I've read the release of the statement from Mel Gibson asking for help from Jewish leaders in helping him to understand "where those words came from" when he was drunk the other night.
http://www.usatoday.com/...
I am not a Jewish leader, but I am a Jewish person and know something about having to understand hate that was ingrained from earliest childhood. You see, I grew up in the 50s at a time when people just were learning about what happened in the holocaust in Germany. As an adult, I lived in Germany for 2 years and had to come to understand my own very deep sentiments about Germans and Germany while I lived there. It was through ordinary German people that I came to understand my feelings and how to separate them from the people and place where I was living, from what happened there in the past. I had been carefully taught to have this feeling, which my German friends called "hate" as it's a defense mechanism for what might come in the future. Throughout Jewish history, there's always been someone or group who wanted to harm Jews just for being Jews and in a way, this careful teaching is a form of POW training, as I came to understand after I lived in Germany. For whatever reason, I suspect Mr. Gibson was carefully taught something that isn't a useful defense mechanism at all and has harmed him as a person. Anyway, I would help him and so would my other Jewish friends. We are a more forgiving and understanding lot than he probably realizes. It's a difficult path.