The film “Gentleman’s Agreement,” a motion picture on anti-Semitism in America, has been banned from Spain by the ecclesiastical member of the Spanish Film Censorship Board, the N.Y. Times reported today from Madrid.
Quoting a “source close to the board,” the Times correspondent said that the ecclesiastical member banned the movie on “moral grounds,” listing several objectionable points which he termed “theological errors.” The order prohibiting distribution of the film declared that while it is a Christian duty to “stimulate love among individuals, societies, nations and peoples” it should not extend to Jews, the Time correspondent said.
The board’s order also commented that: “Evil should be despised and evildoers pitied, but to condescend to what is wrong, and even to stimulate it, is entirely different. That is why it is asked of the Lord that He should deign to humiliate the enemies of His holy church, and as such might Jews be considered.”
Among the reasons advanced by the ecclesiastical member for the ban was that the picture stated “that a Christian is not superior to a Jew and that to sate the contrary is to accept poison that is instilled by millions of parents into the minds of millions of children.” Another reason offered was that to say that there is not difference between Christians and Jews is “merely so many words.”
A third point made by the ecclesiastical member was: “They say that for many Jews it is a matter of pride to be called Jews. Pride of what? The pride of being the people who put God to death? Of being perfidious, as they are called in the Holy Scripture?”
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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.
