Mel Gibson on Judah Maccabee, Christopher Hitchens, and Circumcision

The news that Mel Gibson is going to make a biopic about Judah Maccabee, the great hero of the Hannukah story, did not come as a surprise to me. Well, it is somewhat surprising that Warner Bros.—or any studio, for that matter—would sign up Gibson (not to mention Joe Eszterhas, who is writing the script) to do anything, after his serial meltdowns.

But I’ve known about Gibson’s interest in the original Hebrew Hammer for several years. I’m working on a biography of Judah Maccabee for Nextbook (don’t ask me how it’s going), and so it was brought to my attention that Gibson is preoccupied with the subject. (My preoccupation is simple: Judah Maccabee led the first revolt for religious freedom in recorded history, and he is without parallel as a guerrilla fighter and as a man of faith. And he also bequeathed us a pretty excellent holiday.)

A few (Hitchens blames Judah Maccabee for, essentially, his success—the Maccabean revolt helped preserve, against the force and power of Greek culture, what Hitchens might call jealous-God Judaism, and thus paved the way for the birth of Christianity, which Hitch, as I’m sure you know, regrets). I happened to mention to Hitchens news that Gibson had expressed interest in the Judah story, which prompted Hitchens to look at me gravely and issue an order: “You must go to Los Angeles and stop him.” Let me dispense first with the . I asked him why it happened, and he answered me directly: “I was loaded, and some stupid shit can come out of your mouth when you're loaded.”