Anti-Semitism and False Alarms

Although repercussions may extend far into the future, we can now get a measure of critical distance from the extraordinary religious and cultural moment that is Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and the responses to it. One welcomes, therefore, the reflection of David Berger of Brooklyn College, writing in Commentary, “Jews, Christians, and ‘The Passion.’” Berger gets off on the right foot by noting, as have many others, that people generally take from the film what they bring to it. “Despite its powerful cinematic effects, this is a film whose capacity to move depends in large measure on the viewer’s ability to identify with Jesus of Nazareth for reasons that are not presented in the film itself. If you come with love and admiration for its hero, and all the more so if you come with faith in his divinity and his supreme self-sacrifice, every lash, every nail, every drop of blood will tear at your psyche.” Berger, as a Jew, did not bring such beliefs to the film and therefore left it “curiously unmoved.”

He is moved, however, to deplore Christian literalists who defend the film as being faithful to history and the gospel texts, as well as Orthodox Jews who defend such literalism and the film more generally. Christians who took high school classes to see the film with all its brutality are guilty of what is “perhaps, indeed, a form of child abuse.” Berger does not say outright that the film is anti-Semitic but observes, “No filmmaker who actually cared about avoiding anti-Semitism could have produced anything resembling it.” He does not believe that the film “was made with the conscious purpose of fomenting hatred against Jews.” He is exercised that the film does not abide by guidelines issued by the Catholic bishops conference for presenting the passion, although he knows full well that the bishops did not sponsor and had no control over the film. Berger expresses sympathy for the judgment of another Jewish critic who said, “The solid bridge of trust Jews thought they had with the Catholic Church now lies exposed as merely a drawbridge, readily placed in raised position when it is most needed.”

Perhaps Berger fails to appreciate that Catholics viewed the film in order to witness and enter into the suffering and death of their Lord, not to check out its conformity to episcopal statements on Jewish-Christian relations. It seems more than likely that, in viewing the film, even those with a long-standing commitment to Jewish-Christian dialogue had Jesus, not Jews, on their mind and, despite the film’s nonobservance of dialogical protocols, were deeply moved. In his judicious conclusion, Berger writes, “If amity is to prevail, traditionalist Christians will have to force themselves to understand that reasonable people have grounds for genuine concern about this movie, that its critics do not necessarily hate them, and that some like them very much indeed.” He also urges Jews to be patient with evangelical Protestants, whose political support is so crucial to the safety and well-being of the State of Israel.

It is true that critics of the film do not, as Berger says, necessarily hate Christianity and Christians. It is also true that many of them apparently do. Among the critics in the major newspapers and magazines who wrote from a specifically Jewish perspective, the film was repeatedly and venomously attacked as pornographic, as an exercise in sado-masochism, and, in several instances, as a “sacred snuff film.” Leon Wieseltier of the New Republic used the film as an occasion to repeat what can only be described as his standard rant against the grotesque absurdity of Christianity and the fools who believe it. The Anti-Defamation League gave us to understand that American Christians are latent anti-Semites who are only waiting for an excuse, which The Passion provides, to go out and kill Jews. The amity for which David Berger and all of us must hope will likely survive the shock to Christians in learning that many Jews have nothing but fear and loathing for their religion and, by extension, for them. At the same time, the relish with which prominent Jews indulged the teaching of contempt for Christianity and Christians bears witness to the Jewish sense of security in this overwhelmingly Christian society. Hysterical allegations to the contrary, such Jews obviously do not believe that Christians want to do them harm. And they are, thank God, right about that.

One long-term consequence of attacks on The Passion will be, almost certainly, a general discounting of the charge of anti-Semitism. The next time the ADL and others raise the alarm about anti-Semitism, the response of most Christians and many Jews is likely to be dismissive. “Ah yes, that’s what they said about The Passion, isn’t it?” Animus will have to rise to the undeniably explicit level of swastikas painted on synagogues for most Americans to acknowledge that, yes, on the far margins of society there is still such a thing as anti-Semitism. The debasing of concern about anti-Semitism is a pity. As we see in Europe today, anti-Judaism, frequently in the form of modern anti-Semitism, still poses a threat to which we must be alert. Unfortunately, and largely as a result of Jewish reactions to The Passion, most Americans will be inclined to believe that every alarm about anti-Semitism is a false alarm.