Had Drudge Blog been around when Mel Gibson presented Passion of the Christ, I might have written an essay about Matt Drudge’s support of the film in light of the fact that he is a nonaffiliated Jew and the only one invited to the private promotional screening. I might have talked about the implications of that message, and, most germane to my “expertise” as a “Matt Drudge historian”, what kind of paradigm he was working from. In light of Gibson’s DUI scandal and Jew-bashing tirade, it behooves all of us to view the movie in a different light.

Having recently seen the DVD version this summer, long after the hype and uproar has died down, I still wonder about Matt’s “Jewish endorsement” of the Passion and whether or not he really understood what he was aiding and abetting in a 2003 MSNBC interview:

“This is the ultimate film. It’s magical. Best picture I have seen in quite some time… It depicts a clash between Jesus and those who crucified him, and speaking as a Jew, I thought it was a magical film that showed the perils of life on earth…” (Note that Matt also praised Fahrenheit 9/ll).

Mel Gibson deserves at least a fair trial in the court of public opinion. Is “drunk talk” genuine expression of sentiments? Don’t most of us harbor some degree of irrational prejudice that we intellectually understand, or at least never dream of saying in public? But here I want to talk not so much about Mel, who’s getting all the feedback he can possibly want at this hour, but about Matt Drudge’s role in creating “buzz”, which warranted his invitation to the initial screening.

Drudge comes from a nonreligious Jewish family with what he calls very “liberal hippie” parents. While he went his own way politically, he absorbed their sensibilities in other ways. He claims to have meditated since he was five and reads J. Krishnamurti, a Theosophist. He guesses he is a “new age Jew” who likes reading Jesus and is into “third-eye stuff.”

Jewish education, while rich and meaningful, doesn’t necessarily entice kids forced to go there. It ain’t shiny, happy Protestant Sunday school where you sing songs and put on skits to keep you busy before joining the grownups at church. An obligation is involved in attending. Money is involved. Effort is involved. And the problem with Hebrew and religious school is, you actually gotta learn stuff. And that’s what young Drudge, whose high school ranking was 341st out of 355, had trouble with.

Always chafing at required education of any kind, Matt couldn’t master enough Hebrew to have his bar mitzvah – even after four, six or seven painful years in Jewish education (depending on the press interview). Since he didn’t have a religious foundation at home, and associated what he was learning with being “stuffed like a sausage”, I wonder whether he really looks on Judaism or Jewish culture positively.

What bothered me about Matt’s public sanction of Gibson’s film is that I don’t think he really understands enough about Judaism or the complicated history and dynamic of Jewish-Christian relations to pick up on things that alarmed others. His “endorsement”,based on limited perspective, negates the more informed warnings of the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish and Christian scholars, and a host of other concerned — and informed — individuals. And yet Matt seems to embrace basic values from the conservative, Christian middle America he influences…without really understanding what a different mindset they come from. Many of his fans who drool over their conservative action hero would be a little put off by the “real” Matt Drudge.

Nor, I doubt, does their hero understand who they are. Drudge has lived only in suburban DC, LA, New York, and Miami – all large, sophisticated cities with large Jewish populations, all places where religious and secular Jews alike can live without feeling too much like outsiders. Had Matt grown up in a smaller Jewish community in the Bible Belt or the Midwest, in the hinterlands where his core audience calls home, I doubt he’d have been so quick to defend Mel’s film “speaking as a Jew…”

Don’t misunderstand me. A handful of Jews, including Michael Medved, with a stronger understanding of context than Drudge, did not agree with the criticism leveled against Passion. All the same, there are details in the film that warrant serious discussion – things that Christians and contextually naïve Jews like Matt should hear me out on:

• Being a “Passion show”, the story opens with the exchange of dirt and money between Judas and the kohen gadol (Temple high priest). We see Pontius Pilate’s agonizing decisionmaking process and the Romans’ concern about keeping the Jews under control, but not the development of Jesus’ notoriety within the Jewish community. The Jewish authorities are not portrayed with the same complexity as their Roman higher-ups — a detail that may be unintentionally truncated by time constraints, but grave nonetheless. Viewers cannot entirely appreciate why the Jews would respond as they did.

• Even a very spooked Judas is more sympathetic than the nasty High Priest, who curls an evil smile at a key moment. This malevolence is a fictional dramatization that upholds the old anti-Semitic stereotype but has no basis in fact.

• There are more stereotypical hooked noses among the (mostly Italian) cast than I’ve seen in years.

• Given the chance to free Jesus, the Jewish mob chooses Bar-Abbas, whom the New Testament ’s koine Greek translates into “robber” but who’s depicted in Gibson’s film as a human Cujo. The Jews are depicted as so rabidly irrational that they’d rather unleash murderous psycho on themselves than go easy on Jesus.

• Viewers unfamiliar with the historical period would have difficult telling the kohanim (Temple priests) from the Roman soldiers. Indeed, the Jews and Romans seem to be in greater cohorts than they possibly could have been. In fact, these seemingly unruly Jews were at the mercy of the Roman Empire even to keep their civil liberties and Temple life intact.

Are any of these depictions intentional? Likely not. But while Gibson’s Passion of the Christ does not consciously invoke anti-Semitic sentiments, it does perpetuate them, however unconscious a viewer may be to them.

In this generation, young urban Jews like Matt Drudge intellectually know that anti-Semitism is out there, have been warned of its dangers, but don’t come across it on a daily basis. Nor do many fathom the lack of information that Christians and other non-Jews have about things they take for granted. Some fans of Drudge – and the Passion movie – are not exactly yeshiva bochers. They inhabit a world where people honestly think someone can’t convert to Judaism because their nose isn’t big enough, want to feel a the horns on their Jewish friends’ head, and think Jews killed their savior. It’s not the historical inaccuracies alone or the negative portrayal of Jews alone that concerns me, but the combination thereof.

I appreciate Matt Drudge’s ability to “separate artists from art,” as he said last night on-air. As a former philosophy and English major, I’m all too aware of his point that many of the great artists and thinkers were anti-Semitic. Nor do I take his press at face value: Some reports of his “endorsement” of Passion made him sound like a token Jew who was playing the role of doctor-in-the-cigarette-ad. Matt actually mentioned on radio in December 2004 that he had been invited to Gibson’s private film screening to create buzz, that he respected Mel’s mission to flaunt Hollywood and create the kind of film he wanted to, and even that Mel lost Matt a little bit with the “cross nail” marketing ploy.

I also appreciate Matt’s neutrality last night on-air as he listened to everyone from Chabad-Lubavitchers talking about the end of times, anti-Semites talking about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or flashing an IM about “high maintenance” Jews, and a woman rambling about Jews for Jesus. Jewish journalists have to feel heat from their community. Not because they are interested in world domination, but because political issues are often survival issues. Matt is a more obvious supporter of Israel than many Jews. That’s one of many reasons why his fans appreciate him. But as anyone who read the transcribed tape between President Nixon and Billy Graham, being a friend of Israel and being a friend of the Jews are two different propositions.

In researching for my book, I came across a forum thread where someone expressed their respect for Matt Drudge. “Finally, a Jew who’s American first.” The site? Stormfront.

Is that the kind of Jew Matt wants to be? Does he still want to “speak as a Jew” in defense of those who are perpetuating hatred for his people? I hope not.