[A-I]

My family is Conservative Jewish and so are most of the other families we know–and they were all pretty suspicious of the movie even without seeing it, because of Mel Gibson’s background as much as the plot. One woman said her rabbi advised any curious moviegoers in the congregation to sneak in using a ticket to a different movie rather than let Gibson profit (!) In general they seemed to treat the movie, not as an act of anti-Semitism, but as something that might be a warning sign or a potential cause of it. As an ex-Jew, and one who’s therefore probably biased in the other direction, I did see the movie (without sneaking in)–and I differ. Yes, it does portray the Jewish characters as cruel, fanatical and solely guilty for Jesus’s crucifixion. But it makes clear that they’re not being evil for evil’s sake–they’re stamping out what they saw as heresy and possible schism the way any religious leader of that era would. I do think the Passion likely happened as Gibson portrayed it (minus the miracles), I don’t think those events or the movie say anything about the character of modern Jews, and I doubt it’ll inspire hate in anyone who didn’t feel it already.

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Name : A-I, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Atheist, Age : 22, City : West Hartford, State : CT, Country : United States, Occupation : programmer, Education level : 2 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class, 

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