In 2020, Jewish actress Winona Ryder claimed that Gibson once called her an ‘oven dodger’ — a reference to the crematoria at Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

By Shiryn Ghermezian, The Algemeiner

US President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has appointed three actors — including an Academy Award winner who has a history of making antisemitic and racist comments — to be special ambassadors to the Hollywood entertainment industry.

“It is my honor to announce Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone, to be Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE! These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest. It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!”

Gibson, 69, and Voight, 86, endorsed Trump in a video released before the presidential election in November and Stallone, 78, introduced Trump for his victory speech at Mar-a-Lago. Voight also called Trump “the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.”

Gibson, who recently lost his home in the Los Angeles wildfires, said in a statement that he received the news “at the same time as all of you and was just as surprised.”

“Nevertheless, I heed the call,” said the director and “Braveheart” star. “My duty as a citizen is to give and help and insight I can. Any chance the position comes with an Ambassador’s residence?”

Gibson is the director of the 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ,” which Jewish groups said promoted antisemitic tropes about Jews being responsible for Jesus’s death. Gibson recently said he will release a sequel to the movie and filming will begin next year.

In 2006, the “Lethal Weapon” star when on an anti-Jewish rant while being arrested for speeding and driving under the influence. He told the arresting officer “f—king Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” The actor later apologized for his comments.

In 2020, Jewish actress Winona Ryder claimed that Gibson once called her an “oven dodger” — a reference to the crematoria at Nazi concentration camps during World War II — and asked her friend who was gay, “Oh wait, am I gonna get AIDS?” Gibson denied Ryder’s accusations.

He has been accused of antisemitism other times as well and was caught on tape making racist and misogynistic remarks to his ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson, was an antisemitic Holocaust denier.

On the flip side, Voight is an avid supporter of Israel and the Jewish community, and said he feels a “responsibility” to combat antisemitism.

His father used to work at a Jewish country club in Scarsdale, New York. Voight, who was raised Catholic, said the kindness that Jewish members of the club showed his father and how they embraced him, even though he was not Jewish, helped develop Voight’s love of the Jewish community.

The “National Treasure” and “Ray Donovan” star condemned Hamas-led terrorists for perpetrating the deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last year, the Academy Award-winning actor criticized his daughter, actress and filmmaker Angelina Jolie, claiming she is “ignorant” and uniformed about Israel, and “influenced by antisemitic people,” after she criticized Israel’s military actions targeting terrorists in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war. He has also said that he is “very disappointed” in Jolie’s anti-Israel stance.

He previously bashed the United Nations as well, saying that although it claims to care about human rights, when it comes to the actions of Israel, “it’s just anti-Israel bashing.”

While detailing his close connection to the Jewish culture during an interview in November 2023, Voight expressed his support for the Chabad movement and said “the great Einsteins of the Jewish people across the years were rabbis.”

The post Trump appoints Mel Gibson, with antisemitic past, pro-Israel actor Jon Voight as Hollywood ambassadors appeared first on World Israel News.

In 2016, Gibson revealed he was in talks to make a sequel. Caviezel confirmed in 2018 that he would play Jesus in the new movie.

By World Israel News Staff

Actor Jim Caviezel, who starred as Jesus in director Mel Gibson’s 2004 “The Passion of the Christ,” said he’s received the third draft of the script for the sequel.

“Mel Gibson just sent me the third picture, the third draft. It’s coming. It’s called The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection. It’s going to be the biggest film in world history,” Caviezel told Breitbart News Daily.

In 2016, Gibson revealed he was in talks to make a sequel. Caviezel confirmed in 2018 that he would play Jesus in the new movie.

Caviezel, 51, says his career suffered for making the film, which grossed $612 million against its $30 million budget.

“The film exploded. It was off the charts. You’d think, ‘Oh, you’re going to work a lot.’ No, I didn’t. I was no longer on the studio list. That was gone… Because of what I do as an actor — that’s my skill — it was given to me from God. I didn’t give it to myself, but it’s something in which I have a great range… I really felt that faith was much bigger than the industry and Hollywood, and bigger than the Republican or Democratic Party or any of that.”

Breitbart says he told Fox News in March that Hollywood is growing more hostile to biblical films. He said, “These films can’t be made now. The films they make are Marvel Comics movies. You’ll see Superman. You won’t see Jesus. I got to play the greatest superhero there ever was.”

The first movie focused on the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life. The sequel will focus on his resurrection, according to the New Testament.

The post Mel Gibson to make ‘Passion of the Christ’ sequel appeared first on World Israel News.

“I heard him use words like Hebes and oven dodgers and Jew boys,” said Joe Eszterhas.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Mel Gibson continually referred to Jews as “oven dodgers,” famed Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas said in a July 18, 2019, interview with Andrew Goldman of Los Angeles Magazine.

“I heard him use words like Hebes and oven dodgers and Jew boys,” Eszterhas said when asked how Gibson would refer to Jews.

Eszterhas, a Hungarian-born Christian, said that Gibson reached out to him in 2010 about writing a script for a movie about the Maccabees, the Jewish priests and warriors of the Chanukah story.

Though reluctant because of Gibson’s history of making anti-Semitic statements, Eszterhas agreed to collaborate with him.

“He said the reason he wanted to do the Maccabees is because it’s a story of Jewish independence and Jewish strength. And the way he was talking, I thought that he wanted to do it as a kind of apologia for the things he was being accused of,” Eszterhas said.

Instead, Eszterhas’ experiences working with Gibson were full of anti-Semitic tirades and terrifyingly violent outbursts. He claimed that Gibson told him, “What I really want to do with this movie is to convert the Jews to Christianity.”

Eszterhas said, “I think the basic point of this is that the man needs help. There’s an illness at the core. There’s a cancer at the core. I’m not a psychologist, but there’s something that’s very twisted at the core.”

He said, “My great fear with Mel is that unless somebody really helps him, he can either cause himself or others real damage. He needs help that way.”

The Maccabees project eventually fell apart, and Eszterhas recorded his version of events in a 2012 e-book titled “Heaven and Mel.”

Eszterhas’ statements back up actress Winona Ryder’s claim that Gibson called her an “oven dodger” at a party 25 years ago. Ryder spoke about the incident multiple times, most recently in a June 21 interview with the London-based Sunday Times.

“This is 100 percent untrue,” a representative for Gibson said in a statement to Variety on June 23. “She lied about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and she’s lying about it now.”

Ryder’s father is Jewish, and many of her relatives on his side of the family were murdered in the Holocaust.

The post Mel Gibson repeatedly called Jews ‘oven dodgers’; Hollywood screenwriter backs up Winona Ryder appeared first on World Israel News.

Emmy Rossum spoke out after Winona Ryder accused Mel Gibson of making anti-Semitic comments.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Jewish actress Emmy Rossum weighed in about the anti-Semitism she’s faced in Hollywood earlier this week.

Rossum’s comments came on the heels of Winona Ryder’s recent interview with the Sunday Times, in which she revealed that Mel Gibson had referenced her Jewish looks and asked if she was an “oven dodger.”

“On multiple occasions I’ve had people — both in the industry and not — be surprised to learn that I’m Jewish. They usually react with “Oh! Wow. You don’t really LOOK Jewish,’” Rossum wrote on Twitter.

“And when I offer no response and let the statement linger they continue with some kind of defensive qualifier like ‘I mean that in a GOOD way! As if ‘looking Jewish’ — whatever that means to them — is something I should want to avoid. This makes me sick.”

The Phantom of the Opera star continued, “This stirred up a lot for me in a time when I’m already pretty stirred. It’s disgusting. It’s sad. And yet not a surprising or unique experience of the white supremacy and bigotry that pervades our country and industry at all.”

Gibson denies Ryder’s account, calling it “100% untrue.”

He told Variety, “She lied about it over a decade ago, when she talked to the press, and she’s lying about it now.”

Rossum, a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter, revealed on Twitter that she was bombarded with anti-Semitic harassment after President Trump’s election victory in November 2016.

“Trump supporters are sending me messages threatening to send me & my ‘ilk’ to the gas chambers & writing hashtags like ‘#sieg hiel’. NOT OK,” she tweeted.

“Telling anyone to ‘get ready for the trains’ in reference to WWII is disgusting & offensive. Reporting you to twitter is not enough. Back off.”

She then posted a screenshot of one of the messages, which included an image of a concentration camp at the end of a railroad with “Trump” written on the camp’s walls.

“This doesn’t scare me,” wrote Rossum. “It doesn’t cause me nightmares.”

“I find it sad to recognize that this kind of vicious underbelly was there all along.”

The post Jewish actress Emmy Rossum condemns Hollywood anti-Semitism appeared first on World Israel News.

Gibson will star as Whitelaw Rothchild in a “dark satire.” Given Gibson’s history of anti-Semitic comments, it “seems like a very bad idea,” W Magazine says.

By World Israel News Staff

Mel Gibson is “set to star in dark satire Rothchild about New York’s super rich,” reports Deadline, a Hollywood breaking news outlet.

“The project, whose title puns on the wealthy Rothschild group, charts how charismatic outcast Becket Rothchild plots his way back into his family’s riches, setting himself on a collision course with patriarch Whitelaw Rothchild. On the way, he must infiltrate the weird and twisted lives of his super-rich kin including frat boys, hipster artists, and reality TV stars,” says Deadline.

Mr. Gibson is to play Whitelaw, while Shia LaBeouf will act the role of Becket.

“Mel Gibson and Shia LaBeouf’s Rothchild Movie Seems Like a Very Bad Idea” was the title of a W Magazine article about the upcoming film.

“Gibson, in addition to his arrest for domestic violence, has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks,” writes the American women’s fashion magazine. “When the actor was arrested for drunk driving in 2006, he let forth a string of anti-Semitic slurs, saying ‘F***ing Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,'” the magazine notes.

In addition, “Gibson’s father, writer Hutton Gibson, is a famous Holocaust denier (he describes the event as ‘fiction’) who claims that the formation of the Second Vatican Council was ‘a Masonic plot backed by the Jews,”’ says W Magazine.

“It’s darkly fitting to see Gibson starring in Rothchild, a film quite obviously based on the Rothschild banking family, the subject of several widespread anti-Semitic conspiracies,” the magazine says.

Gabrielle Stewart of Hanway Films, which is involved in launching the movie this week, calls it an “edgy dark comedy.”

The movie is “a real twist on the classic rags to riches story. The divide between the super rich and the rest of the world is an ever growing one, and it’s both fun and fascinating to delve into its inner bowels along with our hero trying to scramble to the top and claim his piece,” says Ms. Stewart.

The post Mel Gibson to star as Rothschild in dark comedy about NY’s super-rich appeared first on World Israel News.