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When people speak loosely of anti-Semitism, do they have in mind a religiously derived separation from Judaism on the part of Christians historically, or a pernicious racialist theory? Twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt argued that these are two distinct theories. Anti-Semitism is a modern racialist theory that promotes the view that the Jewish people are what the National Socialists in Germany called “subhuman.” The Nazis drew on all sorts of “scientific data” to back this up, and many top scholars in Germany signed on in this effort.

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ movie about the death of Jesus earned $17 million over the Easter weekend, making it the eighth-highest grossing film of all time. Gibson’s self-financed blockbuster had earned $354.9 million since it debuted on Feburary 25, Ash Wednesday. Other Passion-related products have also done well—a book, The Passion: Photography from the Movie, issued by Tyndale House Publishers, ranked No. 3 on the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.