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Last March, next door to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, someone shot out a front window of the offices of the Orthodox Union (a synagogue association) while a youth group was in session.

Four years ago, a racist gunman cased out the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance and other Jewish institutions, and upon finding their security too stiff, targeted a Jewish Community Center preschool, critically wounding several individuals, mostly children.

Do we Christians ever have to worry about having armed security at the religious schools that our children attend? Yet this is a common sight, not just at Jewish schools in L.A., but at synagogues and community meetings.

Then there was the well-publicized July 4, 2002, shooting of an El Al airline counter at the Los Angeles Airport. Even after 9/11, the airport's safety and security were not enough to protect the two Jews killed in the attack.

Please keep in mind that the size of the Jewish community is small enough that usually just a degree or two of separation exists between a victim of an anti-Semitic attack and most of their fellow Jews. It's true for me, too: one Jewish gentleman I know walks with a pronounced limp because two years ago he had been left for dead after a hate-related attack.

I haven't done special research to ferret out these examples. I'm describing what I've come across in my interactions with the Jewish community in the last five years in one American city.

The matter of imagined or real anti-Semitism is not as straightforward as proponents of The Passion make it out to be, where Jewish spokespersons that defend the film are good and the ones who criticize are bad. Every community, Jewish ones included, is diverse and complex, with each individual bringing to the table of life his or her own history of personal, family, and community experiences. Just because some Jewish leaders, like Rabbi Daniel Lapin, have tried to assess Gibson and his film in what I think is a more even-handed, productive manner in no way gives us Christians automatic permission to discredit the more anxious voices.

In short, there is sufficient evidence of religious hatred here in America to warrant the Jewish emotions behind protests against The Passion. Add to that anxiety the situation abroad, where the widespread reemergence of anti-Semitism is coming about swiftly and with violence, and you have the makings of a leadership that can feel and sound embattled.

I'm still of the opinion that the concerns about The Passion stirring anti-Semitic attitudes in the American movie-going public have been largely misplaced, but I do not for a minute hold these fears to be misbegotten or disingenuous. As this film comes to our hometown screens, I'm asking my Christian brothers and sisters to embrace the love and compassion reflected in Jesus' assuming upon himself human suffering. We likewise must step into the shoes of our Jewish friends to understand the sincerity of their distress. Discuss the film with a Jewish friend, and do listen with patience to what he or she may have to say. Let that Passion which inspired centuries of saints to take in orphans, care for the sick, and—like the ten Booms—give safe harbor to one's neighbor, prompt us to guard against a cynical or harsh response.

It's not enough to say, "I saw the movie, and it's not anti-Semitic. And besides Jesus was a Jew and so were his disciples. Get over it!" Rather let us speak with assurance that anti-Semitism has no place in our churches and will not be tolerated should this sin rear its head. It is in this manner that we can guard against evil people using the film or the controversy surrounding it as reasons to target the Jewish community.

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February (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48