M-T
The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, August 25, 1988-Page 1.3
World-
Film about Identity Christians
Betrayed warns of dangers of racist movement
SHELDON KIRSHNER
TORONTO-
We have been hearing a lot lately about a racist movement in the U.S; called Identity Christianity, whose;brganizational offshoots include Aryan Nations, The Order and Posse Comitatus. :
Identity Christianity maintains that Jews and all non-whites are the children of Satan . and should be exterminated; Its adherents claim that they, not the Jews, are the real children of Israel — the Chosen People.
Before a.series of trials sent some of its members to prison, Identity Chrisii-ahs had turned to crime to get even with their enemies and to amass a war chest to support their goals.
Iff the~early part of this decadcT they committed bank robberies, bombed buildings, counterfeited money and, in one nationally-publicized incident, murdered Alan Berg, the acerbic Jewish host of a Denver radio talk show.
Hollywood has~ discovered these racists, these demented, tortured souls who contemptuously refer to the U.S. government as ZOG -r Zionist Occupied Government. In Costa Gavras' latest film, Betrayed, Identity Christians are the fo|Cus of his attention.
A picture by Gavras. the Greek director, is usually a cinematic event.
From the Academy Award-winning Z, which dealt with the assassination :. of •a-' Greek member of parliament, to Hanna K., which revolved around Is-
won^t give
PHIL FINE
MONCTON, NB -
School'District 15 has turned down a request from , the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission
/ for files on Malcolm Ross.
; a teacher who has written all eiged ly an ti - se m i t i c
^ bookS;. :
On advice froni legal counsel, trustees voted 9-1 at their Aug. 17 meeting to reject the commission's request. Noone at the conimission was available for comment when The CJN went to press last week.
The commission wants" the files for its investigation of two complaints pertaining to Ross. One of the complaints was filed by Monctori 'resident David Attis, past national seci^-^ tary of the Canadian Jewish Congress and past: president of the Atlantic ' Jewish Council. ' Ross, who teaches remedial education at Magnetic Hill School in suburban Moncton, has
written four books over the past decade which either question the validity of the Holocaust or claim the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
This spring, Ross was reprimanded by District 15 after he published ' The Spectre of Power, a book which claimed the existence of a Jewish plot to undermine Christianity.
Audrey Lampert, the lone Jewish member of the board and the only trustee who voted against .the board's move, criticized her colleagues for ' 'putting up roadblocks to a final fes'olution of the problem.
"I'm quite distressed. They're riot cooperating in an investigation which could exonerate the board." : .
Lampert al.^o said the board's decision has thercf-fect of making the commis-: sion appear as the board's enemy when it should really be its friend.
Board chairnian Carl Ross (no relation to Malcolm Ross) could not be reached for comment. .
rael's conflict with the_ Palestinians, Gavras' films invariably grip an audience wTTh their tautness, suspense and compassionate involvement.
\n Betrayed, now playing at Famous Players theatres, Costa-Gavras uses the Berg assassination as the linchpin of his film.
For probably legal reasons. Berg's name is never mentioned, nor does the film bother to explain the phenomenon of Identity Christianity. A viewer who enters the theatre ignorant of the subject will not be enlightened very much about it after he has left.
This, certainly, is a drawback, a real source of disappointment. Be that as it m-dy. Betrayed, notwithstanding its totally unsatisfactory ending,, is a generally fine film.
Cathy Weaver (Debra Winger), an undercover FBI agent,, is assigned to gather evidence related to the murder of Sam Kraus (Richard Libertini), a controversial Chicago talk ra- ; dio host who has been gunned down in an underground garage by unknown assailants wearing camoufiage jackets and face masks. Upon kilJing him, one of the killers spray paints the letters . ZOG on his car.
Kraus, who doubles for Berg, is good at his job: That is to say, he's rude, crude, impatient and nasty-terhpered. On his last show, the topic of discussion is the Holocaust. His patience is taxed by a lady caller who clairiis that the Holocaust is exaggerated, and that the gas chamber merely deloused Jews.
Weaver, who operates , under the name of Katie Phillips, takesa job some-^yhere in the Midwest {Betrayed was filmed partly in Alberta) as a combine driver. Her boss, a hardbitten man (John Heard) . who has been romantically in vol yed'with Her, is determined to solve the crime so that he can bust the ring of racists wreaking havoc around the country. ; Katie meets Gary Simmons (Tom Berenger), a lonely, embittered widows er and Vietnam War herd, Simmons lives in a clapboard house with his two young children and widowed mother. Katie, an orphan who has always-
Debra Vyinger and Tom Berenger star in Betrayed.
yearned to be part of a family, falls in love with Simmons, believing that he is clean, believing that he is not a suspect.
Her superiors are skeptical. But Katie is confident thai her boyfriend is just an old-fashioned, decent, patriotic American farm boy.
To her horror, she discovers ^tHat he is anything but that.
Betrayed, in its cold-hearted depiction of a "nigger hunt" and a rural rially featuring burning crosses, white-robed racists and swastikas, is a chilling film — a jolting reminder to the uninitiated that wornis are crawling in the woodwork.
Winger (Terms of Endearment, An Officer a Gentleman) is:excellent as a woman who feels betrayed by the man she loves and whose loyalties are torn asunder before she discovers the awful truth.
Thinking Katie can be trusted, Simmons spews out his hatred of Jews, B1 a c k s . a n d - O r i e n t a 1 s, warning her of the spectre of ZOG. Later, in another scene, Sinimpns' daughter, who is as cute as apple pie and vanilla ice cream, tells Katie about liceMnfested "rabb.is".who prey oii little children.
Berenger (Platoon, Someone To Watch Over Me) is also first-rate —-playing the role of a frus-. trated farmer who has been hurt by his first wife and
the. crisis in American agriculture. Rationalizing everything, he is secure in the knowledge that he is merely "defending himself." against Jews who; want to "take over" the U.S. and turn it into a mongrelized country he .
would not even recognize. To Simmons, who is anything but an unsympathetic character, New York is "Jew York'" and Chicago :;'Sickago.";' '"^ .
Betrayed is like an expose of a dreaded disease that affects the body po-
litic of America. As a film, it has its shortcomings. But, for all that, it sei-ves an educational purpose by alerting millions of people to the real land present danger posed by Identity Christians to .\merican democracv.
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