At the end of the month, Mel Gibson's movie The Passion will be released and shown at the Landmark Theaters here in the East Bay. This movie may cause immense pain to the Jewish community so I feel that we must prepare for some of the inevitable questions that will arise.

The most important thing to know is that there is a historical misunderstanding that underlies two millennia of anti-Semitism. In the first century there were no Jews. Our people called themselves Israel at that time. We divided ourselves up as kohanim, (priests), levi'im (Levites) and Israel (the rest of us). But all together we call ourselves Israel. There were also geographic divisions among us. So living in the Land of Israel, there were Galileans in the north and Judeans in the south especially in and around Jerusalem. By and large the Galileans were poor peasants. Many of the Judeans living in Jerusalem were wealthy and powerful, they were assimilated Hellenists, and were beholden to the Romans for their position and status. The High Priest and his cohort were especially corrupt and noted for their collaboration with the Romans. [While the average kohen and Levite doing all of the heavy and hard work of the Temple were probably sincere and devout religious functionaries, their leadership served at the pleasure and behest of their Roman overlords.]

The followers of Jesus were Galileans of our people Israel. They came to Jerusalem on Passover in the early 30s, many believing that Jesus of Nazareth (a Galilean) was a Judean by birth (because he was born in Bethlehem, where King David had been born). They believed that Jesus was going to claim the Judean throne and overthrow the Romans. The Romans and their Judean collaborators did not want this Galilean mob to morph into a full scale revolution so they arrested the leader and tried him for treason against Rome. The charge was that Jesus claimed to be the King of Judea. Another title for the King of Judea/Judah is the Son of God. All of Israel are the children of God, the King is the number one child or son of God, not in a divine sense but in a royal sense. That was the charge of the High Priest. It has nothing to do with blasphemy. Did these Judean collaborators care that this was the night before Passover? The Mishnah, roughly contemporary to this time, forbids the sages from holding court three days before or three days after a holiday, because the judges needed time to go home for the holiday. This is the halakhah of our tradition. The High Priest apparently did not care. The Judeans wanted this Galilean and his movement stopped. They turned him over to Pontius Pilate and the Romans for execution.

In the Gospels Pilate offers to free Jesus but the Judeans demand that he be put to death. If this were true, this would be the only time in the Roman record that Pilate ever freed a prisoner on a Jewish or any other holiday. Pilate was a brutal ruler responsible for the crucifixions of hundreds and possibly thousands of people in the Land of Israel.

The Romans tortured Jesus. Torture is explicated forbidden by our tradition. The Romans placed the crown of thorns on the head of Jesus. The Romans crucified Jesus. Our tradition has five or six methods of capital punishment, but they are all to be quick and as painless as possible. Crucifixion is brutal and excessively painful. The Roman centurion stabbed Jesus while he was on the cross. Our people were not involved in the death of Jesus.

So where were the Jews? There were no Jews. The word that has been translated Jews for two thousand years, should have correctly been translated Judeans. Yes the Judeans were part of our people, but they did not represent our people. The Judeans were Roman collaborators, and they were afraid of the Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth, because of his charismatic following and his challenge to their corruption.

Jesus was a Galilean of the people of Israel. His followers were much more representative of the traditions that would become rabbinic Judaism in the centuries to come than the corrupt Judean collaborators who brought the age of the Temple to an end.

Many Christians know that Jesus was a ‘Jew.’ So they cannot understand why the ‘Jews’ would have betrayed him. Perhaps you can say to your neighbors: Jesus was a Galilean Jew and the Judean Jews who were collaborating with the Romans betrayed him.

[I will write about how I think we should respond to the movie next month.]

—Rabbi Harry A. Manhoff, Ph.D.

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