Related
Translate
Previous entry: Young and Old Soak Up The Gospel of Billy Graham
Next entry: Horrible tragedy claims five young lives
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- ‘World’s biggest animal sacrifice’ begins
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
- Born in U.S., a Radical Cleric Inspires Terror
- Pakistan Militants Bomb CD Shop For Selling ‘Jesus Film’
‘Protocols’ tackles racist book
More articles on this topic: Protocols of the Elders of ZionVideo of the Week: PROTOCOLS OF ZION
THINKFILM
$29.99
If you hold any illusions about the level of blind stupidity, paranoia and hatred in the air, here and abroad, “Protocols of Zion” will cure you.
Director Marc Levin (”Slam”), surprised and dismayed by the lunatic fringe reaction to Sept. 11 — that it was a Jewish conspiracy — began to wonder how such a noxious idea came about. His investigation led him to that bible for anti-Semites, the fraudulent “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
The book was concocted in Russia at the end of the 19th century by the czar’s secret police and purports to lay out a plan for Zionist domination of the world. That the document is a forgery has long been known, but to this day, many neo-Nazis, Jew haters and Holocaust deniers count it as authentic. The book is frighteningly popular in the Arab world.
This film about the spread of intolerance is a documentary, but with a personal bent. Levin’s grandfather was a prominent man at his Brooklyn temple (and, posthumously, plays a role in the film, along with Levin’s father). The director reveals himself to be not particularly religious — he has said that at the time he made the film, he didn’t belong to a synagogue — but it was partly memories of the piety of his grandfather’s generation, and the sufferings caused them by the “Protocols,” that inspired the movie.
Levin offers a brief account of the “Protocols” and talks with historians and rabbis about its malign effects. But the most telling parts of the film are his visits with the book’s proponents. He listens to, and even tries to reason with, street crazies at ground zero (who refer to the city as “Jew York”), a skinhead who sells Nazi paraphernalia like copies of “Mein Kampf” (and the “Protocols,” of course), virulently anti-Zionist Palestinian Americans and the like. You have to admire Levin for mostly keeping his temper with these imbeciles.
Among Levin’s most intriguing interview subjects is Frank Weltner, a radio host who runs a Web site called Jew Watch, and seems unusually calm and articulate, given his daffy political beliefs. His reasonable demeanor makes him perhaps the most unnerving figure in the film.
Levin talks to moviegoers about “The Passion of the Christ,” and we see some brief interview footage with Mel Gibson and his even more controversial dad, both of whom have been accused of anti-Semitism. Levin also talks with militant American Jews (”Kahane was right”).
This is powerful and depressing stuff. What do you say in response to a clip from an Arab TV movie that shows Jews murdering Christian children for their blood?
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Young and Old Soak Up The Gospel of Billy Graham Next entry: Horrible tragedy claims five young lives
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
