Gibson may make film about Polish cleric

A prominent Polish cleric with a history of anti-Semitism claims Mel Gibson may make a film about his life.

Father Henryk Jankowski came to prominence for his role spearheading strikes that ushered communism out of Poland in the 1980s, but he was temporarily suspended from his clerical duties for maligning Jews. He said in an interview with Poland’s Dziennik daily that he was in talks with Gibson about a possible film.

In 1997 Jankowski said publicly that there was no place for Jews in the Polish government. He also condemned the Polish government’s apology for the 1946 Kielce pogrom.

Gibson’s career as an actor and director has been clouded by anti-Semitic remarks he made last year after being pulled over by police in California for drunk driving. Gibson is Catholic. — jta

Dutch panel wants victims’ wall

The Netherlands Auschwitz Committee wants to erect a Wall of Names listing the 110,000 Dutch murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps.

The committee wants the memorial to stand in the Wertheim Park in Amsterdam, near the Jan Wolkers Auschwitz monument. The wall, to be completed by 2009, would feature mostly the names of Jews but also would include resistance fighters and political prisoners, according to Dutch press reports. — jta

Algeria jails journalist as ‘Israeli spy’

A criminal court in Tizi Ouzou, a town outside Algiers, sentenced Algerian journalist Sa’id Sahnoun to a 10-year prison term last week for passing the Mossad information about the Algerian military and local Islamist terrorist groups. Sahnoun works for several newspapers covering sub-Saharan Africa.

Israeli officials had no comment on the case, though one Jerusalem source said that Algeria, being low on the Jewish state’s threat list, would provide little interest to the Mossad. — jta

Israeli films win top Berlin prizes

A film about the 2005 evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza has won one of two top prizes at Berlin’s annual Jewish Film Festival. Nicola Galliner, director of the 13-year-old festival, named “5 Days” by director Yoav Shamir the “best Israeli film of 2007.” The award carries a prize of about $4,000.

The public’s favorite film was “The Galilee Eskimos,” a tragic-comedy by Israeli director Jonathan Paz about a kibbutz on the brink of bankruptcy. He received the Gerhard-Klein prize of $2,700. Sponsors of the festival include the city of Berlin, the Jewish School of Continuing Education in Berlin, Friends of the German Cinema and private donors. — jta