What Is Mel Gibson's Obsession with the Hanukkah Story?

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | January 4, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | January 4, 2024 |

Shia LaBeouf, the only actor in Hollywood who has received more second chances than Mel Gibson, has been confirmed into the Catholic Church, citing the influence of Mel Gibson.

The actor converted to Catholicism after filming Padre Pio. He told The Hollywood Reporter that Mel Gibson had taken him under his wing and introduced him to things like Latin Mass.

“[Gibson] was cautious with me. Many years ago, I went to his house and told him to his face that his religious views and politics were a hindrance to his craft. He giggled with grace and told me to read about the Maccabees” LaBeouf told THR in an interview. “As I fell forward, he always remained supportive.”

I don’t care about Shia LaBeouf’s conversion. Let him, Gibson, and Marky Mark run off and make movies together that I will never see. I am far more interested in Gibson’s (and, by extension, LaBeouf’s) obsession with the Maccabees. If you’re Jewish, the Maccabees will ring a bell. Mel Gibson is a well-known antisemite. The Maccabees were Jewish rebels — Hanukkah is a celebration of the Maccabean Revolt. So what gives?

Gibson is so obsessed with the Maccabees that, after Passion of the Christ and years after his drunken antisemitic outburst in 2006, he tried to make a movie about the Maccabean Revolt. If you Google “Catholic, Maccabees, antisemitic,” one of the first things that comes up is an article titled “Mel Gibson and the dangers of Catholic antisemitism.” The article details how his Maccabees movie fell apart. Aside from the backlash by Jewish groups, Gibson also brought in Joe Eszterhas to write the script — the guy behind Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Eszterhas was not a fan.

Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who worked with Gibson on a film version of the biblical Book of Maccabees, wrote a letter to Gibson in 2012 after the project was canceled, enumerating the many antisemitic things that Gibson had said during their work together: his use of words like “Hebes,” “oven-dodgers” and “Jewboys” to refer to Jewish people; calling the Holocaust “mostly a lot of horseshit” and insisting that the Torah “made reference to the sacrifice of Christian babies and infants,” a claim made in the antisemitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

“You told me the mothers of the last three Popes of the Catholic Church were Jewish, and you said there was a Jewish/Masonic conspiracy to destroy the Catholic church,” Mr. Eszterhas wrote.

Yes, Mel Gibson hates Jews. We knew this. It still doesn’t answer why he wanted to make a movie about the Maccabees. At the time, Gibson said that he thought the Book of Maccabees was a “ripping good read” and thought it could be the Jewish Braveheart. Eszterhas, meanwhile, thought he only wanted to make it to distract the industry from his antisemitic comments. However, Gibson was obsessed with the Maccabees before his public antisemitic outburst and before Passion of the Christ, and he evidently remains obsessed since he cited the Book of Maccabees to LaBeouf as recently as 2020.

But why? Hannukah itself is a minor Jewish holiday that only attracts mainstream attention because of its commercial association with Christmas. The Book of Maccabees is not part of the Hebrew Bible nor considered canonical by Protestant denominations. It is, however, canonical in the Catholic church, to which Gibson belongs. Ironically, the Hannukah story allegedly only survived because it was canon in the Catholic bible.

But still, that doesn’t answer why Gibson is obsessed. Maybe that lies within this line on Wikipedia: The Book of Maccabees is “one of the suggested readings at a Mass celebrated to honor persecuted Christians.”

Persecuted Christians? Oh, here we go. From Christianity.com:

Like the Maccabees and Daniel, we will have to stand strong in our beliefs. Many Jews succumbed to the Hellenistic culture. And, to be frank, also succumbed to Babylonian pressures as well. In Daniel 3, only Daniel’s friends don’t bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. That means hundreds if not thousands of Jews yielded their convictions. As Christians, many believers will fall away in the End Times. We have to be prepared to stand firm in our faith.

For the church fathers, according to Museum of the Bible, “the Maccabees became significant as a paradigm for Christian martyrdom …the characters … were understood as role models for Christian martyrs.”

In other words, The Maccabees — in their war against their Greek/Syrian oppressors in Israel — are an example of good Jews who revolted when persecuted, although a number of bad Jews succumbed to Hellenistic and Babylonia pressures.

Can you see Mel Gibson’s movie in your mind now? While most Jews were “succumbing” to Hellenistic pressures, a small minority of passionate, God-loving Jews — led by the OG Hebrew Hammer — launched a bloody revolt, expressing their military might against the Greek monarch, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes — the literal archetype of the antichrist — and inspired future Christians to do the same against their persecutors.

Now, it all makes sense. Thank you for traveling down this rabbit hole with me.