seems about as honest as the ADL and Gibson themselves. Sure anti-Semitism is a contagious virus, which can be contracted just like HIV, in the blink of an eye. But Klinghoffer doesn’t just blink his eyes, he keeps them shut tight.
I wish he’d do the same with his mouth.
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Hey Mel, check out all the “ ” because I don’t believe a word you say…
Listen diva. When are you gonna get real? All of your f’in interviews are constructed, remembered. You know NOTHING of sobriety you f’in fake. Sobriety, I said. Good living, right living. You, like most fakes, just want to maintain as long as you need to make a few extra bucks—because you are too chicken shit to end the life that you believe is worthless. Fuck you. While we are struggling to get spiritual and REAL with no fucking fame OR fortune, you: asshole, are trying to blame some kind of torture that you are going through for your “woes” and demanding a population to forgive you for your mishaps. Fuck you, they aren’t mishaps, they are REAL opinions that you MEL, have evolved to. And THAT (meaning those extreme “movies”) is what you try to offer as some kind of consolation for your bad behavior. You are just the product that England has been embarrassed about for centuries. “HOW ARE YOU WALKING THE LIFE?!” FAKE!
November 30th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
What would the world be like without Mel Gibson.
His passion for life makes me smile from the
deepest places in my heart.
We should all be so crazy as to care enough not to
become complacent and politically correct.
Humanity has never been about perfection but there in lies
the beauty of life its the passion not perfection that saves us from ourselves.
Hurray Mel keep them talking.