The Hollywood Blacklist and Its Jewish Legacy with Glenn Frankel and Margaret Talbot

During the Red Scare and Hollywood blacklist period of the late 1950s, thousands of Americans, many of them Jews, were persecuted for their political beliefs, imperiling democracy. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Frankel, author of three books exploring the making of iconic American movies, including Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic, discusses the role of studio moguls, some of whom were Jewish; the damage done by the blacklist; the period’s eerie similarities to our own troubled era; and more. Frankel is in conversation with Margaret Talbot, staff writer at The New Yorker and author of The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father’s Twentieth Century. This program is part of a Moment series on antisemitism supported by the Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation.

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Queen Esther Goes to Hollywood

The pivotal moment is when Esther decides to come unbidden before the king. She asks the eunuch Hegai for a chariot, but he refuses her and warns her not to go. Undeterred, Esther runs to the palace through the driving rain. When she arrives, soaked, her gown clinging to her suggestively, King Xerxes has just appointed Haman his regent in a meeting with all of his trusted advisers, including Mordecai the scribe. Esther flings open the great oak doors, but as she approaches, one of the king’s servants draws a sword to slay her. As she climbs the steps to the throne in slow motion, the sword reaches her neck. Mordecai looks toward heaven. But at the last moment, Xerxes pushes the sword away. He thrusts his royal scepter toward Esther as if he is exorcising...

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A Jew Named Oscar?

Oscar nominations were announced yesterday, and Jews and Jewish-themed movies, as you might expect, were among the honorees. Woody Allen (yes, he's Jewish!) racked up four nominations for "Midnight in Paris" (though nothing for Adrien Brody, whose version of Salvador Dali is the only way we want to imagine the artist); "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, is up for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor; Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" got a nod for Best Picture, among other nominations (We sneaked into this movie for five minutes before "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and, you know, it's "War Horse."); Jonah Hill is up for Best Supporting Actor (making up for the "Superbad" snub, natch); and in the Foreign Language category, office favorite "Footnote" from Israel (a Talmudic thriller? Yes,...

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The Jewish National Pastime

By Aarian Marshall Some people collect stamps, others baseball cards—Neil Keller collects famous Jews. He speaks quickly, with a slight lisp, and with his red polo and faded jean shorts, looks like he took a wrong turn on the way to a suburban Little League game, though it’s unclear whether he belongs with the throng of eager parents in the stands, or with the overexcited kids in the diamond. Before him is a tableful of binders, each nearly five inches thick. They are color-coded, their titles neatly typed and affixed to their fronts. And Neil Keller is grinning, in a way one rarely sees among men in their thirties. His website boasts that Neil is the “Expert On Who Is Jewish,” and that his collection of Jewish memorabilia, which includes over 15,000 items, is one of the...

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Elizabeth Taylor

All Converts Go To Heaven: The Case of Elizabeth Taylor

On April 6, 1959 Time Magazine reported the birth “of the most famous and perhaps most beautiful baby,” a Jewish girl named Elishaba Rachel Taylor. The prior week marked the conversion—or “birth”—of the 27-year-old actress Elizabeth Taylor to the Jewish faith, following six months of study under the late Rabbi Max Nussbaum of Temple Israel in Hollywood, CA. Over fifty years later, we mourn the passing of a screen legend, AIDS activist, and proud member of our faith community. Or do we? In an article posted on the Jewish-interest blog Jewlicious, Taylor’s commitment to her faith is skimmed over in favor of details about her multiple marriages and celebrity rabbi. The article ends, “Rest in peace Liz, and when you get to Kaballah Center heaven, say hi to Marilyn and Sammy.” The reference to the...

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Hollywood, Oscars and the Jews

By Sophie Taylor This morning's Oscar nominations did no favors to anyone hoping to dispel the myth that Jews control Hollywood. In the nine most prominent categories, all but one (supporting actor) included at least one Jewish Hollywood player; Jews represented nearly a quarter of the nominees in those categories. The idea that Jews run Hollywood is as popular as the notion that they control finance or the media.  After CNN's Rick Sanchez made comments in October implying that Jews control the media, Slate's Brian Palmer decided to look into Sanchez' claims and discovered that while none of the major news stations are Jewish-owned, Hollywood is, in fact, heavily Jewish—forty-five percent of The Guardian's "Top Twenty Directors of All Time" are Jewish. Of course, having a heavy presence in an industry is a far cry from...

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Inglourious Basterds Trailer is out; Tarantino Still Insane

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Here's the trailer for Quentin Tarantino's newest bloody assortment of moving pictures. This one's called Inglourious Basterds and includes Brad Pitt and a whole bunch of dead Nazis. Oh, and it's a remake of a 1978 movie by the same name (but spelled correctly). We're not really sure what to say about it past that (we're still reeling from the trailer) so we'll just put it up and let you ITM readers have it out.

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Chris Rock and Ben Stiller Love Israel

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Chris Rock and Ben Stiller are in Israel for the premiere of Madagascar 2, and both of them said that Israel is better than Hollywood. From JPost: The premiere was in Netanya on Saturday. Stiller says it's a good place to roll out a new movie. He said, "This is better than any premiere we have had so far." Rock expanded on that. He said, "It's much better than Hollywood. They don't like us in Hollywood, but here they love us." Which brings us to the central question here: What the eff is Madagascar 2?

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