What’s Up With the Jews?

[Behind the Aegis]

It’s been an interesting week or two for Jews. Mel Gibson’s new film, “The Beaver,” opens nationwide in theaters and Jews must decide whether to pay good money to see a movie starring someone whose father is a Holocaust denier, and who has himself vilified Jews in public. In Cannes, the Danish movie director Lars von Trier rambles on at a press conference about sympathizing with Hitler, being annoyed with Israel and admiring Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer. Next day he recants, but it’s too late; he’s declared persona non grata at the film festival.

Then there is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a French economist and politician who was poised to become France’s first Jewish president, imprisoned at Rikers Island after being accused of forcing sex on a chambermaid at a New York hotel. (Strauss-Kahn has now moved to a very constrained “house arrest” while awaiting arraignment, if he can find a house.) Meanwhile, on May 11 this newspaper publishes the results of a Pew Forum study that shows 67 percent of Reform Jewish households in the United States making more than $75,000 a year; only 31 percent of all households hit the same mark.

Then there are a few older stories that linger on and add to the mix. Designer John Galliano is facing trial in France and has been fired by Dior because, in the course of a drunken rant in a bar, he said to someone (who was not in fact Jewish) “I love Hitler and people like you would be dead.” Bad-boy Charlie Sheen abused various substances, cavorted with assorted women and trashed hotel-rooms for years and nothing much was done about it until he spewed anti-Semitic remarks in the direction of the Jewish producer of his hit TV show “Two and a Half Men.” In a short time he was fired and his role has been given to Ashton Kutcher, raised Catholic, but now heavily into Judaism and Kabala.

And of course there is the story that will live forever, even after its protagonist dies, the story of Bernie Madoff (a Strauss-Kahn lookalike, or is it the other way around?) who perpetrated the biggest scam in history (will he replace Meyer Lansky as the chief exhibit in the bad-guy Jewish Hall of Fame?) and ruined thousands of people, many of them fellow Jews.

The thing about these stories is that they all point in (at least) two directions. Sheen, Gibson, Galliano and Von Trier have paid dearly for their transgression against Jews; but that fact has also had some muttering on about Jewish power and influence in Hollywood and the arts. (“You can insult any ethnic group and get away with it, except for the Jews.”) In the U.S. press and on some of the blogs, Strauss-Kahn is vilified as an elitist misogamist thug, but in France he is thought of as a victim of a political conspiracy and portrayed by some as a modern Alfred Dreyfus brought down just as he was on the brink of ascendancy to a position no Jew has ever attained.

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[RandomThoughts]

1. If Mel was in a drunken rant.

And said things he does not feel are best.

Then the next day realized his mistake and tried to correct them.

Who is the Mel you criticize? Isn't that why forgiveness exists?

The Jewish people that forgive Mel, help him get over some bad things that try to divert him when he is not at his best. I know I need forgiveness for things often. So I try not to hold things against others.

And some use his comments as a way to try and hurt people of his belief, just like his comments hurt others.


And just like Christians have to clean up the Christians using the belief in a bad way, and Islams have to clean up the Muslims using their belief in a bad way, Jewish people need to help with the people using Jewish faith in a bad way.

So that none of us get the wrong ideas of what some teaching is about.


And Mel's movies have some really great stuff in them, would you drive the tanker full of sand to get people out? Would you drive your car directly at someone so there is enough runway for the children.

Would you choose not to hurt someone, in a moment when there better mind was not on there shoulders, and they did not at that moment know they were hurting someone, even if it meant you were sent into exile.



Side note, the story of Thunderdome, the character of Mel has a transformation after a moment of contrition in Thunderdome, and after the 'sent into exile scene', that part of the movie is in spiritual form. After he had that better moment, he met spiritual beings, they tried to help him, but it was them that also needed help. And after all, isn't that what friends are for.

Mel's Character went into Thunderdome willing to harm, but in the moment, he did not. 'Minority report justice' would judge him wrong, when in that movie his character avoided that trap





Nick of Time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwxLVikHTDs

Found love in the Nick of Time.
Also the story of Abraham.

[mucifer]

2. gibson's interview with Dean Richards made me believe he has no remorse.

Here's the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxZRfn2Rgqg

Made me not want to see any mel gibson movies ever.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. Forgiveness isn't well understood in our

popular culture. People do awful things and then ask forgiveness as if they are asking mommy to forgive them for spilling a glass of juice. Forgiveness requires sincerity from both the penitent person and the wronged party. If an apology is not sincere or if the other party holds a grudge, there has been no forgiveness. Most of these public mea culpas are nothing more than a pantomime of forgiveness.

[RandomThoughts]

4. I guess I am talking about how forgiving someone else can help.

Much of the forgiveness I find for what someone else has done helps me, and is actually more of a way for me to be who I want to be, then it about holding something over someone.

If I don't forgive someone, then I let what they did that upset me be a part of my thoughts, when that is not needed.

That does not mean I am naive, or let people walk over me, I do agree a person should still consider when they should be stern or think on items of choice of association.

And I don't know about his 'beliefs' about certain groups, but also would know they would come from a wrong idea of those groups, and from that it would be an education issue, and treating him with some compassion can help him with that. Some people mix up ideas about the Jewish faith, with a few people that say they are Jewish, but do not follow the teachings, and in that like in many other things, get people to think the entire faith, or all people of faith are like the few that distort it are.

Same thing with other religions or ideas, pick any religion, and there are groups that show the worst parts of worst groups that say they are part of it.

I think it is like the noun traps, what ever he might be mad about, and with the CGI tech, I don't even make that assumption, I don't think it should offend someone of Jewish faith that does not do the things that gets him upset. Honestly, there are media outlets that have the accuracy of the South Park TV show, when quoting people. So I try not to listen to much of the stuff about people. And I do know he chose to be in some movies that had some great stuff in them. So I like him, even if he is flawed like every other person.

Unfortunately many people think religion is a set of factions at war with each other, and that causes many problems, and they are in many religions.

I think most religions are a set of teachings that overlap with the same ideas far more times then they are different.



And I am still due beer and travel money and many experiences.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. You and I feel the same about religion.

I haven't seen a religion yet that didn't have some good ideas. Some just have a better ratio of good to bad teachings, at least in my view. And anytime you find yourself in Biloxi, MS, I'll spot you that beer.

[RandomThoughts]

6. Thats kind of you, if I make it back to the mid west.

I will remember that :)

[fatbuckel]

8. I agree with you but I don`t feel deciding to see a film is a life-pivoting moment.

[struggle4progress]

7. This "article" goes straight downhill, from the title on

I had rather hoped, against hope, that "What’s Up With the Jews?" might at least be ironic, but Fish really manages to write garbage

Consider the paragraph: ... Strauss-Kahn .. poised to become France’s first Jewish president, imprisoned .. after being accused of forcing sex on a chambermaid ... Meanwhile .. a Pew Forum study .. shows 67 percent of Reform Jewish households in the United States making more than $75,000 a year ...

WTF is Fish trying to say there? Maybe I just don't want to know. It's not all that surprising to hear a story about a powerful person trying to exploit a less powerful one; I don't see how Strauss-Kahn's supposed Judaism has anything to do with his infantile inability to control his trousersnake -- and Fish's juxtaposition of "Reform Jewish households in the United States making more than $75,000 a year" is simply bizarre

The more I reread the article, the less I like it