Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] ANTISEMITISM AND HOLLYWOOD 719Furthermore, in recalling the different gospels, he wrote that John’sversion, where “the Jews” were the accusers, isn’t meant to refer to Jews inthe collective sense; rather, he stated, it’s meant to only refer to the “TempleAristocracy.” “After all,” he notes, “John was ethnically a Jew, as wereJesus and his followers. The entire early Christian community was made upof Jews.” 18And whether you are a Christian or not, it’s irrational that someonecould hate Jews, as in all Jews, because how can you hate someone younever met? And it’s impossible for someone to meet every Jew (although,comparatively there’s not a lot of Jews in the world). But even for someonewho has met a few Jews and now hates Jews collectively, did that personreally take the time to get to know those Jews? How can you presume tohate someone you don’t really know?This is not the same as saying that one hates all terrorists or childabusers—there is a legitimate reason for this feeling.The ridiculousness of antisemitism can also be seen in that a personcould have had friendly relations with a Jew and not even know he was aJew. But only when he finds out that the person is a Jew does he hate him,even though nothing about that person has changed. The Jew could havebeen the doctor that performed life-saving surgery on the antisemite or thespeech therapist that cured the antisemite’s child of a chronic stutter, andyet be hated by that antisemite.The 1947 Oscar-nominated film Crossfire illustrates this perfectly. Adetective investigates a murder of a Jew named Samuel. And while initiallyone suspect, a soldier named Mitchell, ostensibly had the means to committhe crime—he didn’t know where he was at the time of the crime becausehe had been extremely intoxicated, but could have had the time and been inthe right place to commit the crime—he had no motive. He hadn’t knownSamuel previously, and for the brief period of time he met with him at abar, it wasn’t long enough to harbor such strong feeling against him to murderhim. Often, the detective noted, you “have to know something about aman for reason to kill him.” The detective cited two examples of reasonsthat might trigger a murder: a man cheating on another man’s wife, and formoney. Both examples, however, wouldn’t work in this circumstancebecause Samuel was broke and without a wife. Realizing this, the detectiveno longer had a clear-cut case.Who was guilty, then? The detective explained that it had to have beenan antisemitic person, someone who could hate Samuel strong enough tokill him without ever having really built a relationship with him. It is laterrevealed that the guilty person is a soldier named Monty (Montgomery),18. Ibid., 185.