ADL director calls
Gibson 'anti-Semite'

The controversy over Mel Gibson's "The Passion," an epic film about the last 12 hours of Christ's life, has ratcheted up a notch with the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, calling the actor-director an "anti-Semite."

"Recent statements by Mel Gibson paint the portrait of an anti-Semite," Foxman told The Jewish Week.

Gibson has been the target of widespread criticism for his portrayal of Jews in the film, even though very few people have actually seen the movie. "The Passion," according to Gibson's critics, portrays Jews in a way that could fuel anti-Semitism.

Foxman's latest comment contradicts earlier statements he made to the New Yorker magazine recently. In that interview, he said he did not believe either Gibson or the film is anti-Semitic.

''The film can fuel, trigger, stimulate, induce, rationalize, legitimize anti-Semitism,'' said Foxman. ''You know, the Gospels, if taken literally, can be very damaging, in the same way if you take the Old Testament literally.''

But this week Foxman said Gibson is spouting "classic anti-Semitism."

"There's no longer a debate where [Mel Gibson] is coming from," Foxman told the weekly. "He is a true believer that the true story of the suffering [of Jesus] is that the Jews made him suffer."

Gibson follows a traditionalist brand of Catholicism and sought to make a film that adhered as accurately as possible to the biblical Gospel accounts of Christ's death and resurrection.

The Jewish Weekly reports Foxman noted that in the New Yorker piece, Gibson regrets excising a scene in which the high priest recites the curse from the Gospel of Matthew proclaiming that the blood of Jesus is upon him and his children.

Gibson told New Yorker reporter Peter J. Boyer: "But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house, they'd come kill me," referring to his critics.

Foxman also takes issue with Gibson, in the New Yorker, criticizing certain Jewish elements for blaming "the Holocaust on the Catholic Church. And it's a lie. And it's revisionism. And they've been working on that one for a while."

"When you put those things together," Foxman told the paper, "that is a portrait of an anti-Semite. …"

According to the report, Gibson's spokesman, Alan Nierob, said this is the first time he's heard a charge of anti-Semitism directed at Gibson.

"It's an irresponsible statement," Nierob told the paper. "I won't even dignify it with a response."

Yesterday, a top Vatican official praised the film. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said he would "like all our Catholic priests throughout the world to see it."

Addressing the charge of anti-Semitism, Hoyos told the Reuters news service, "Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light. This film does nothing of the sort."

Gibson's $30 million project is expected to be released next spring. The director as of yet does not have a distributor for the film.

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