Currently Browsing: television 24 articles
The Shmuck and the General
Jennifer Caplan reflects on Mel Brooks’ long-awaited new television series. This week, comedy fans finally got the fulfilment of a promise 42 years in the making as Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part II came into being. Unlike its predecessor, which was a single, sketch-based film, Part II harnessed the power of the changing […]
But who’s counting?
Daniel Randall critically responds to David Baddiel’s documentary “Jews Don’t Count”. Jeremy Corbyn defending a mural explicitly intended, according to its creator, to demonise Jewish financiers; antisemitic memes peddling conspiracies about “Rothschilds” approvingly circulated in left-wing social media spaces; Adbusters magazine, seen by many as having sparked the Occupy movement, asking in editorials “why won’t […]
How To Cast Jewish
Here we try to provide some helpful guidelines on how to cast Jewish. As the debate on who can and who can’t play a Jewish role continues to rumble on, as provoked by our self-appointed spokespeople like David Baddiel and Maureen Lipman. But what is “Jewish” and how do we define it? We have decided […]
Seinfeld Yomi: The Contest
Jarrod Tanny shares another of his daily Talmudic discussions of the sitcom Seinfeld. “THE CONTEST”, s4e9, first aired on November 18, 1992. GEMARAH: Fellow Sages, let’s get started, said Rav Huna convening the meeting. The reason I sent out an advanced notice to prepare for our shiur is because our subject for today, “The Contest,” […]
On “Jewface”
Daniel Livingstone criticizes the current complaining over so-called Jewface. It almost pains me to engage with a debate as silly as this, but folk are having a right broigus over “Jewface”. Arguing about non-Jewish actors playing Jewish parts and questioning why people don’t react the same as for, say, “Yellowface”, where a non-Asian actor takes […]
Ridley Road
Joseph Finlay reviews the history and politics of Ridley Road and prays there is not a second series. Before September 2021 I didn’t know I needed a BBC drama about British Jews fighting fascists in 1960s London. And having seen all four parts of Ridley Road — I’m still not sure I do. As a […]
Challenging TV Stereotypes
Barbara Borts discusses Jews on recent television. We are the stars of this past couple of weeks. Everywhere you look, there we are. There is Ridley Road, Paris Police 1900, Scenes from a Marriage, and, on Shabbat past, Yentl. There was even more, but let’s stop there. Ridley Road and Paris Police 1900 concern themselves […]
The Jewish Kardashians
Sue Fox stays up late binge-watching Netflix’s latest Jewish reality show. It’s too hot to sleep. There are things I could do at 2.00 am like ironing, reading, listening to Proust on Audible, learning a new language or writing a chapter of the book I’ve been working on forever. Nothing appealed quite as much as the seven (or […]
‘Shalom, Jackie’: The end of ‘Friday Night Dinner’
Sue Vice laments the end of an era. As confirmed by Channel Four’s anniversary documentary, Friday Night Dinner: 10 Years and a Lovely Bit of Squirrel, broadcast on, fittingly, Friday 28 May 2021, the series has now finished. There will be no more weekly visits by twenty-something Adam and Jonny to the suburban Jewish home […]
New Trek is Jew-Trek
First airing in 1966, Star Trek was always heavily influenced by Jews and Jewish thought but now it’s Jewier than ever. Famously Kirk, Spock and Chekov were all played by Jews (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Walter Keonig). Some of the writers who worked on the original series such as the noted sci-fi authors Harlan Ellison (City […]