![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Mel_Gibson_2011.jpg\" "\\"Mel_Gibson_2011\\"")
<\/a>Jews run Hollywood, the old cliche goes.<\/span><\/p>\nSo an outsider might find it strange that one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest studios, Warner Bros., agreed to make a movie about one of the Jewish world\u2019s greatest heroes with a star known for going on anti-Semitic tirades.<\/span><\/p>\n And when the plans to film \u201cJudah Maccabee\u201d fell apart this month, igniting a feud between producer Mel Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas that involved more accusations of anti-Semitism, Hollywood again went for Mel.<\/span><\/p>\n A cross-section of industry figures interviewed by JTA \u2013 all of them Jewish and a number of whom come from families who survived the Holocaust or fled the Nazis \u2013 overwhelmingly defended Gibson over the Hungarian-born Eszterhas.<\/span><\/p>\n Veteran producer Mike Medavoy, whose parents fled to Shanghai in the 1920s to escape the Russian pogroms, has known Gibson and Eszterhas for decades. Both have \u201cissues,\u201d he said, but he has a softer spot for Gibson.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI really believe that everyone deserves a second chance,\u201d Medavoy said. \u201cI want to give Mel the benefit of the doubt. I think Mel\u2019s problem is he\u2019s a little immature and can\u2019t handle his anger.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Alan Nierob, Gibson’s longtime publicist and the son of Holocaust survivors, has always stood by his client.<\/span><\/p>\n The loyalty to Gibson of some in Hollywood comes despite the controversy over his controversial portrayal of Jews in the 2004 film \u201cThe Passion of the Christ,\u201d his rant against Jews following a drunk driving arrest in 2006, and his violent threats and accusations against an ex-girlfriend that were leaked online in 2010. Also that year, Jewish actress Winona Ryder said that Gibson had called her an \u201coven dodger\u201d at a party in the mid-1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n The latest flap erupted when Eszterhas, who once was one of Hollywood\u2019s flashiest screenwriters but hasn\u2019t had a hit since 1997, accused Gibson of only pretending to be developing a movie about Judah Maccabee to help Gibson\u2019s own image in the Jewish community. Eszterhas accused Gibson of setting him up — hiring him to write the script and then rejecting it not because it wasn\u2019t good, but because Gibson actually \u201chates Jews\u201d and never wanted to make the movie in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n In his detailed nine-page letter that was leaked to TheWrap.com, Eszterhas said that while working with Gibson, the star \u201ccontinually called Jews \u2018Hebes,\u2019 and even \u2018oven dodgers\u2019 and \u2018Jewboys.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou said most gatekeepers of American companies were \u2018Hebes\u2019 who \u2018controlled\u2019 their bosses,\u201d Eszterhas wrote to Gibson.<\/span><\/p>\n He also described Gibson as erupting in almost psychotic rages in which he railed about his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, intimating he wanted her dead.<\/span><\/p>\n Gibson wrote a letter back to Eszterhas saying that his claims were \u201cutter fabrications\u201d and threatened to sue Eszterhas for releasing the audiotapes. Gibson\u2019s defenders suggested that Eszterhas\u2019 attacks were exaggerations or lies meant to deflect from Gibson\u2019s claim that Eszterhas\u2019 script wasn\u2019t any good and that\u2019s why it was rejected by Warner Bros.<\/span><\/p>\n Through Nierob, Gibson declined to be interviewed for this story.<\/span><\/p>\n Eszterhas told JTA that he \u201cstands behind the letter I wrote to Mel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Not everyone in Hollywood\u2019s Jewish establishment has stood by Gibson. After Gibson\u2019s anti-Semitic tirade in 2006, Sony Pictures co-chairwoman Amy Pascal spoke out against him and powerful agent Ari Emanuel called for a Gibson boycott.<\/span><\/p>\n When they were the only big names to speak out, former AOL Time Warner Vice Chairman Mel Adelson took out a large ad in the Los Angeles Times protesting the silence of many top Jewish Hollywood executives.<\/span><\/p>\n But by 2011, when Warner Bros. agreed to do \u201cJudah Maccabee\u201d with Gibson, it seemed all was forgiven.<\/span><\/p>\n Despite their support of Gibson, however, many in Hollywood also said they didn\u2019t know why Warner Bros. had decided in the first place to let Gibson make a film about Judah Maccabee, the great Jewish warrior who fought and prevailed against a Hellenistic ruler who wanted to force the Jews to renounce their faith.<\/span><\/p>\n Sharon Waxman, a veteran correspondent for the Washington Post and The New York Times who now runs TheWrap.com, said she confronted a senior Warner Bros. executive when she first heard about the planned film.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI said to him, what were you thinking?\u201d said Waxman, who was raised as an Orthodox Jew and whose site is where Eszterhas\u2019 letter and an audiotape of Gibson\u2019s most recent rants were leaked. \u201cHe said something about the studio believing in forgiveness. But it\u2019s still a mystery to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said last September that letting Gibson direct \u201cJudah Maccabee\u201d would be \u201clike casting Bernie Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Now, he says simply, \u201ceveryone should have known.”<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis is the story of an unrepentant anti-Semite who\u2019s a world-renowned actor,\u201d Hier told JTA. \u201cHow did he get Warner Bros. to agree to do this film? I think he reached out to rabbis and used them to soften up the studio. There are some who felt his 2006 apology was sincere. I never thought it was sincere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For now, Warner Bros. spokesman Paul McGuire said the studio is \u201canalyzing\u201d what to do with the \u201cJudah Maccabee\u201d project. But studio sources say privately that the film has been shelved.<\/span><\/p>\n A source in Gibson\u2019s camp told JTA that Gibson is determined to move forward with \u201cJudah Maccabee\u201d on his own, financing and developing it the way he did with \u201cPassion of the Christ,\u201d which became an unexpected hit. Gibson has said that he\u2019s been working on the “Maccabee” project for more than eight years and that it predates the 2006 DUI scandal.<\/span><\/p>\n Jay Sanderson, who spent 25 years as a TV and documentary producer in Hollywood before becoming president of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, said he didn’t\u00a0 believe that Gibson has been developing the film for a long time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI would make a large wager that he’s not going to make this movie,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cOf course, the people close to Mel are going to say that he\u2019s going ahead and will make it just to show his supposed sincerity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Sanderson said Gibson\u2019s anti-Semitism is \u201clegendary\u201d and \u201cno one could have been more inappropriate\u201d to make a film about Judah Maccabee.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut I also understand in some ways why it happened,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great story and this is the man who made \u2018Braveheart.\u2019 Mel\u2019s always had a great relationship with Warner Bros. And don\u2019t forget Hollywood is a place where people want to avoid making the wrong enemies. Mel is more of a wrong enemy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There is no star arguably less likely than Gibson to direct a film about Judah the Maccabee. Gibson belongs to a conservative sect called traditionalist Catholic that is not recognized by the Vatican in part because it adheres to Catholicism as it was practiced before the reforms instituted by Vatican II in the early 1960s. During Good Friday services in the old liturgy, traditionalists still read a prayer in which they pray that Jews will “recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In 2003, Gibson said there is \u201cno salvation for anyone outside the Church,\u201d including his then-wife, Robyn, a devout Episcopalian, in that category.<\/span><\/p>\n Gibson\u2019s father, Hutton Gibson, is also a traditionalist but is associated with an even more extreme group within the sect, Sedevacantism. He is also a Holocaust denier. Gibson has never renounced his father\u2019s views or specifically said whether or not he is a Sedevacantist, but he has said that the Holocaust did happen and that it was \u201can atrocity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report based on a three-year investigation into so-called \u201cradical traditionalist Catholics\u201d that focused on Hutton Gibson, whom they called an \u201cimportant player\u201d in this \u201cshadowy world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese Catholic extremists, including the Gibsons,\u201d wrote investigator Heidi Beirich, \u201cmay well represent the largest population of anti-Semites in the U.S.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHutton Gibson does the circuit and he\u2019s featured at a lot of events,\u201d Beirich told JTA. \u201cHe\u2019s beloved by anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and extreme anti-government activists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Mel Gibson built his own traditionalist church in the Malibu hills that is so private and secretive that no one knows what goes on inside it, Beirich said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut we do know his views are anti-Semitic, even if they don\u2019t line up with his father\u2019s,\u201d Beirich said of Mel Gibson. \u201cThe alcohol defense is ridiculous. You don\u2019t bash Jews just because you get drunk.<\/span><\/p>\n