[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 61 (Wednesday, May 5, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E750]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E750]]
                    ARTICLE BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD L. SCHROCK

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 5, 2004

  Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Speaker, I share the following article on behalf of 
a constituent, Rabbi Israel Zoberman.

       What a golden opportunity Mel Gibson had to introduce a 
     significant note of much-needed harmony into the alarming 
     discord of a polarized and fractured world community, and 
     even here at home, with heightened religious and political 
     strife. I fear that he missed it. It happened--and to 
     Gibson's credit he didn't hide it--because so far he is 
     passionately locked into the anti-Vatican II stance which 
     longs for the ``good old days'' when the Mass was in Latin 
     and Jews were not collectively free from the outrageous 
     charge of deicide (the killing of God). The world-impacting 
     crucifixion of a fellow Jew historically resulted in the 
     varied crucifixion of millions of his brethren, including gas 
     chambers, thus figuratively crucifying the suffering Jesus 
     time and again.
       Indeed Jesus' message and mission of Israel's shalom have 
     been tragically overtaken by history's greatest and longest 
     hatred fueled by The Passion, so ironically toward Jesus' own 
     flesh and blood. Jews are still victims of nails spread in 
     their bodies by suicide bombers. How in the world did Gibson 
     cast that governor Pontius Pilate as a pussycat, manipulated 
     by those scary-looking, menacing rabbis that he after all 
     appointed to high office? He surely knows that all the Jews 
     at that time were under terrorizing Roman rule which gave 
     rise to the fertile messianism so poignantly represented by 
     Jesus.
       Gibson allowed his creative imagination to really soar 
     high, but at what price? Millions will consider his take as 
     gospel truth and perpetuate those stereotypical 
     images pursuing us, Jews and Christians, with so much 
     damage to both. Isn't it time to loosen those destructive 
     bonds of oppression?
       Gibson succeeded in resurrecting through the power of his 
     artistic talent the ghosts that Catholics and Protestants 
     courageously tried through revised doctrine and practice to 
     bury in humanity's graveyard of monumental sins and errors. 
     But he also presents us with a precious opportunity to 
     redouble our ecumenical dialogue and sectarian educational 
     efforts of all religions to prove that blood should lead to 
     love, violence to vision, and reality to redemption.
       Perhaps now that Gibson's risky financial investment--
     prompted by an evident deep faith which I'm glad he found--
     has borne substantial fruit, he would contemplate another 
     version of The Passion that is less threatening to our common 
     dream. It is high time to prove that religion can and should 
     be a source of infinite goodness and not only of 
     inexhaustible evil. My own young congregation met for 10 
     glorious years from 1985 to 1995 at the most gracious 
     Catholic Church of the Ascension in Virginia Beach. That 
     inspiring interfaith model could not have happened without 
     the reforms of Vatican II when Pope John XXIII began and 
     current Pope John Paul II enhanced the promising 
     rapprochement with the Jewish people.
       This sea change culminated in the Vatican's official 
     recognition of the Jewish state, the Jews no longer rejected 
     by the church's teaching of contempt condemning us to forever 
     be wanderers with Cain's mark upon us. The Polish pope's 
     visit to Israel's eternal capital Jerusalem witnessed his 
     paying tribute and praying at the Western Wall around the 
     temple where Jesus left his mark, and Yad Vashem's Holocaust 
     Memorial reminding the courageous and visionary pope of his 
     own proud anti-Nazi saga and the Jewish classmates he lost. 
     And could I have honored retiring Bishop Walter F. Sullivan 
     at our holiest service on Yom Kippur Eve? Our dear Catholic 
     bishop, who has become a close friend, held our Holocaust 
     Torah scroll from Czechoslovakia. He was instrumental in 
     establishing the new Holocaust museum in Richmond.
       Following Gibson's penetrating film, Jewish children in 
     Virginia Beach and elsewhere have been socially ostracized. 
     Would Gibson like to face the two high schoolers in my 
     congregation who had swastikas left on their desks? And what 
     might yet happen in a Europe that is experiencing the worst 
     resurgence since the Holocaust of the virulent virus of anti-
     Semitism, as well as the vast Muslim world with its growing 
     radicalism?
       On the eve of Passover and Easter's shared rejoicing in the 
     divine gifts of renewal and resurrection, respectively for 
     Jews and Christians, there is much that Gibson can so ably do 
     to help us build together God's kingdom on earth of healing, 
     hope and harmony for all. There is much at stake and we are 
     all in it together.

  Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim 
in Virginia Beach, is son of Polish Holocaust survivors. He is 
immediate past president of the Hampton Roads Board of Rabbis.

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