The Passion' and anti-Semitism

I am a 19 year old Jewish boy who does not go a day -- not even on this incredibly liberal, warm and open campus -- without fearing that some force will arise and again claim the lives of thousands or millions of my relatives and friends. Paranoid? That is a matter of word choice I suppose, but a tour through the photo albums of my family -- or that of nearly any Jew of Eastern European descent on this campus -- reveals quickly the extent to which that fear is rooted in very near, and very bloody history.

Mel Gibson made a movie about the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which I saw last week. Some people are upset, some people are moved to tears, some people are disgusted and some people just want everyone to shut up and go home. And a lot of people would rather not get into what they consider petty squabbles with paranoid people like me.

I would like to present a few reasons why I believe that it is profoundly important for Jews and Christians (particularly) and the campus at large (generally) to attend the events on campus intended to provide a forum for these issues.

I am not worried that Christians who see this movie will leave it with a desire to injure Jews or their property -- certainly not on this campus, and my faith extends to the country at large. Nor am I concerned that this movie will affect Christian theological pedagogy in this country, redirecting its focus towards outward blame. I believe that American Christianity is progressive enough, in an intentional as well as circumstantial and fundamental manner, that Jews should feel no less secure after the movie has finished its theater run.

What I am worried about is people will come to the fallacious conclusion that the film is not anti-Semitic merely because the movie does not spark violent anti-Semitic outbursts, or because its content is not readily recognized to be anti-Semitic.

Susanna Heschel, the daughter of the late and great Abraham Joshua Heschel, and an eminent Jewish and Feminist scholar in her own right, spoke at Tufts on March 3 and addressed this very question. She recommended using a parallel argument from an already accepted paradigm to elucidate the point. The terms "gypped" and "jimmies", referring to being swindled and chocolate flavored ice-cream sprinkles, respectively, both have profoundly racist origins. The former came from accusations that all Gypsies were tricksters and thieves, the latter referencing Jim Crow Laws and the color of Black American's skin. The fact that these words are used in common speech does not directly correlate to blacks having difficulty being considered equally for jobs, or being followed around stores suspiciously, but that makes them no less racist.

The Passion Plays, drawn from the gospels and on which Mel Gibson's movie is based, have a history interwoven with anti-Semitism. Over the course of the Dark Ages, Middle Ages and Renaissance, Jews went through many cycles of tolerance and expulsion in each of the prominent Western European countries. The basis for many of these expulsions where false accusations, stereotypes, and caricatures of Jews, many of which were used in traditional passion plays to incite violence against local Jewish communities, and many of which appear in the current movie.

I have reservations about whether this is a battle truly worth fighting. Firstly, is the community at Tufts really who we as Jews should be worried about? Probably not. However, the community at Tufts comprises many future leaders, and therefore they are exactly who we should care about. Secondly, isn't the fact that many people do not even recognize the classically anti-Semitic caricatures in the movie, and moreover have no interest in acting on them, a signal enough of the progress we have made? Yes it is, but go back to the previous parallel. Shouting racial slurs which I myself do not recognize, and which do not cause me to "act racist", is still fundamentally unacceptable -- both because of the effect it can have on others, and because of the way that speech and imagery subtly can affect the subconscious in ways we are not cognizant of. I need no scientific inquiry to prove that covering one's eyes no longer makes a friend disappear.

Dr. Heschel reminded me that this movie raises many issues worth discussing, beyond the immediate question of whether I as a Jew can find offense in it. Why is it so violent? Is it sexist or overly filled with machismo? Why did Mel Gibson not film a movie about the Sermon on the Mount? What if this was a movie about violence in modern America? Do we as Jews have a right to attempt to interrupt a Christian narrative?

We can all ignore it, and in truth, I cannot make a compelling argument that many will be significantly worse off if we did just that. But this movie also presents an opportunity to make some headway, to re-draw boundary lines, to talk and inform. The human mind does not make it easy for one human to kill another. The act requires the compartmentalization and reduction of a fellow, whole human into a disposable object: an enemy, a usurer, a heretic, and infidel. Both Christians and Jews have very powerful narratives attached to this movie, and I believe that through discussion, each can become sensitively malleable without losing any of its spiritual integrity.

In the coming weeks, at least one -- if not two -- programs will occur to address these issues, co-sponsored by Hillel and other religious groups. To those still unconvinced, I would simply ask if attending such an event requires such sacrifice that it is not worth the possibility of expanding your sense of our common humanity through our so often perverted, common religious beliefs.

Judah J. Sueker is a sophomore majoring in International Relations