Why are passion plays so problematic for Jews?
There are a couple of problems with passion plays. They’re a means to an end, a variety of ends. In Oberammergau the ends are the preservation of community and certain community values, and there are economic ends as well. It has to do with a nostalgia for a certain time and a certain view of the past. This is speculative, but from what I can see about the Mel Gibson film, it will be a way to take the temperature of the culture. It’s through plays like “The Merchant of Venice,” or passion plays, that you can really take the temperature of Christian attitudes toward Jews. I’m very interested in seeing the Gibson film, and I would not want to see it stopped, despite the calls by Jewish leaders or some who might be uncomfortable with it. I think it’s important to see as an indicator of popular responses to Jews, as long as it stops short of violence against Jews. If people leave the movie theater so caught up by this that they act like Europeans did in the fifteenth and sixteenth century
