Jewish Leaders Not Impressed With Mel Gibson’s Jewish Movie

By now you’ve probably heard that Mel Gibson is working with Basic Instinct writer, Joe Eszterhas, to produce a film about Jewish hero Judah Maccabee who liberated Jerusalem in a bible story and inspired Hannukah.

Surprisingly a few Jewish leaders aren’t too happy about this considering in 2006 Mel went on an Anti-semitic rant proclaiming Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Then he called a female cop “sugar tits.” Suffice to say, it was not a good day for Mel.

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.”

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.” — Us

Apart from that, I’d find it interesting to see if Mel turns Judah Maccabee into a warmongering Jew and if in the final scene he stabs the main villain with a menorah and lights it and says a catchy phrase.