On June 23, the Catholic League ran an op-ed page ad in the New York Times that called on Disney to dump Miramax, its anti-Catholic subsidiary, the same way it dumped “Dogma.” In the ad, reference was made to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, the co-chiefs at Miramax who purchased the film after Michael Eisner of Disney put the arm on them. And for this we were called anti-Semitic.
Here’s what one of the letters said: “Rarely have I seen a more antisemitic ad. Why did you not say it out right…‘by severing all ties with the Jews’ or sending—directly to the Jew of Disney? We knew it all along that this [is] what the Catholic Church and all it’s leaders stand for. Thanks for opening the eyes of the unsuspecting.”
Another letter, this one written by a Catholic Brother who is half Jewish, declared that “In a prominent way it [the ad] identified the Weinstein Brothers as the prime perpetrators of anti-Catholic hatred in the media in this country.” He continued by saying that “To anyone with the least sensitivity to anti-Semitism this type of journalistic attack carries the unspoken message that a hidden and secret Jewish conspiracy in the media is responsible for all the attacks against Christianity.”
The only thing we can say about all this is that it is too bad the Weinsteins didn’t inherit the name O’Malley.
