A Life Most Ordinary

Protocols of Zion (2005)
This was a documentary about a 100 year old Jewish document called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...at least thats what I read in the preview.

This was something I knew nothing at all about but being a history buff was fascinated by what this book could have been about.

The movie started by introducing the rumor that over 4000 Jews that were worked in the World Trade Center in September of 2001 mysteriously missed work on 9/11. I had never heard this rumor, so was drawn in to see if the Protocols had some message about 9/11.

Unfortunately this is where the movie stopped progressing as a historical/informative piece and moved into an exploration of Anti-Semitism in America...which I felt I could stomach to get the history I wanted out of the movie.

By the movies end I had learned how every race in America was harboring hatred for the Jews. Many groups of people from prisoners and publishers to white supremacists were shown discussing their anti-semitic views. The tie ins to the protocols were mostly shown as a reference to many of the sterotypes and sentiments shared by the many groups with strong "Jew-Hating" notions.

So the filmaker paticularly focussed on the Muslim hatred of the Jewish people with strong feelings coming from people on the street to important world leaders. They included how the book was used by Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party as propoganda in conquered nations during WWII.

It wasnt until the Special Features on the disc that I was able to get the infromation I was looking/watching for. As a timeline and an interview with Will Eisner finally filled me in that the Protocols had been discounted as "Poor Plagarism" of a Machiavelli conversation from centuries before 1905 when the work was originally published in Russia.