Jewish Leaders Outraged by Mel Gibson's Maccabee Film
Credit: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images
Maybe he should have considered a nice Mad Max Thunderdome sequel instead?
Mel Gibson is raising hackles in the Jewish community and beyond -- yet again -- with his just-announced new film project.
As first reported by Deadline, the controversial actor and director, 55, is set to collaborate (through Warner Brother studios) with Basic Instinct screenwriter Joe Eszterhas to make a film about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee -- who helped liberate Jerusalem in an ancient biblical story, and inspired the Hannukah holiday.
Gibson, of course, has been repeatedly taped making offensive, anti-Semitic remarks over the years, including a drunken rant during a 2006 arrest in Malibu. (Hungarian-born Eszterhas, meanwhile, won the Emanuel Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his writings about the Holocaust in his native country.)
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Says Abe Foxman, head of the Anti Defamation League, to The Hollywood Reporter: "It would be a travesty to have [Judah Maccabee's] story told by one who has no respect and sensitivity for other people’s religious views."
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Added Rabbi Marvin Heir of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance to THR: "Casting [Gibson] as a director or perhaps as the star of Judah Maccabee is like casting Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a white supremacist as trying to portray Martin Luther King Jr...It's a complete misfit for the role of Judah Maccabee, one of the greatest Jewish heroes in all of history to be portrayed by someone who has shown nothing but antagonism and anti-Semitism toward Jews."
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4HE is not portraying anything... he is simply directing a film that someone else is cast in and some one else wrote the script... im quite sure this is an attempt on his part to make amends for his ludicrous behavior over the years with his anti semitic comments...
The difference between the "hip-hop world" and Mel Gibson is that he is portraying a jewish hero. Individuals in the hop-hop world do not portray anyone but themslves. They are who they are. Mel Gibson is not attempting to make something positive from his disgusting rants. He needs to sit back and stop being so controversial. I can completely understand why the Jewish community would have a problem with this. I am not Jewish and I have a problem with this.
"Gibson, of course, has been repeatedly taped making offensive, anti-Semitic remarks over the years" Funny, the hip-hop world has been repeatedly making offensive, sexist remarks against women for years so where's the outrage and ADL with that? At least Gibson is attempting to make something positive from his disgusting rant of words previously.
If he portrays the story as it was intended and doesn't distort the facts of the story, I say there's no issue. The anti-semetic slurrs are a thing of the past and perhaps he's had a change of heart.