Un1rc:niry Pre'' An unpnnr uf'tJn1ver11ry Pre11 of New England \\'Vr'\\,11pnc.c011l (fl Br.1nJd1 Univer1ity This book is dedicated 10 11 to the loving memory of All nghr1 rc1crved Manuf.tcrured 111 rhe Un iced Scacc.1 of America Gertrude Rubin (1921-2010 }: J)e1igned by j)e.111 Born1tcin mother-in-law, movie buddy, lyp<"" in Adobe Garamond by Keysrone poet, political activist, Typ<1crring, Jne. and a real mensch. For pcrmi11ion to reproduce any of the material in rhi1 book. conracr Pcrmi1sions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suire 250, Leba- non NH 03766; or visit \VWw.upne.com Library of Congress Caraloging·in-Publicarion Dara The modern Jewish experience in world cinema I Lawrence Baron, editor. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-i-61168-208·3 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN 978·I·61168-199-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) !.]cws in morion pictures. 2. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in morion pictures. 3. Israel-In morion pictures. I. Baron, Lawrence. PN I995·9·J46M54 2011 791.43' 652924-dc23 20110377I7 This book was published with the generous support of the Lucius N. Lirrauer Foundation. 5 4 3 2 I JAr/ 16 2013 IPFW HELMKE LIBRARY Contents Preface XI Abbreviation;; DVD Rental and Purchase Source; xv Introduction: The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema, Lawrence Baron I. ADVANCEMENT AND ANIMOSITY IN WESTERN EUROPE, 1874-1914 lJ I. One of Us? Contesting Di>racli's Jewishness and Engli<hness in the Twentieth Century, Tony Kushner l3 2. Representing the Past and Prese nt in The Life Emile Zola, Nico Carpentier of l9 3. The Dreyfus Affair According to HBO, Lawrence Baron 3S 4. Renoir's The Grand Illusion and the "Jewish Question," Maurice Samuels 4 0 S· Chariots of Fire: Bigotry, Manhood, and Moral Certitude in an Age oflndividualism, Ellis Cashmore 49 II. THE SHTETL ON THE PRECIPICE: EASTERN EUROPE, 1881-1911 S9 6. Fiddling with Sholem Aleichem: A History of Fiddler on the Roof, Stephen]. Whitfield S9 7. Yentl: From Yeshiva Boy to Syndrome, Pamela S. Nadell 66 8. Redressing the Commissar: Thaw Cinema Revises Soviet Strucruring Myths, Elena Monastireva-Ansdell 9. Cinema as Site of Memory: The Dybbuk and the Burden of Holocaust Commemoration, Zehavit Stern 82 Ill. THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE JEWISH IMMIGRANT, 1880-1932 89 10. From Hollywood to Hester Streer: Ghetto Film, Melodrama, and the Image of the Assimilated Jew in Hungry Hearts, Delia Caparoso Konzen 89 11. The Right Fi lm ar rhe Right Time: Hester Street as a Reflection oflrs Era, H asia Diner 98 12. Cultural Erosion and rhe (Br)orher ar rhe Gateway of Sound Cinema, Joel Rosen berg 105 13. Ethnic and Discursive Drag in Woody Allen's Zelig, Rurh D. Johnston ll4 14. Uncle Moses: The First Artistic Yiddish Sound Film, H annah Berliner Fischthal 120 viii coNT EN TS ix CONTENTS ND coMMUNiSM. 1880-1932. 125 nVES: z10 NISM A T!OS'ARY ALTERN A 35. Southern Jewishness on Screen, Eliza R. L. McGraw ,.. REVOLV · Who Loved Hebrew, 3 2-3 1 or the Man 125 6. Jewish Women and the Dilemmas of America's Postwar :\fiddle Class, The Birch of a Language. Riv· Ellen Prell I\· , •. nne Golan T and New Identity, i\O z· · m rauma, 37 132 . Of Lox and Columbus: Jewish and American Them<s in Goodbye, Columbus, Tim Wrrt Tm Rel'isited: ionis ' . Joellyn Wallen Zollman 16. dB ·amin Ben-David 140 Eldad Kedem an enJ 38. A Serious Film, Norbert Samuelson i-. Jews ofSted,J. Hoberman 39 . When Chippewa Falls Meers Manhattan, Sylvia Barack Fishman 19+ 145 303 \' THE HOLOCAUST AND ITS REPERCUS SI ONS 145 VIII. A DIVERSE DIASPORA 311 18. d M · Lawrence Baron An Mu ffi e 1 usic, B ·-Semitism": The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 4o. Like a Bride: The Chicken and the Egg, Elissa Rashk:in 19. "In Italy There Has Never een ti 150 311 4 1. The American Dream on St. Urbain Street: Richler's Duddy Kravitz and Giacomo Lichmer • T · T anscendence in Kada r• s TtJe·1 Sl1op on m"' am · Street, Canadian Cinema, Scott Henderson . "All ;\fen AreJews : ragic r 155 310 20 42. Jewish Assimilation in Hungary, the Holocaust, and Epic Film: Jeffrn Saperstein . · '! n· and Arr in Louis Malle's .Au revoir Les enfants, Reflections on Szab6's Sunshine, Susan Rubin Suleiman • isrory, n emo .. 161 32.; 21 H 4 3. Burman's Ode ro El Once Neighborhood: The Lost Embmce, Christopher Shorley Tamara L. Falicov . A Red W'imess: Steven Spielberg's Representation of the Holocaust in 335 21 168 44. Sexuality, Orthodoxy, and Modernity in France: North AfricanJe\\ish lmmigranrs Schindler'.< List, Frank Manchel in Karin Albou's La Petite ]imsaltm, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall The p;,znist and Its Contexts: Polanski's Narration of Holocaust Evasion 3+0 !;. 178 and Survival, Michael Stevenson 186 IX. CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI EXPERIENCES 1+. A Hungarian Holocaust Saga: Fattltss, Catherine Porruges l+9 194 11. Filming the Text of \l'imess: Francesco Rosi's The Tmce, Millicent Marcus +5· Aftmich: A Bitter Fruit on the Olive Branch, Nigel Morris l+9 16. Our Childrm: Responding to the Holocaust, Ira Konigsberg 201 +6. Dancing Solo in the Lebanese Mud, llan Avisar 208 358 1- . "Teach Me Gold": Pedagogy and Memory in The Pawnbroker, Alan Rosen +7· Beta Israel in the State oflsrael, Baron 365 18. "\\'hat Is the Way?" Finding t-leaning and Purpose after the Holocaust, +S. Love in Search of Belief. Belief in Search of Love, Shai Ginsburg 3-1 220 Asher Z. Milbauer 49. The Arrangement: Time ofFavor, Yvonne Kozlovsl-y Golan ,.,.7 YI. ISRAEL'S HERO IC YEARS, 19 4 7-1967 229 X. CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN JEWISH IDENTITIES 385 19. L. 229 50. Jewish New York in Crossing Delancey, David I. Grossvogel Filming the Israeli War oflndependence, Ariel Feldestein i85 237 51. 30. Screening the Birrh of a Na tion: faodus Revisited, Yosefa Loshitzky Torch Song Trilogy: Gay and Jewish Foundations, Jonathan C. Friedman 390 52., Against Tribalism: David Mamet's Homicide, Philip Hanson 11. Feminism, Zionism, and Persecutio n in Iraq: The Srory of Herzliya Lokai and 395 53. Self-Criticism in Public, David Kraemer Her Imprisonment in the Baghdad Women's Jail, Daphne Tsimhoni 244 +05 54. 11. From Black to White: Changi ng Im ages of Mizrahim in Israeli Cinema, Keeping the Faith: A Multiculmral}11zz Singer, Lawrence Baron 412 Yaron Peleg 252 Appendix: Alternate Films +11 Conrriburor Biographies VII. ACCEPTANCE IN POS TWA R AMER ICA, 1945-1977 259 427 Acknowledgments 433 3J. The Chosm: The Jew as Boch American and Alien, Michael W. Rubinoff 259 Index 435 J4. Jew and Noc-Jew: Antisemitism and the Postwar Hol!ywood Social Problem Film, Steven Al an Carr 266 Preface I began my sabbatical in 2008 determined to write the definitive survey of the depiction ofJews and parison of changing trends in fiction, film, Judaism in world cinema. I had been teaching a documentary film, and political propaganda film .. .. It involves the concurrent histories of course on chis topic for eighteen years. Each year the film representation of other national, eth- when I designed the syllabus, I faced a growing nic, and social groups. And, of course, it re- problem: the existing books on Jewish film were quires knowledge of modern Jewish and world either too narrowly focused or out of dace. The history, of the history of anti-Semitism, of che cost of customized readers, consisting of copies of rise and fall of Nazism, of the planning, enact- articles from journals or excerpts from books, be- ment, and aftermath of the "Final Solution," came increasingly prohibitive as the legal victory of survivor experience, and the vast realm of of the publishing companies against Kinko's was postwar reAeccion and debate on the Holo- enforced. Putting material on line was another op- caust and its representation. (5) tion, bur it was rime-consuming for me and often frustrating for students, as their older comput- The response of Barack Obama, then a presi- ers couldn't handle all the data, links broke, and dential candidate, to a question in a 2008 de- chc university's website sometimes went down. A bate about when a fetus becomes endowed with book in the hand is worth two in cyberspace. human rights kept running through my mind: The more I read the existing scholarship on "That's above my pay grade." Jewish films and viewed as many of them as I The next step was the realization that I didn't could obtain on videotape or DVD, the more I need to reinvent the wheel. Brilliant analyses of had a gnawing feeling that the subject was too key films produced over the course of the last vast and varied for me to do an adequate job hundred years were already in print. I approached of teaching it. When I stumbled on Joel Rosen- their authors co see if they'd be willing to edit berg's marvelous overview of American Jewish their pieces to be less technical, shorter, and more film ("Jewish Experience on Film-An American student-friendly, or if they'd let me perform that Overview," American Jewish Yearbook [1996]), I function. When a particular film had been over- realized what I was up against: looked or needed a more updated interpretation, I asked scholars with the expertise in the appro- What one needs to study is immense. The priate disciplines and subjects to write original subject encompasses the world output of cin- essays. What began as my project quickly turned ema...