Currently Browsing: Jewishness 33 articles
The Hidden Jews of ‘Dune’
As the film opens in the UK today, Nathan Abrams explores the Jewishness of the famous novel and its film adaptations. Dune opens in the UK today and while its secret Jewish history has been explored here, the full story has not been told. Much of Frank Herbert’s original 1965 science-fiction novel is explicitly influenced […]
The Diaper Diaspora
Marc Kaye remembers being born Jewish on a US Army Base in Germany. In screenwriting, it is often recommended to place your protagonist in very extenuating circumstances – situations that he would never expect to find himself in. For a Jewish mother, I would think that taking a Jewish son and placing him both in […]
Neshama Reggae
Forty years after his death, Martin Elliot Jaffe reflects on Boby Marley’s Jewish Soul. My heart pounds a bit as the stage lights dim and after a long pandemic-enforced hiatus we return to the jam night stage of the Winchester in Lakewood, Ohio. Guitarists await the count, the drummer signals me and I launch the […]
Ambivalent Jewishness
As antisemitism is on the rise again, Gloria Tessler asks if some of us feel a certain ambivalence about our Jewishness. My parents, both European refugees, had a deep-rooted belief in God and the values of Judaism; they were not religious – we rarely went to shul – but they were not secular either. Like […]
Good To Be A Jew
Robert “Smokey” Miles pens an original poem. How’d you like to be a Jew? Yeah, you could be a Hebrew too when someone says to you, “so nu?” you can say “vos machts du?” too. Think Yiddish, speak British they used to say read the Torah, dance the hora let the klezmer play In […]
A Very Anglicised Jew: Tom Stoppard
Peter Lawson reviews Hermione Lee’s newly published authorised biography of Tom Stoppard It’s a long haul reading Hermione Lee’s authorised biography of Tom Stoppard, Tom Stoppard: A Life (Faber & Faber, 2020). There are 865 pages of text, excluding the bibliography and endnotes. It has to be said Lee has done a thorough job. This […]
Not a Jew. Says Who?
Loolwa Khazzoom reflects on Ella Emhoff’s Jewishness and who gets to decide. On Inauguration Day, I was very emotional – not only because Kamala Harris is the first African- and Asian-American woman in the White House, and not only because her husband, Doug Emhoff, is the first Second Gentleman in the White House, but also […]
Up Schitt’s Creek
Schitt’s Creek may not be The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, says Vince Brook, but It Is Marvellous and Very, Very Jewish! Let’s start with Eugene and Dan Levy, co-creators of the hugely popular, Emmy-monopolizing CBC sitcom Schitt’s Creek (2015-2020). This actual Jewish father and son team also co-star in the series as the fictionally Jewish Johnny […]
Mank the Mensch
Nathan Abrams offers another view on David Fincher’s latest movie that reveals the hidden Jewishness behind the film. Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) is widely regarded as a classic, if not the best movie ever made. It’s routinely taught at universities; indeed, I have taught it many times. Rarely, though, until now, has it been […]
Ten Reasons Why ‘Shrek’ Is Jewish
Nathan Abrams provides ten reasons why Shrek is Jewish. Every year, the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry chooses 25 films of historical, cultural, or aesthetic significance to be marked for preservation. Among this year’s inductees is Shrek (2001). The Registry commended the film thus: Even by DreamWorks standards, the charm and magic of ‘Shrek’ […]