The Da Vinci Code: Bad For The Jews?

The upcoming movie The DaVinci Code is based on a book that has elements that are oddly familiar.

According to David Klinghoffer's The Da Vinci Protocols: Jews should worry about Dan Brown's success, the book describes a secret organization, the Priory of Sion, which is locked in perpetual combat with a sinister Catholic group called Opus Dei that wants to keep a certain Church secret from becoming public. To preserve this coverup, Opus Dei will resort to anything--even murder.

Now comes the familiar part:

Brown himself states at the outset of the novel that his tale is grounded in "fact": "The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization," and so on.

Scholars have done a solid job of pointing out the fictions that interweave Brown's "facts." Notably, the "Priory of Sion" is "real" only in the sense that it really is the modern invention of Pierre Plantard, a peculiar Frenchman with royalist and anti-Semitic views. It dates to the year 1956, not 1099. Plantard's hoax merely took the name of a medieval monastic order that had ceased to exist by the 14th century...

Remind you of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

• Phoney cabals
• Falsified history
• Accusations of secret plots

While he makes clear that Brown does not consciously do so, Klinghoffer believes the book and movie are a boon to anti-Semites, but popularizing the use of conspiracy theories and accusations of deception in attacking religion instead of dealing with traditional religious beliefs at face value.

This of course is a popular technique that we have seen in action very recently, as Jonathan Rosenblum points out:

However weak as an analytical tool, the "Israel Lobby" is a potent rhetorical device. Walt and Mearsheimer accuse supporters of Israel of attempting to squelch debate on American policy towards Israel, but it is they who seek to suppress debate. They prefer to dismiss such renowned scholars as Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami as members of the Lobby than to engage their arguments; to portray President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (not to mention former President Clinton) as helpless dupes of the Lobby than to discuss their policy choices.

And so it goes.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a showing of Albert Brooks' movie, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World--maybe they'll have a preview of Ron Howard's next project: the movie version of The Satanic Verses! (just kidding).

Technorati Tag: The Da Vinci Code and Dan Brown and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Pierre Plantard and Anti-Semitism .