Maccabees

There’s a little 6-year-old Marci that is bouncing up and down at the thought of Chanukah approaching.

Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas said in a letter to Mel Gibson that the actor and filmmaker "hates Jews." Ezsterhas sent the letter following Warner Bros.' rejection of his screenplay for Gibson's movie about Judah Maccabee.

The letter, published on The Wrap.com, accuses Gibson of not really wanting to make the film, and sabotaging it, saying: "I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason you won’t make ‘The Maccabees’ is the ugliest possible one. You hate Jews.”

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a piece for this paper about Pilgrims and Native Americans.  It spoke of how the legacy of the Thanksgiving story often falls prey to deconstructionists, who value historical truth over cultural myth at all cost. Rather than have children- and, for that matter, adults- celebrate a cherished American belief in a common appreciation of blessings, they would argue that historical reality in all of its messiness- or at least, the probability of its being reality- must trump exercises in feel-good nostalgia rooted in legend.