You don’t think he suddenly cares what Jewish people think, do you?
Gibson to Delete a Scene in ’Passion’
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 3 — Mel Gibson, responding to focus groups as much as to protests by Jewish critics, has decided to delete a controversial scene about Jews from his film, “The Passion of the Christ,” a close associate said today.
A scene in the film, in which the Jewish high priest Caiaphas calls down a kind of curse on the Jewish people by declaring of the Crucifixion, “His blood be on us and on our children,” will not be in the movie’s final version, said the Gibson associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The passage had been included in some versions of the film that were shown before select groups, mostly of priests and ministers.
“It didn’t work in the focus screenings,” the associate said. “Maybe it was thought to be too hurtful, or taken not in the way it was intended. It has been used terribly over the years.”
Jewish leaders had warned that the passage from Matthew 27:25 was the historic source for many of the charges of deicide and Jews’ collective guilt in the death of Jesus.
Mr. Gibson’s decision to remove the scene could indicate that he was being responsive to concerns of Jewish groups that the film will fuel anti-Semitism.
white pebble 