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EXCLUSIVE: My Interview With Rabbi Hier Of Simon Wiesenthal Center About Mel Gibson: DUI Arrest ‘Shows He Has A Problem With Jews… It’s Not Just His Father That Is A Problem.’

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Monday July 31, 2006 @ 10:26am PDTTags: Actors, Agents, Directors, Movies, Religion, Scandal
Here is my exclusive interview this morning with Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center — an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust by fostering tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action. The rabbi was speaking by telephone from Israel, where he said his organization was distributing funds for aid and shelter to people all over Israel, including to Israeli arabs. (Click here for my UPDATED: Hollywood Reacts To Gibson.)
Q: So what are your feelings about this Mel Gibson story?
A: Look, the issue with Mel Gibson is very simple. Mel Gibson is driving under intoxication. There are no Jews in sight. He can blame his car, he can blame his liquor, he can blame the sheriff. But he can’t blame any Jews because there are none around. That’s precisely who he blames. Yet that’s the problem. That shows he has a problem with Jews. And there’s an old Yiddish saying, which loses a lot in translation, ”What someone drunk has on his tongue comes from his conscience when he is not drunk.” My point is that, even if you look at his apology itself, in the nature of the apology he knew exactly what he’d said. And though doesn’t specially address anti-Semitism, you can see that long apology he has it in mind he knows he said that.
Q: Are you convinced Gibson is anti-Semitic?
A: What does Mel Gibson want from the Jews? It’s amazing to me he previously denies he shares any of his father’s beliefs. But his father says the Holocaust is a hoax, and its numbers are exaggerated. Now it turns out he also has an issue with Jews. It’s not just his father that is a problem.
Q: And you’re calling on him to drop plans to produce a Holocaust movie for ABC?
A: It seems inconceivable that he should given these cirumstances to make, in the future, a film about the Holocaust. That would be like getting somebody that has a past association with the KKK to do a film on African-Americans. The African-Americans would be up in arms. That’s the way Jews feel. If you don’t like the Jews, don’t do a film about the central issue of modern Jewish history, the Holocaust. It’s insensitive to their feelings, especially if you don’t like them. That’s why I think he should drop out. This is not a film he could do.
Q: Is there anything Gibson can do now, or in the future, to make amends?
A: He has two problems. First, to take care of his abuse of alcohol. And, second, he should take care of his deep feelings of bigotry apparent towards Jews. That you can’t wish away in a day or a week. That you can’t issue a publicist statement how he’s seen the light. It doesn’t work that way.
Q: What if he donates money?
A: What is donating money? He has a problem with Jews. Donations won’t solve that. It’s an attitudinal problem.
Q: Would you assist him in changing that?
A: I know what I am and I know what I’m not. I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist. He shouldn’t come to me. How to cure him is not what I do. If he wanted to learn about the Holocaust or to take sensitivity training, then he could go through the Museum of Tolerance [which is part of the Simon Wiesenthal Center].

Earlier in the day, Hier issued a statement made available to me. “It appears that Mel Gibson launched into a drunken diatribe against Jews during a DUI arrest this weekend. In his statement, Mr. Gibson ackowledged a longstanding drinking problem and apologized for his behavior without a specific reference to his anti-Semitic statements. We hope Mr. Gibson will get help for his problems. But, in the meantime, he should drop any plans to produce a movie on the Nazi Holocaust. Anyone spouting the canard that Jews are “responsible for all wars” — a lie touted by bigots from Nazis to Hezbollah — does not have the legitimacy to make a film about Jewish martyrdrom and suffering during the Nazi era.”

Hier was referring to an ABC nonfiction mini-series that Gibson’s TV company late last year announced he was developing for ABC based on the self-published memoir of a Dutch Jew whose gentile neighbors hid her from the Nazis but who lost several relatives in concentration camps. In addition, ABC’s parent company Disney, through Buena Vista, is distributing the Oscar winner’s upcoming movie Apocalypto, an action epic about the bloody decline of the Mayan civilization.

Hier is not only an international religious and political figure of note, but also a central and revered figure within Hollywood which helps support the Simon Wiesenthal Center both financially and substantively. In 2003, a year before Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released, Hier co-wrote a Los Angeles Times opinion piece worrying whether the movie would stir anti-Semitic sentiments. “It’s true that the final script hasn’t been made available, and there is currently no release date, or even distributor, for the film. Still, there are reasons for concern,” Hier wrote. He was even more outspoken against the film once it began screening, reiterating his belief that the film denigrated Jews and could spark anti-Semitism abroad and in the U.S..

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UPDATED: Hollywood Reacts To Gibson

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Sunday July 30, 2006 @ 9:26pm PDTTags: Actors, Agents, Directors, Media, Religion, Scandal

2ND UPDATE:  *More Hollywood Reaction to Mel Gibson*

UPDATE: *Newly promoted president of production for Walt Disney Pictures Oren Aviv and Endeavor agency partner Ari Emanuel have both stepped forward and publicly expressed their opinion about Mel Gibson in light of his … Read More »

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EXCLUSIVE OFFICIAL CONFIRMATION! Cover-Up Denied: LA County Sheriff’s Malibu/Lost Hills Station DUI Arrest Reports Contain Anti-Semitic Slurs Allegedly Made By Mel Gibson; He Apologizes For ‘Despicable’ ‘Out of Control’ ‘Not True’ Drunk Statements

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Saturday July 29, 2006 @ 10:45am PDTTags: Actors, Courts, Directors, Movies, Religion, Scandal

UPDATE: No TV Interviews ‘Anytime Soon’ For Mel

UPDATE: … Read More »

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Catholic Moviegoers Overseas Defy Vatican and Sell Out Da Vinci Code In Advance

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Sunday May 7, 2006 @ 11:44am PDTTags: Film Festivals, Foreign, Hollywood, Movies, Religion

In recent weeks, the Vatican has made attack after attack on the upcoming movie version of The Da Vinci Code opening May 19, but that’s not stopping filmgoers in predominantly Catholic countries from rushing out to buy tickets. I’m told that the forthcoming showings of Da Vinci Code are … Read More »

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Unusual MI3 Ticket Sales at Hollywood ArcLight Near Scientology Celeb Center

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Sunday May 7, 2006 @ 11:15am PDTTags: Hollywood, Movies, Religion, Theaters

I have confirmed today that there has been an unusual pattern of ticket sales for Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible 3 at Hollywood’s ArcLight Theater, which just happens to be located right near the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center where Cruise … Read More »

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Will MI3 Withstand Tom Cruise Cooling? Or Da Vinci Code Faint From Vatican Heat?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday April 28, 2006 @ 1:21pm PDTTags: Actors, Hollywood, Movies, Religion, Summer Movies


Two major Hollywood movies that help kick-off the summer silliness are shaping up as referenda more than recreation. That’s because the opening box office numbers for Mission Impossible 3 will gauge Tom Cruise’s viability given all that bad press he’s getting (most of it his doing). Meanwhile, today, the Vatican … Read More »

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VF: Pellicano Almost Jew for Bert Fields

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday April 26, 2006 @ 6:27am PDTTags: Hollywood, Magazines, Pellicano, Religion, Scandal

Vanity Fair reports that Pellicano and lawyer Bert Fields were so close that Pellicano contemplated converting to Judaism. “Six or seven years ago, Anthony comes home one night and tells me we are going to become Jewish and that Bert Fields has arranged conversion classes for both of us,” … Read More »

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CBS Promotes Scientology for Paramount

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Monday April 10, 2006 @ 6:22pm PDTTags: Networks, Religion, Studios, TV


Here’s something you rarely see: a local television station promoting, that’s right promoting, Scientology, as part of its newscast. But that’s exactly what KCBS TV — CBS 2 in Los … Read More »

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Oscar’s Jewish Fallout

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Saturday March 11, 2006 @ 1:16pm PSTTags: Humor, Magazines, Oscars, Religion

Jewish JournalHere’s the new annual Purim cover spoof by the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. It sends up this town’s Jew/Oscars/Hollywood ties, especially Jewish discomfort with the moral equivalence in Steven Spielberg’s Munich. “Spielberg to Jews … Read More »

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