Jews who have immigrated to the United States have done better than anywhere else in the world, and perhaps no other industry has been as open as the entertainment industry.  But at what cost?

Assimilation is Anti-Semitism

No one has better articulated exactly what anti-Semitism is and its history than Dennis Prager in his book, Why the Jews.  Prager systematically and efficiently destroys the myth that anti-Semitism is anything akin to racism.  At the heart of hatred of Jews is hatred of Judaism, the ideas which Jews brought into the playing field of human thought, ideas which others found intensely offensive and threatening.  Prager lists various tenets such as monotheism, the chosen nature of the People of Israel, the idea that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews forever, and more. He shows how these beliefs have been uniquely threatening to one group after another, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Christians, the Muslims, the Communists, the Nazis, and modern Humanists – threatening enough for each to seek the elimination of the source. 

Throughout history, a Jew could always escape destruction through assimilation – he could become a pagan, be baptized a Christian, become a member of the communist party. 

The Nazis were the only exception to this rule.  Why? It was not because Hitler was somehow opposed to assimilation, so much as he simply did not believe it was possible. Hitler believed that a Jew could not simply forget the impact of the teaching they had been exposed to, even if they wished to. This left only the other option. But while Nazism was the exception to the assimilation rule, it still followed the fear response not of ethnicity but of Judaism. In his book The Ten Commandments, Hermann Rauschning quotes from a personal conversation with Hitler: it was Hitler’s mission in life to destroy “the Tyrannical G-d of the Jews” and the “life-denying Ten Commandments.”

With this exception duly noted and accounted for, let us return to the fact that Jews have always had two choices in the face of anti-Semitism: suffer and/or die, OR assimilate; give up your life, or give up your Judaism. 

The insistence of assimilation is therefore not only anti-Semitic, but anti-Semitism’s very core.  It is “Plan A.”  All the rest, whether it is subtle societal pressure, overt harassment, assaults, or genocide, is actually “Plan B”: what to do if the Jews do not assimilate.  Jewish history is replete with examples of various attempts to destroy by assimilation.  Do you not desire our beautiful (but idolatrous) women?  Eat the forbidden food of the palace, after all it is “fit for a King.”  Just put this statue of Zeus in your Temple; you can have your G-d and our god too!  Is it so hard to bow to Caesar in worship?  Get baptized, and show us it is authentic by forgetting you were ever a Jew.  The Communist Party will eliminate all your religious woes, just sign up, Comrade, and leave G-d behind.  Be like us, and forget what you were once you.  Assimilation: the kinder, gentler genocide.

The Unspoken Message from Hollywood

Most thoughtful people have noticed that the number of Jewish characters in Hollywood shows and movies are disproportionately Jewish when compared to actual demographics.  American society just doesn’t have that many Jews.  But Hollywood is very idealistic.  Long before the general public was dropping its racist ideas, Hollywood was a bastion of multiculturalism.  It is Hollywood which introduced the Jew to Middle America.

But what kind of Jew does Hollywood show us?  America learns about bagels and lox.  Americans learn a few choice Yiddish words, especially the bad ones!  And America has almost become sentimental over Jews celebrating Chanukah – what would the Christmas Program be if there weren’t one classroom singing the Dreidel song?  But does America get to see Jewish mothers carefully looking for hechshers?  Can anyone think of a time on any show or movie where a character did not drive on Shabbat?  The general public is aware that Muslims pray 5 times a day towards Mecca.  How many Americans even know what Tefillin are?  Hollywood’s ideal Jew is a good ol’ New Yorker that remembers his Zaide’s stories, a smart cookie that tells great jokes.  However, the Hollywood Jew is, for all practical purposes, no more Jewish than Irish immigrants are still Irish or German immigrants are still German. 

Ironically, the movie industry pats itself on the back for being very progressive and tolerant, when in fact it is doing what all Gentile entities have done – sought to repress Jewish identity and the observance of G-d’s covenant with Israel.  The message from Hollywood is the same as that of the Canaanites, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Chrstains, the Communists:  join the group, be like us, and stop doing all that Jew stuff!

Everyone’s Favorite Jewish Mouse

In 1986, Amblin Entertainment released Steven Spielberg’s An American Tail.  We watched as the Mousekewitz family celebrated Chanukah in Russia, only to become refugees from the terrible Pogroms, fleeing to the safety of America.  But once in New York, what did they do that was religiously Jewish?  Attend a shul?  Study Torah?  Eat Kosher? Refrain from lighting fires on Shabbat?  They lost their Jewish identity in the “melting pot.” 

In 1991 things go from bad to worse:  Fievel Goes West.  He does?  What Jews were pioneers?  Jewish immigrants stayed in urban areas to support each other in community and stay close to their synagogues.  They excelled in many different occupations both humble and wealthy, but they did not as a rule become Pioneers.  How is a man supposed to daven three times a day at shul, when the nearest synagogue is a thousand miles away?  How will a Jewish woman observe Niddah?  It’s not likely a Jew will continue being observant if he’s living alone out on the plains or in the middle of a forest.

Chuck and Larry

A norm has developed.  Hollywood bombards us with are Jews that are so secular we might not even notice they are Jews, and when they do occasionally have a bar mitzvah or wedding, their tallit are merely idiosyncratic rather than a sign of being truly set apart.

I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, 2007, was the movie that inspired this article When Chuck and Larry had their gay wedding ceremony up in Canada , Chuck Levine (a non-religious womanizer) suddenly remembered he is Jewish and insisted that they wear Yarmulkes.  The irony is, of course, that Chuck was not only non-observant, but he and Larry were doing something blatantly counter to Torah, and yet Chuck insists they wear kippot while doing so.

It is the movie industry’s consistent message:  a Jew may hang on to a few sentimental things of his past Jewish identity, but they are reduced to a sentimental function.  Hollywood forbids a Jew actually believes in something and lives religiously because of it. 

What message does this send Jews?  We love you when you wear kippas under the chupah, curse in Yiddish, and enjoy your ethnic food.  But America does not want to see more than that, so if you are religious, keep it to yourselves. Better yet, just give it up.

Doctor House: Paragon of Self-Hatred

On the rare occasion that Hollywood does allow for a religious Jew in its story line, the writers feel compelled to “be balanced.”  It seems there must also exist a self-hating Jew to contrast with the observant Jew.  One of the best examples of this genre is the House episode entitled, “Don’t ever change.”  The writers actually do a descent job or presenting Orthodox Judaism through a Hasidic woman Dr. House is treating.  We see Hasidism at its best, and without apology:  her husband assertively says to the lovely Thirteen, “You think it's sweet that I care for her modesty, but that it's archaic and ultimately irrelevant. Our traditions aren't just blind rituals; they mean something, they have purpose. I respect my wife and I respect her body.”  But even with this defense of Orthodoxy, the show’s writers cannot resist the “obligatory” ridicule, a role usually given to secular Jewish characters.  With House’s extensive knowledge of Judaism, the audience is free to assume that House is a Jew.  But what kind?  The kind that speaks about “Mental Yentl,” “pushing out Hasidlings,” and knows the Woman of Valor prayer well enough to mock it: “She laughs at the future because she is an idiot, “  Elliot Gertel in his essay, “House goes Hasidic,” writes, “It is almost as if writers Egan and Leonard fulfill their required ridicule of Jews and Judaism through Dr. House.”  Required ridicule?  In Hollywood, yes.

Stranger Among Us

The saying is that the exception proves the rule.  Everyone loves Fiddler on the Roof, despite its inaccuracies such as the “Woman of Valor” prayer on Shabbat.  Ah, the nostalgia of the Old World!  Yet I cannot help wonder had their been a Fiddler 2, how many of Tevyah’s family would have become assimilated?  Perhaps An American Tail IS Fiddler 2.

If there is any Hollywood movie that attempts to bring the public into the religious life of Orthodox Jews, it is Stranger Among Us, 1992.  Inspired by the success of Witness, a murder mystery involving an Amish woman, Stranger Among Us flips the genders and sets the story in Crown Heights, much of it in the home of the Rebbe.  Here the public can intimately see and appreciate the deeply religious lives of the Hasidim: grace after meals, Shabbat, davening, and more. We laugh at Emily’s innocent mistakes as she almost puts milk in the meat refrigerator. We are tantalized by quotes from the Kaballah such as, “G-d counts the tears of women.”  We smile at the old fashioned courtship: in a community where men and women are separated on buses, a man merely asking a woman whether her chicken preference is for white meat or dark meat is an expression of romantic interest, eliciting giggles from the surrounding women.

But as we saw with House, Hollywood feels compelled to “balance” the picture with the expected literary foil, again in the form of the self-hating Jew, Levine.  In addition to constantly hitting on Emily sexually (in real life we’d be seeing a sexual harassment lawsuit) Levine continually scorns Hasidim, even crassly suggesting that “They do it through a hole in the sheet.” 

Are these kinds of anti-Semitic comments, even if they come from a Jew, really necessary or appropriate?  Does anyone remember comparable disparagement of the Amish in Witness?  Doesn’t Witness show that if done right, a character foil need not be this nasty? Why then the compulsion to include such blatant scorn for observance? Could it be the unconscious fear that if religious observance were too attractive, Jews might return to it?

Agenda

It should be apparent by now that in the movie industry, it is one thing for a very small minority of “extremists” and “nuts” to obey covenant, but Hollywood forbid that the average American Jew return to religion. Whether they are Gentiles comfortable with the “don’t rock the boat” state of American Jewry, or Jews wishing to preserve their own “right” to do as they please, the Hollywood elite have worked hard to promote the model of the non-observant Jew and helped it rise to prominence.  They use their influence to convince America’s Jews to remain assimilated and powerless, lest Jews challenge society to a higher standard.  The message Hollywood sends to every Jew is, “You can have your latkes and cheeseburgers too.” It is the same message that Anti-Semites have always given: compromise your religion and become like us.  After all, what does it matter if there is an Oscar in the Temple?