August 03, 2006
Thursday

"Poor Mel Gibson!" That is what Bill O'Reilly was saying on his show on Wednesday evening and I have heard this refrain several times on talk radio too. It goes, "Mel made one small mistake that we all have committed in our lives ... He had a little too much to drink and then mouthed off. It was the drink talking. Leave Mel alone. He has been punished enough!"

This was not just any old actor arrested for DWI. Mel's family has a history of anti-Semitism that they usually deny. Mel's father, founder of some kind of ultra orthodox Catholic splinter group ... bring back Latin, that kind of thing has, publicly rejected the idea that there was ever a Holocaust during World War Two. Mel seems to agree with his father on the Holocaust issue, calling it in a two year old interview, "a numbers game." He said that, " There had been nine million claimed killed and then six million ... Who knows what is right?" Then Mel Gibson makes a huge block buster movie that many see as promoting the ancient, scurrilous idea about Jews killing Jesus with attached collective guilt. Think that this movie was a coincidence or did the Gibson family have a political/religious point to make?

I have never told this story anyplace. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona in a pretty liberal family. I think we were the only Jewish family in our part of the still small city Phoenix was in the 1950s. There were not many Catholic families in Phoenix then either, Most people were either LDS (Mormon) or Southern Baptists. There were a few Irish Catholic families and some of their children went to school at the same public elementary school I attended and we all got along fine ... Until Easter time. Sure kids can be mean to each other and they say things to tease that they don't really mean but clearly remember being chased, literally chased, running for my life, I felt, harrassed by kids coming from after school catechism class, Catholic religious school, with them yelling at me."You killed Jesus!" I am sure the Church does not promote anything like that now and dare I say, many of my friends are Catholic today but thinking about that time still sends shivers down my spine. This was the only anti-semitism I have ever experienced first hand.

Mel Gibson was caught driving 84 MPH on a congested street with a 45 MPH limit. He was drunk enough that he could easily have killed many people. He resisted arrest and tried to escape from the police. Mel did many things, easily attributed to Alcoholism for which he should be punished legally ... He won't be though. He has lots of money for PR campaigns and great lawyers, Ahhh, our fair legal system. I am glad that we got to hear Mel's real feelings about how a very tiny number of my co-religionists who from the inside I see as very peaceful and liberal doing great work from discovering cures for diseases to teaching in inner-city schools yet Mr Gibson says we are responsible for "all the wars in the world"? This wasn't the alcohol talking. This was the catechism teaching of the 1950s and 1960s speaking. I am sure of it now.

Mark Neckameyer
Irvine, CA - USA


About: "I am a semi retired accountant living in California. I love Alaska for the fishing and outdoor lifestyle and am about a year away from full retirement; plannng to spend as much summer as possible in Alaska."

 

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