We blogged earlier about screenwriter Joe Eszterhas‘ break with Mel Gibson over differing visions of a movie based on the Maccabees. Eszterhaz accuses Gibson of hating Jews and says the film advances an agenda, aimed in part at converting Jews. An intriguing reference arises in Eszterha’s letter to Gibson to a "Rabbi Clueless," apparently Gibson’s sobriquet for the man:
I was looking forward, too, to working with the two "biblical advisors" you had picked. But as time passed, I realized that one of the advisors, a Catholic priest — whom you called "Father Fucko" — a friend of yours who’d advised you on The Passion, made time for only half a day of conversation with me. And your other advisor — whom you called "Rabbi Clueless" — a rabbi who defended you during The Passion controversy, made time for only a forty-minute telephone conversation.
I asked to go to Israel and to speak to biblical scholars there — as I had gone to Jerusalem and Yad Vashem to rehearse music box. But you rejected that and said, "My guys know much more than those Hebres over there. I suspected then that your "advisors" were a smoke screen, a publicity gimmick, a priest and a rabbi making sure (for half a day and forty minutes on the phone) that I got all the facts right in our movie.
So who is "Rabbi Clueless?" I don’t know. But the most prominent defense of The Passion was this one in National Review Online, by Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradtion, otherwise known for his associations with Glenn Beck and Jack Abramoff.
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