'Passion' Tied to Attacks on Canadian Jews

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" on Tuesday was cited by a report as the cause of an upsurge last year in Canadian anti-Semitic attacks, now running at a record pace.

The League for Human Rights of B'nai Brith, releasing its 2004 audit of anti-Semitic attacks in Canada, said last year's media coverage of Gibson's film and its alleged depiction of Jews as the "Christ killer" led to an often violent spike in attacks against the Canadian Jewish community.

"Whereas only nine incidents in 2003 had religious connotations to the story of Jesus' death, there were 32 such incidents in 2004, nine of them in February when the movie opened and a further 15 in the three months following its release," the B'nai Brith study found.

As unappealing as The Torture of the Christ isn't the cause of the problem. Stupidity is. I guess we need to keep in mind that religious zealotry exists north of the border, too.