Minnesota Jews Appeal to Archbishop Against Endorsing Deicide Film

The Archdiocese of St. Paul was urged by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota to reconsider its endorsement of the planned commercial showing in the area of a film on the life of Jesus widely denounced by Jewish groups as perpetuating “age old hatreds” and the charge of deicide against Jews.

Camuel Scheiner, executive director of the Council, protested the endorsement in a letter to Archbishop Leo Binz, The official said that the film, “The Redeemer, ” had lea a rabbi to declare that “the film was so damaging to the Jewish community that not even 10, 000 classroom hours will be able to erase the visual and psychic experience” of seeing it,

Mr. Scheiner also told the prelate that the Jewish community “has been greatly concerned about the showing” of “The Redeemer” despite “considerable revisions and changes” in the original version.

He cited a review of the film by a Jewish film advisory committee in which “every member” of the committee felt that the film had “a very damaging and inflammatory depiction of the crucifixion” and that despite the revisions, the overall effect remained “disastrous. ” He added that the film “perpetuates the old myth of the Jews as deicides and therefore furthers anti-Semitism. “

Mr. Scheiner stressed that his letter was not “for the purpose of urging censorship” of the film. In view of the recent Vatican Declaration on the Jews, he said, he was confident “you would want to have this information prior to this film’s being shown to this area’s Catholic population so that you can preview the film and evaluate its effect on Catholic youngsters who may be exposed to a movie which perpetuates the age-old hatreds and prejudices which have been borne by the Jews because of the inflammatory depiction of the crucifixion. “