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Filmmaker explores post-9/11 anti-Semitism
Thursday, October 27, 2005

By ANDREA GURWITT
HERALD NEWS

Paterson's own Walid Rabah has made the big time, appearing in a new documentary with some of the top anti-Semites of the last century.
There's Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad; there's American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell; there's Henry Ford and Father Charles Coughlin; and then Rabah, in his Main Street office, talking about why he reprinted "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in 2002.
Director Marc Levin ("Brooklyn Babylon," "Whiteboyz") sought out Rabah for the HBO/Cinemax film "Protocols of Zion," an energetic 93-minute journey into the world of Jew hatred.
Levin, who was raised in Elizabeth and Maplewood and now lives in New York City, uses as the film's jumping-off point the erroneous belief that no Jews died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
An Egyptian taxi driver told Levin soon after Sept. 11, 2001, that Jews had been warned by knowing rabbis not to go to work that day, linking his assertion to a book, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
The book has long been a favorite of those wanting to stir up anti-Semitic hatred, including, but not limited to, Russian police in the late 1800s, Adolf Hitler and modern-day white supremacist groups.
"The Protocols" is a bogus document purporting to be the minutes of a secret meeting of Jewish leaders in the late 19th century, in which they lay out a plan for world domination. Historians have long denounced "The Protocols" as propaganda produced by the Tsarist secret police, who wanted to justify the Jews' persecution.
The documentary is an account of Levin's search to understand why "The Protocols" has had such staying power; why, even after it has been widely debunked, people persist in distributing and reading the book. It is also about why anti-Semitism has been on the rise since Sept. 11.
"I was sensitive to it because I hadn't heard it before. Or if I had heard it before, it was so much on the fringe," Levin says.
Levin frequently appears in his film, interviewing and sometimes arguing with a variety of anti-Semites, philo-Semites, Jewish Semites and non-Jews who do not necessarily announce which side of the fence they're on, even after it becomes clear.
Enter Rabah.
A little history here. Rabah, publisher of the free Arab-language weekly The Arab Voice, printed excerpts of "The Protocols" in August and October 2002. He told the Herald News in 2002 that he thought it would be "educational" for the newspaper's readers.
Several years later, he tells Levin in the film that he believes "The Protocols" are fake. "The problem is I don't write it, I just publish it to educate the people," Rabah says.
Rabah wrote a disclaimer at the bottom of the newspaper page on which the excerpts were printed, he says, stating they weren't true.
At the end of the interview he says to Levin, "The Jews, they control everything."
Reached for comment about his words in the film, Rabah drew a distinction between Judaism, the religion, and Zionism, the political philosophy. He complained that Zionists "control" politicians, corporations and the media.
But let's not dwell just on our local guy, because the film is about much more than one publisher.
Levin also goes to the headquarters of the hate group the National Alliance, where he is told "The Protocols" will always sell. He's a guest on a radio show hosted by a white supremacist and gamely responds to callers.
He interviews inmates at New Jersey State Prison and tries to convince black prisoners that Jews were not responsible for the slave trade. He talks to Christian evangelists about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." He visits a gathering of Muslims in Sunset Park mourning the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder of the terrorist Palestinian group Hamas.
He also talks to a Holocaust survivor; a kabalist; the director of the Anti-Defamation League; and the widow of a Jewish World Trade Center victim.
There is no dearth of people who have something to say on the subject. The film includes clips from an Arab-language movie version of "The Protocols" broadcast on Arab television, and from an interview with a 3-year-old Egyptian girl who without pause recites slurs against Jews.
What worries Levin is the new shape of anti-Semitism, spread widely and easily by the Internet.
"It has blossomed in a way that is frightening," he says.
And not just anti-Semitism but all religious zealotry.
"Violence is blessed and sacred and hate can be holy. That is what scares me more," he says.
Although Levin was shocked by the apparent flare-up of anti-Semitism after 9/11, some might argue that hatred of Jews in some of its various permutations never went away, even in this country.
Levin is sometimes accompanied by his filmmaker father Al Levin, who appears almost like Virgil to his son's Dante, leading Marc through the family's past and accompanying him on interviews.
Levin decided to insert scenes with his father to show, in essence, a Jewish elder and his son.
This is his way of responding to the virulent anti-Semitism of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
"The Jewish elders, they've got the secret and it's passed on from elder to son," Levin says. "My father is my elder. What secrets is he passing to me? What are the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the end?"
For Levin, the secrets are simply about what his grandfather used to say: "Go do good."
E-mail: gurwitt@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2005 North Jersey Media Group Inc.

 

The fallacies of hate
'Protocols of Zion' exposes anti-Semitic lies
Friday, October 21, 2005
BY STEPHEN WHITTY
Star-Ledger Staff
Protocols of Zion

(Unrated) HBO (93 min.)

Directed by Marc Levin. Opens Friday at theaters in New York
Stars: 2 1/2

One of the first reactions after 9/11 was disbelief. "Why do they hate us?" some Americans asked, in uncomprehending wonder. It is the same question that American Jews -- and German, French, Polish and Russian ones -- have been asking for centuries.

The anti-Semites have their answers, and most can be found in "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a warning about Jewish conspiracies.

It doesn't matter that the manuscript was proven to be Czarist propaganda, a "conspiracy theory" against which all others pale. It doesn't matter that its most prominent believers were men like Adolf Hitler, or the racist Henry Ford (who also blamed the Jews for jazz, that "musical slush.")

The book is still sold, and read. It has been turned into an audiobook, and an Egyptian miniseries, and can be found, right now, on the Internet. And it is still, sadly, believed -- as in 9/11 theories about Jews getting a "secret warning" not to go to the Twin Towers that day, or even that Israelis blew up the buildings themselves to scapegoat the Arabs.

New Jersey filmmaker Marc Levin heard that theory from a cab driver one day, and he was shocked. So he took his camera, and a small crew, and went out to start asking questions.

He went to Maplewood to ask Al, his aged father -- his own, "elder of Zion" -- about the anti-Semitism he faced growing up. He went to Paterson, where he interviews the publisher of Arab Voice, who says he doesn't believe in the Protocols himself but printed them after 9/11 "to educate the people."

He talked to angry prisoners at a maximum-security prison in Trenton who quote the book as fact, and to a scarily calm American skinhead in the Midwest, who makes a nice profit selling it by mail-order and to angry kids in the street who blame everything on the Jews.

Levin's filmmaking credits are mostly in documentary, but his best-known film was the Sundance drama, "Slam" and this is hardly a conventional nonfiction film. Much of it owes something to the filmmaker-as-character genre, as Levin talks about his own feelings, or his troubles in getting the film made. Emotional, questioning and opinionated, it's more of an essay than a report.

Levin also, frankly, takes on more than he can handle, broadening the focus from the Protocols and their propagandists to modern anti-Semitism in general. Is anti-Zionism the same as anti-Semitism? Why did Jewish artists find such a home in American entertainment, and what has their influence really meant? These are excellent questions, but the film can't even properly phrase them all, let alone provide some answers.

Yet this is an important film, and often a surprising one. To actually see the "Protocols" mini-series -- with its scenes of innocent boys' throats being slit for secret Jewish rituals -- is to feel vaguely sick. And to listen to someone from the New York medical examiner's office -- also, coincidentally, a cantor -- talk about the 9/11 victims he helped identify, and the services he went to, is to call that "no Jews died" rumor the ugly lie that it is.

Still, the most amazing part of "The Protocols of Zion" may be the slow accumulation of separate scenes, as we watch violent criminals, white supremacists, Muslim despots and Islamic extremists all briefly united -- if only in their virulent hatred of the Jews. For the sane, racism is a divisive thing. For the rest, it seems, it provides their only weird sense of community.

Ratings note: The film contains offensive language.


© 2005 The Star Ledger
© 2005 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

'Protocols' Exposes Ugly Legacy of Lies

The Jewish Journal,  2005-10-21

by Steven Rosen, Contributing Writer, 2005-10-21

Not long after Sept. 11, an Egyptian cab driver in New York told filmmaker Marc Levin, whose documentary "Protocols of Zion" is being released Friday in Los Angeles, the act of terrorism was caused by Jews rather than by Muslim fundamentalists.
No Jews had died in the attack, the cabbie said. They all had been warned in advance to stay away, part of the Jewish plan for world domination as spelled out in the "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
This encounter opened Levin's eyes to the resilience of the fraudulent "Protocols" and ultimately prompted him to make his new documentary "The Protocols of Zion," which inevitably examines the staying power of anti-Semitism as well as this notorious artifact.
Levin was stunned by his encounter with the cabbie. A child of the 1960s who gobbled up Kennedy-conspiracy and other sinister theories, he remembered when he was first introduced to the "Protocols."
"Someone gave it to me as ancient history saying, 'You need to read this because it's the greatest comic book of conspiracy thinking,'" he said. He never imagined that 40 years later he'd be "going down the streets of New York and people would say this is alive and well" - not to mention factual.
Levin said evidence points to agents of czarist Russia as creating and first publishing the anti-Semitic "Protocols" in 1905, a time of civil unrest in a country with a long history of animosity toward Jews. It purported to be an account of a meeting by Jewish elders on their secret plans for world domination. It attracted a following in Europe, including Hitler. In 1920, American industrialist Henry Ford translated it into English and offered it free with new cars.

Like many others, the 54-year-old Levin figured the hard lessons of the Holocaust had wiped out the book's following - as well as the world's taste for lies about Jews. But intrigued by the cabbie, he discovered that both the "Protocols" and the "no Jews died in 9/11" slurs had a strong following in an Arab/Muslim world shocked by the impact of Sept. 11 and already inflamed by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He found "Protocols" also had a following among some Arab Americans as well as among some American black nationalists and white supremacists.

Indeed, Egyptian and Hezbollah TV each have broadcast miniseries since Sept. 11 based on the "Protocols" to millions of Arabs and Muslims during Ramadan. And Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group, incorporated a belief in the "Protocols" into its charter.

Levin's "Protocols of Zion" has the style of a first-person essay and intersperses scenes of humor amid the chilling revelations - as when a street fanatic decries Mayor "Jew-liani." It's stylistically akin to Michael Moore films, in which the director's journey is part of the experience.

Levin patiently confronts those who espouse the "Protocols" as truth and tries to reason with them. He also movingly disproves the "no Jews died in Sept. 11" falsity. At the same time, he consults with his aging father, a former labor organizer who had taken him to the 1963 March on Washington, wondering what is happening in the world.

The filmmaker also broaches sensitive issues beyond the "Protocols," such as the blaming of Jews for the death of Jesus. In "Protocols," Levin is shown on the phone trying to persuade several Jews in the entertainment industry to watch Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and talk about it. He gets the runaround.

"Marc Levin is a truth seeker and courageously rushes past taboos and PC language to deliver a scary, human and often funny film," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "One other important fact he discovered is how unavailable too many Jews in Hollywood are to confront the uncomfortable new-old phenomenon of anti-Semitism."

The film is both shocking and important, said Alison Mayersohn, senior associate director of the Anti-Defamation League's L.A. office: "Here we are, it's the 21st century, and people believe this again - or still."

A New Jersey-raised New Yorker who considers himself a secular Jew, Levin has had a long and wide-ranging filmmaking career. He has been especially interested in racial and cultural topics. His dramatic feature "Slam," about a rap poet's life amid mean streets and prison, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. His "Twilight: Los Angeles" was an adaptation of Anna Deavere Smith's play about the 1992 L.A. riots.

As a result, Levin has a certain street credibility and hip-hop-informed savvy. But that hasn't won over black nationalist Eric Ture Muhammad, executive director of the Black African Holocaust Council, who attended a recent screening in New York.

"I have no proof," he was reported in the New York Observer as saying about the "Protocols," "that it's a fabrication. I'm not here to say that I believe in it. However, it is uncanny how so many similarities in terms of what we see in the world today fit those 'Protocols.'"

Reached by telephone, Muhammad said he takes issue with the movie for failing to refute the Protocols, point by point. He said it's more accurate to describe Levin's work as a film essay about discovering anti-Semitism in a post-Sept. 11 world.

"I'm for proving or disproving the facts behind anything," Muhammad told The Journal. "If the Protocols are a forgery, we'll all celebrate. If it's true, that's something to be dealt with."

It is just such a mindset that intrigued and disquieted Levin in the first place - that an articulate, educated observer could find the Protocols to be plausible, even when Jews, not to mention reputable historians, can immediately spot the forgery as transparently ridiculous and fraudulent.

In Los Angeles for recent interviews, Levin is aware of a certain disconnect in talking about his film's troubling subject in such a place as the dining room of Beverly Hills' Le Meridien hotel. It's tempting to think the whole world - certainly the whole country - must be as secure and accepting of him, his work, and of Jews. And yet Levin no longer takes such things for granted.

"Before Sept. 11, I didn't give a lot of thought to these subjects," he said. "One thing I can say for sure after making this film is that I'm much more mindful than I ever was. I have come to subscribe to the theory that when there are traumatic world-changing events there's almost this default setting, certainly in the West and now we see the Muslim world adopting it, to blame the Jews. It's almost built into the system.

"For me, the big question is how do you defuse the hate? How do you combat that? I would say that's a question we're going to struggle with," he said. "I would say the battle for ideas matters. So those of us who deal in ideas are part of this. That's what my film is saying. We have a responsibility to try to figure out how you fight this."

The film opens today in Los Angeles. At 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 3, it screens at the Desert Jewish Film Festival in Palm Desert, co-sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League. © 2004 The Jewish Journal, All Rights Reserved