Mel Gibson -- I'm Making a Jewish Movie!

File this under ironic and interesting ... Mel Gibson is producing a movie that triumphs the Jewish struggle against tyranny ... a movie about the greatest Jewish hero of all time.

Mel's publicist Alan Nierob tells TMZ ... Mel is teaming up with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (right) -- who wrote the Jewish-themed movies "Betrayed" and "Music Box" -- to produce a movie about Judah Maccabee, the Jewish warrior who defeated the Greek-Syrian armies in the second century B.C.

Mel -- who famously directed the arguably anti-Jewish "Passion of the Christ" in 2004 -- has signed on with Warner Bros., which won out over several other studios that wanted the project.

Nierob says Gibson has been working on the Maccabee project for a decade, but now it's about to become real.