Should Mel Gibson really be making a movie about Jews?

(RNS) After combating claims of anti-Semitism for years, actor and
filmmaker Mel Gibson is slated to bring the story of Judah Maccabee, the
Jewish military hero whose decisive victory was the inspiration for
Hanukkah, to the big screen.

News that Gibson is producing the film has drawn the predictable ire
of Jewish leaders who criticized Gibson's 2004 box office phenomenon
"The Passion of the Christ" and his drunken 2006 rant when he allegedly
claimed that "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles
called the proposal "simply an insult to Jews," akin to having a white
supremacist playing the role of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.