It was then that the Anti-Defamation League, having for the first time come to the conclusion that it was useless further to deal with Mr. DeMille, took the matter up with Mr. Will Hays, who is the president of the Motion Picture Production Association in the East. Mr. DeMille, however, being a wholly independent producer and financing himself, is not in anywise subject either to the jurisdiction or directions of Mr. Hays or his Association.
“As a result of the efforts of the National Anti-Defamation League, it has been agreed that two Jewish scholars to be selected by the B’nai Brith shall study the picture and report upon the reconstruction of its story. Whether Mr. DeMille will keep faith and abide by this agreement, we cannot say.”
“I solemnly remind the owners of the ‘King of Kings’ that the blood of the fellow-Jews of Jesus will be upon their heads, if they persist, as I believe they cannot persist, in exhibiting this picture in European lands,” declared Dr. Stephen S. Wise in his sermon at the Free Synagogue, Carnegie Hall, Sunday morning.
Criticizing the production as vulgar and as “calculated to do irreparable hurt to the Jewish people first, and, after that, to those better relationships which are growing between Jew and Christian,” Dr. Wise pointed out the menace which the picture would bring to millions of Jews if the film should be exhibited in Central and East European lands, and called upon the producers and owners to withdraw the picture from those lands in which, as a result of the presentation of the picture, Jews are almost sure to be the victims of excesses at the hands of those infuriated by some of the hate-evoking elements of the picture, including most especially, the sneering and jeering of Jews at Jesus in the moments of crucifixion.
“The ‘King of Kings’ is infinitely more damaging than the long-continued Ford libels, because, crude and false as these were, they could poision only the minds of the literate, but the ‘King of Kings’ is hurtful to the literate and the illiterate alike, most hurtful because of its provocative and embittering character, with respect to illiterate or nearly illiterate folk.”
Dr. Wise expressed hope that the plans which have been inaugurated, looking to the cooperation of a committee of the B’nai Brith with the motion-picture producers and exhibitors, might be effectuated,–instead of casual and inconsequent consultation with one or two Jews. “The evil of this picture could have been averted, if there had been real consultation with Jewish leaders qualified to give wise counsel even as distinguished representatives of a great Christian communion were consulted throughout the preparation of the picture.
“Let there be arrangements without the possibility of curtailment of freedom, looking to the right kind of consultation with respect to any picture that deals with fundamental problems in the life of any religious or racial group in American life.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
