Rabbis Say Critics of 'The Passion' Endanger Jews

Some conservative Jewish leaders are saying the foes of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," not the movie, are harming Jews. These charges have in turn sparked new controversy.

As NewsMax has reported, Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin, a prominent defender of the movie, has accused Anti-Defamation League of attacking Christianity and promoting secularism.

The Jewish weekly newspaper Forward reported last week that Lapin, appearing on the Rev. Pat Robertson's "700 Club," called ADL and its allies "dangerous organizations." Lapin said that ADL director Abraham Foxman, in calling Gibson's movie anti-Semitic, was saying "that the only way to escape the wrath of Foxman is to repudiate your faith."

The debate increased, Forward reported, when an Orthodox rabbi in New Jersey, Steven Pruzansky, put the movie's Jewish critics "in the religious category of rodef, or pursuer. The term is used in rabbinic jurisprudence to describe an assailant who threatens Jewish lives and may be killed to pre-empt the danger."

Rabbi Pruzansky told Forward that he made clear to his congregation he was not calling for anyone's death but was merely stressing his opposition to the attacks on Gibson's movie.

Several other Jewish leaders nonetheless expressed outrage.

"It was beneath contempt," Rabbi Marvin Hier told Forward.

Vatican Spokesman: 'Passion' Isn't Anti-Semitic

After seeing "The Passion of the Christ," Riccardo Di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, asked the Vatican to condemn it.

Instead, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said: "The film is a cinematographic transcription of the Gospels. If it were anti-Semitic, the Gospels would also be so.

The film "has nothing anti-Semitic about it. Otherwise, it would have been criticized" by the pope and by his aides, said Navarro-Valls, director of the Vatican's press office.

"It must not be forgotten that the film is full of 'positive' Jewish personages: from Jesus to Mary, from the Cyrenian to Veronica, including the moved crowd, etc.

"If such a story were anti-Semitic, it would pose a problem for the Judeo-Christian dialogue, because it would be like saying that the Gospels are not historical," he said. "One must realize the seriousness of these affirmations."

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