Five national Orthodox Jewish organizations, representing more than 2000 Orthodox rabbis in the United States and Canada, have denounced the film, “Wholly Moses” as “the most vicious attack ever on the Jewish religion in the history of the American movie industry.” This film, according to its distributors, Columbia Pictures, Inc., is now showing in more than 600 theaters throughout the United States and Canada.
Speaking for the coalition of the five organizations, Rabbi Abraham Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, declared that “this savage mockery of our God, our Bible, including the Ten Commandments, and our prophet and teacher, Moses, is comparable to events that occurred in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. This blasphemous and sacrilegious film is also a gross offense to our Christian neighbors as the Old Testament is of course revered by them as well.”
Hecht added: “By ridiculing the divine origin of the Ten Commandments, and insultingly parodying God himself, the film undermines the very foundation on which our western system of justice, morality and ethical conduct is based.
Hecht also observed that this movie has a rating which allows children of all ages to see it without restriction. He said “it is a sad commentary on the spiritual and social level of our society when these most deeply-held and treasured beliefs and feelings of the Jewish people or of any faith can be publicly blasphemed and held up to derision and ridicule.”
The participating organizations are the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, the Rabbinical Council of the Syrian and Near Eastern Sephardic Jewish community in America, the Central Rabbinical Congress, and the National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education.
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.
