IN FRATERNAM MEAM: MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST MAKE MEL(Gibson) HAPPY

IN FRATERNAM MEAM

Friday, August 11, 2006

MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST MAKE MEL(Gibson) HAPPY

Attacking anti-Semitism has'nt got us far in 3,000 years. It's time for some changes.

MOST TIMES, WHEN SOMEONE SPOUTS OFF ABOUT HOW the Jews are, I blow it off as ignorance. If the guy just got to know us, he would totally dig us. We're funny and warm and smart and totally self-effacing. We send Ben Stiller to Iran for a few weeks, Mahmoud Admadinejad will beopening up Noah's bagel shops in all the strip malls in Tehran. The only problem is that with just 0.2 percent of the world's population, we can't do anearly as many personal appearances as we'd like. That's why we took the media.

But Mel Gibson knows us - personally. He's been in Hollywood for more than 20 years. If Mel doesn't like us, maybe it's finally time to stop blaming everyone else for the bigotry and scapegoating and start to look at ouselves. As the saying goes, If people hate you for 1,000 years, maybe you can blame them; if you're persecuted for 2,000 years, maybe you're unlucky; but if they still want to kill you after 3,000 years, you have to ask yourself if you're doing something wrong.

So we Jews are goin to have to make some slight adjustments to get on the world's good side. No more smiting our enslaves with locuts or refusing to convet during Inquisitions or giving ourselves Oscars for Holocaust documentations. We've got to up our likability, get on people's good sides.

The first thing we have to do is to drop the Chosen People marketing bit. It's not working. Not only is it not scaring people off as it was designed to do, but it comes off as sort of arrogant. I'm suggesting we change our official slogan to Just One of the Guys or the People Who Believe in Most of YOur Bible or even the People Who, if History Is a Guide, Are Not Among God's Favorites. We'll nedd to get Karl Rove involved.

You known how a lot of Jewish performers change their names so they don't offend anyone with all that Jewishness? Emmanuel Goldberg change his name to Edwared G. Robinson, and Jonathan Leibowitz threw us all off the trail with Jon Stewart. How about if all the rest of the Jews do that too? I'm considering Joe Crockett. I also like the sound Johnny Slayer.

Plus, coming up with 14 million new names will be a kind of WPA project for all the Jewish writers. Because we have to back off the controlling-the-media thing a tad.

We could do ourselves a lot of good by stopping our whole Protocols of the Elders of Zion plan. It's been more than 100 years since the book has been out, and we have yet to come close to our goal of (I'm using the Iranian translation here) "extracting from the hands of the Lord many stars and galaxies". In fact, we have to yet extract one single star or galaxy.

Let's drop it! One of our methods of controlling the universe, according to the book, was to get people hooked on alcohol. And look how that backfired last week.

Also, we need to stop killing other people's messiahs. O.K., it was actually the Romans who killed Jesus, but we were there. And even if it had been us, you'd think the Catholics would thank us, since otherwise they'd have churches today full of statues of a bald old guy clutching his heart in hospice care, and who's showing up every Sunday for that? But still, it's better if we stay far away from any messiahs. Even if a guy clearly isn't the Messiah but just saying he is - walk away. There's nothing to gain there.

Until Gibson told his arresting officers that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world". I did'nt realize that was our thing. If it is, let's drop it. I would have thought that the guy who made Braveheart, The Patriot, Gallipoli and When We Were Soldiers and had directed some of the most violent, angry scenes in cinema would love war.But I guess he does'nt.

And most of all, we have to stop this finger wagging at Gibson. Endeavor agent, Ari Emmanuel has written that no studio should work with him anymore. Bad call. We don't want to get in a battle here. In popularity contest between Mel Gibson and Jews, it does'nt look good for the Jews. Better we laugh this off, maybe respond with a gibe at the Australians, like how they have a chuckle and subtly suggest another dead language for hism to teach himself for his next movie. We've got to give that guy much busywork as possible.

(Source: ESSAY/TIMEMAG by: JOel Stein)

posted by infraternam meam @ 2:53 PM

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