'Protocols of Zion': Think anti-Semitism is dead?

Sept. 11, 2001, spawned great frustration and hatred against the perpetrators of those devastating attacks, as well as against ethnic and religious groups that many were already in the habit of hating. For instance, there is a widespread rumor that no Jewish people died in the World Trade Center, because they were the cause of its destruction after warning other Jews not to go to work there that day.

ThinkFilm 'Protocols of Zion' B The verdict: A candid look at current manifestations of anti-Semitism in America, all too openly expressed and acknowledged. Director: Marc Levin Cast: Marc Levin, Al Levin Run time: 90 minutes Release date: Oct. 21, 2005 Rating: Not rated. See showtimes Q&A with Marc Levin Austin American-Statesman film writer Crhis Garcia interviews the director. On the web Official movie site [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Filmmaker Marc Levin tries to track down the source of that rumor as well as looking at the roots and manifestations of anti-Semitism in an ambling, but often eye-opening documentary, Protocols of Zion. He takes to the streets of New York and has no difficulty finding people of a variety of backgrounds who calmly express their prejudices against Jews. Sure there are proud white supremacists who believe the Holocaust is a myth, but the virulence that Levin finds goes far beyond extremists to seemingly average folk.

The film's title refers to a 19th-century Eastern European pamphlet that spells out the Jewish plan to take over the world, another source of the systematic hatred. Understandably, perhaps, it was a favorite tract of Adolf Hitler's, who had his own strategy for global domination.

Those who insist another Holocaust against the Jewish people could never happen should spend an hour and a half with Protocols of Zion, a chilling, though not surprising look at the world and one man's journey trying to get in touch with his much-maligned ethnic background.