Michael Lerner on The Passion

The International Herald Tribune yesterday published the following article:

Mel Gibson revives an old message of hate...
A Jewish View
Michael Lerner

[Read all on one page from this link]

An earlier version of this appeared on Tikkun mail and was subsequently published on 10 March on Tikkun.org as Gibson's The Passion, with the subtitle, "A plea to Christians to Respond with a Gospel of Love and Hope in place of this new fundamentalism".

I was curious about the opening of this article. Something did not look right about it to me:

Mel Gibson unlocked the secret of why Americans have never confronted anti-Semitism in the way that we did with the other great systems of hatred (racism, sexism, homophobia) when he told an American TV audience in February that "the Jews' real complaint isn't with my film ('The Passion of the Christ') but with the Gospels." (emphasis added)

This is given in quotation marks, but did he actually say that? The alleged quotation is from the Diane Sawyer ABC interview of February 16. But only a moment's checking shows that this is a pretty serious misquotation. Here's what Gibson actually said in the interview:

"Critics who have a problem with me don't really have a problem with me in this film," Gibson said. "They have a problem with the four Gospels. That's where their problem is." (Source: ABC News; emphasis added)

Now whatever one thinks about Gibson's remark here, it is quite clear that he did not speak about "the Jews' real complaint". Lerner's quotation wrongly gives the impression that Gibson is speaking in toxic fashion about "the Jews" and their opposition to his film. As I have said before, it is precisely because the issue of anti-Semitism is so serious that it is essential that we are careful with our language. It really will not do to misquote in so serious and damning a fashion.

Now this article has already been pretty influential in the press and on the internet. A quick search reveals that it has often been reproduced, and always with the misquotation, e.g. The Globe and Mail reproduce what I imagine is the original Tikkun Mail version; The Metrowest Daily News has the fuller version and so on. But then the misquotation itself gets quoted by others. Take this Christian pastor who uses it as a reason for discouraging people from seeing the film

Addressing the question of whether the movie is anti-Semitic, Mel Gibson told a national TV audience on February 16 that "the Jews' real complaint isn't with my film but with the Gospels." In other words, Mr. Gibson seems himself to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John blame Christ's death on the Jews. (Wheat Ridge Congregation Pastor's Page)

Or again, it surfaces on BustedHalo.com, The Problem With the Passion, When Hollywood Plays with Hate and History, by Nora Bradbury-Haehl. One of the most striking is this article on sf.indymedia.org

The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels [Originally on Counterpunch]
by Gary Leupp

Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University and the article is intelligent and well worth reading, but its oddity in this context is that it sees Lerner's attack as misguided without have realised the greater problem of Lerner's serious misquotation (though note that Leupp has in parenthesis "if Gibson indeed said that").

One of the things I have find useful about Jim Davila's approach in Paleojudaica has been the quest for accuracy and holding journalists to account. One of things that is troubling about Michael Lerner's piece is that in encouraging as many as possible to reproduce his piece, he has made a damaging misquotation far more prevalent than what was actually said. This is no way to forward sensible, fair and balanced discussion of a serious issue.