The New Jew in Film: A Q&A with film historian Nathan Abrams

In advance of the film series Jewish Tales from Wales, which we are co-presenting with the Welsh Government with the support of Bangor University, Wales, U.K. next month, we asked one of the presenters, film historian Dr. Nathan Abrams, to chat with us about Jews in Wales and his new book, The New Jew in Film. As you can read, he had some fascinating things to say. You can hear him in person on March 11 and March 14 and pose your own questions.

MJH: How were Jews first depicted on film?

Dr.Nathan Abrams: The earliest representations of Jews were crude and overtly anti-Semitic racialized portrayals. The image of ‘the Jew’, which erased all intra-group differences (religious, regional, national, linguistic, class, socioeconomic, political), was that of a subhuman, avaricious, unrefined, venal, grasping, greedy, shifty and menacing cheat and/or dangerous subversive. He was defined physically by his swarthiness, hunched-back, hook nose, bald head, oversize feet, and paunch belly. The Jew was an ‘outsider’ and ‘invader’ to be feared.

MJH: How are Jewish characters different in very recent films compared to some of the iconic Jewish characters in Woody Allen and Mel Brooks films?

Dr. Abrams: Often, in the past, in order to see onscreen Jews and Jewishness, films with a significant and overt Jewish content had to be viewed. Today, though, a character’s Jewishness is something other than the main point of his or her presence in the story. Jewish cinematic characters today are unselfconscious, normalised, casual matter of fact even ordinary. Indeed, this is so much so that, at times, Jews frequently seem ‘gratuitous’ or ‘superfluous’. One can hardly see a mainstream US film these days without a Jewish character, reference or an in-joke appearing, often with no intrinsic value other than a nod and a wink to those members of the audience it is presumed will understand such insertions.

MJH: What does that say about how Jews are viewed in society?

Dr. Abrams: It says that Jews are accepted, comfortable and free, although in my book I am more interested in how Jews feel rather than in how they are viewed.

MJH: Who are some of your favorite New Jews in film both in front and behind the camera?

Dr. Abrams: The Coen brothers, Darren Aronofsky, David Mamet, David Cronenberg, Adam Sandler, Jason Biggs, Judd Apatow, Mathieu Kassovitz, the ‘Jew Tang Clan’, Sandra Goldbacher, Melanie Laurent. I like many Jewish characters too, often played by non-Jews such as Walter Sobchack in The Big Lebowski.

MJH: What is the most surprising thing that you discovered in writing this book?

Dr. Abrams: That the New Jew in Film is global, not just in Israel and the United States. The New Jew is bold and assertive and scatological.

MJH: Let’s switch to the topic of Jewish Tales from Wales. You’ve become a bit of an expert in the Jewish Welsh experience. Why is it compelling and how does it differ from other parts of the U.K.?

Dr. Abrams: The Welsh-Jewish experience stretches back to the medieval period and many Anglo-Norman castles are testament to this. It is compelling in that it is so little understood in the wider context of British- and European-Jewish history. Very little academic work has been done on the subject and that which has been done focuses largely on the South and anti-Semitism. Wales has its own distinctive culture, history, geography and language. These have combined to provide an experience for Jews that is similar to other parts of the UK but not the same. For example, the continuation of the Welsh language, which some believe derives from ancient Hebrew, provides a clear contrast to the other parts of the UK where other, indigenous languages, have all but died out. Wales, by and large, has a history of tolerance that England does not share. Wales, by and large, has a history of tolerance that England does not share. The dominant forms of religious non-conformism in Wales are also much more based on the Hebrew bible and one sees place names in Wales such as Nebo, Golan, Hebron, and so on. Finally, and on a personal note, Wales has provided a very accepting and congenial place for me to write this book over the past five and a half years.

MJH: What do you think viewers should think about when watching the films in the series?

Dr. Abrams: Viewers should consider the specificities of the Welsh experience and what this has provided for Jews. All three films focus on the small-town and rural Welsh experience in which Jews have lived. What is it about Wales that has motivated these three filmmakers to set their movies in that context? They should also look out simply for the beautiful Welsh landscape which these films feature. Finally, they should consider the Jewish sensibility of all three works which becomes progressively less explicit with each film. How might these films be considered as ‘Jewish’ movies?

In memory of Rabbi Gunther Plaut

Isn’t it strange (and embarrassing and humbling) when you know someone from one context only to discover that he or she has a much larger role in the world? When Shari came to tell me that W. Gunther Plaut died, my first reaction was, “The donor of the orphanage keys!”

The Plaut family is featured in To Life: 36 Stories of Memory and Hope. Jonas and Selma Plaut, Gunther’s parents, ran an orphanage in Berlin from 1922 to 1939. They were progressive educators, believing that society’s “least important” –its orphans—deserved the best of everything: the best living conditions, the best teachers, and an emotionally stable, supportive, and loving environment. Gunther, who had a brother, Walter, was among the last Jewish students to earn a doctorate at the University of Berlin before the banning of Jewish students and the firing of Jewish professors. Gunther came to America in 1935 to study at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.

In February 1939, the orphanage was dissolved. Forty children were placed with the OSE, the French Jewish relief organization. Another small group of boys was entrusted to a Quaker organization, which successfully brought them to the U.S. Two months later the Plauts sent their household items to the U.S., where Gunther was living with his wife Elizabeth. Gunther enlisted as a chaplain in the US Army and served with the 104th Infantry unit that liberated the Dora-Nordhausen Concentration Camp complex in Germany.

Rabbi Plaut is perhaps best known for “The Torah: A Modern Commentary,” his magnum opus, published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella organization for Reform Jewish congregations in North America. The Plaut Torah has sold nearly 120,000 copies, according to its publisher. It is used today in many Reform synagogues, as well as in some Conservative and Reconstructionist ones, throughout the United States and Canada.

The New York Times obit painted Rabbi Plaut as a rabbi of the people and some would say his experiences with his “brothers” would help explain that. Clearly, my Plaut frame of reference was much more narrow, but no less important. To me, he was the man who grew up in an orphanage run by his parents, and who donated the keys to that very special place.

May his memory be a blessing.

Photo: Orphanage keys. Gift of Rabbi W. Gunther and Elizabeth S. Plaut.

Red Carpet Ready

This blog comes from Gabriel Sanders, who, like Cupid, hopes to entice you with his offerings.

With the Grammys behind us, it’s time to turn to the next big event of the award season – the biggest of them all: the Oscars.

And, as you can see from our newly-released March-April calendar, we have celluloid on the brain.

Over a half-week in mid-March we’re planning to unspool three films devoted to chronicling the Welsh-Jewish experience, a series we’ve dubbed Jewish Tales from Wales. March 11 will offer a double-bill featuring the (Oscar-nominated) Romeo-and-Juliet story Solomon and Gaenor. Later that day, we’ll have the 2010 documentary Sleep Furiously, about the remote Welsh village where director Gideon Koppel’s parents found refuge from the Nazis. To round things out, on Wednesday March 14, we’ll screen the 2001 comedy Very Annie Mary, which will be introduced by director Sara Sugarman.

Later in March, we continue on in a cinematic mode as we open the new exhibition Filming the Camps: From Hollywood to Nuremberg, an exploration of how the war shaped — and how images of the war were to an extent shaped by — the filmmakers John Ford, George Stevens and Sam Fuller.

On March 21, the eve of the exhibition opening, curator Christian Delage will explore the lives of the three directors in word and film.

The following Sunday, March 25, Delage will be joined by the film scholar Stuart Liebman for a discussion that compares and contrasts the ways the Eastern and Western allies documented the liberation of the camps.

We’ll also be celebrating Passover in our next season. To set the stage, on March 28,Sephardic master Gerard Edery will offer a pre-holiday program that draws from the musical traditions of Spain, North Africa, the Balkans, and beyond.

The following Sunday, April 1, we welcome back storytelling duo Play Me a Story for a retelling of the Exodus story for children 3 through 10.

April — T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month” — is also National Poetry Month, which we’ll be marking with our ongoing celebration of poet Emma Lazarus. On April 11, smack in the middle of Passover, we’ll welcome a number of poets to the stage for readings and reflections on the themes of immigration and exodus.

The poet will also be the focus of a lecture by biographer Esther Schor on April 29.

On March 18, the focus will be less Lazarus’ life and more her afterlife. Three scholars and activists convened by the Jewish Women’s Archive will explore what the poet’s legacy was in the 20th century and what it is today.

But, like I said, what’s foremost on our minds these days is film, and there are few films generating more buzz these days than the forthcoming Hunger Games movie. To help get us into the apocalyptic spirit, on March 4, we’ll have a conversation with novelists Joshua Cohen and Ben Marcus on their most recent books, both of which depict distinctly Jewish dystopias.

image: Still from Solomon and Gaenor, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

What We're Reading Now: In the Garden of Beasts

This month, the staff book club had a special guest, our director, Dr. David G. Marwell, who filled us in on some behind-the-scenes intrigues and bigger-than-life personas featured in Erik Larson’s new narrative non-fiction book, In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin.

The book is about William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, her father telegraphed his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watched with alarm as Jews were attacked, the press was censored, and drafts of frightening new laws began to circulate.

At our book club meeting, David helped draw an even fuller picture of the time period and of some of the men the Dodds encountered, including Ernst “Putzi” Hafstaengl, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Hafstaengl, whom David met in the course of his research, was once a confidant of Hitler.

It was a fascinating conversation about a compelling subject, but even if you don’t have your own in-house expert, you can read along with us next month. We’ll be diving into a work of fiction, Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons.

In the Archives

I have had the pleasure of going through hundreds of old files...I mean archives, over the past few days. I have read through my share of files that contain one piece of paper, usually an ancient photocopy of a newspaper from 1995 with FILE written on it. I have tossed those faster than you can say reuse, renew, recycle. But one folder made me pause and not just because it was entitled World Wide Web.

Inside was a survey distributed by the building management that leased office space to the Museum before the Museum moved downtown. Set the time machine for 1996, and answer these questions to the best of your ability:

How many of your company’s employees use a computer?
Do any of your employees currently use the Internet at work? If no, would you like to make this resource available to them?
Does your company have a web-page? If yes, is it hosted “in-house?”
Do you use e-mail in your office? If no, would you like to?
Which of the following do you use regularly? Please check all that apply: overnight delivery service; fax machine; courier service
Do you use the Internet as a marketing tool? If no, would you like to learn how?
Would you be interested in learning how to use a Web site to publicize your business?
And finally, would you like to attend a free seminar about maximizing the Internet as your company’s communications tool for the 21st century?

Lisa suggested that when the world was being created a similar survey might have been sent out:

Are your employees currently using light? If yes, would your employees benefit from having light in the expansive sky separate from night?
Would your employees benefit from working on an expanse of land or in the midst of water?
Would you be open to sharing your work space with swarms of living creatures and birds that fly above the earth?

I am not equating the invention of the Internet with the creation of the world, but for our colleagues for whom the Internet has always existed, it is hard to imagine one necessity of life without the other.

P.S. I am keeping the file marked World Wide Web. It is now a file called Hilarious.

Emily Dickinson at Poets House

This blog entry comes from Byron Bartlett, Library Intern at Poets House. Since they are currently showing an ongoing exhibition about the life and work of Emily Dickinson, we asked them to blog about the Belle of Amherst, who was almost a contemporary of Emma Lazarus. They even shared a friend in common — Emily Dickinson’s mentor Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) of Amherst, Massachusetts, was one of the greatest American poets. She made hand-bound books of her poems; yet, save for an occasional appearance in correspondence with friends and family, these poems remained unknown during her lifetime. After her death, her family discovered 40 of her manuscript books, and thus began her publishing career.

This winter at Poets House marks an unique exhibition: Donald and Patricia Oresman have been kind enough to lend us pages of Dickinson’s manuscripts from their private collection, which are now on display in our Cheney Chappell Exhibition Space. It is an understatement to say that opportunities to see Dickinson’s papers are few and far between. The exhibit includes rare manuscripts, letters, fragments and even a recipe along with books and other archival materials.

In addition, poet and artist Jen Bervin, who curated the Oresmans’ exhibit, is showing her remarkable “composite quilts” inspired by Dickinson’s manuscripts and Dickinson’s attention to punctuation. Each quilt represents the careful overlaying of all of the pages of a particular manuscript book (now sometimes called “fascicles”) onto one surface. The marks are displayed on one folio-like “page,” (i.e. two facing pages) enlarged to 6 feet by 8 feet. The written words are removed. These quilts are an apt accompaniment to Dickinson’s hand; for Bervin has made a landscape of the marks of Dickinson’s intelligence.

Dickinson’s manuscript books were assembled from earlier drafts of the included poems. The creation of the manuscript book, differing from an artisan’s manufacture of an edition for public purchase, nevertheless seems to have been a private way for Dickinson to create an authoritative work of art.

The printed editions of Dickinson’s work have reduced the variation of punctuation present in her manuscripts. The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by Ralph Franklin, is an indispensable reference on the subject. Certain of her famous dashes, in manuscript, are actually small and sit at the lower line of the text, aligned with periods and commas. Others are more like the printed “—”, sitting on the median line of text. For those of us who have read her in textbooks and in anthologies, the manuscripts are quite a revelation.

Another example of the uniqueness of the manuscripts, left out of her printed poems, is the “+” mark. In her manuscript books, she often includes alternate word choices, listed below the final line of each poem in the sequence in which they would appear, and marked in the text by a plus sign next to the word replaced.

One can feel Dickinson’s mind searching for alternate matrices of thought that might articulate the ideal state of a poem. While the syntactical structure of each poem may remain the same, she is not content with one word-choice within that syntax. Her additions may be an unconscious acknowledgement that the poem can never be the idea of the poem: she suggests it by allowing there to be no one finished version.

We hope that the manuscripts, Jen Bervin's works, as well as the related public programs will evoke the radical nature of Dickinson's life and work, opening new doors for Dickinson lovers and inspiring Dickinson neophytes.

Come visit us at 10 River Terrace, quite literally minutes away from the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The exhibitions will be open through February 18.


Images: "A blossom" - Letter 803 from Emily Dickinson to Forrest F. Emerson, who briefly served as the pastor of the First Church at Amherst from June 12, 1879 until he was dismissed on February 21, 1883. (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College

Quilt: Courtesy of Poets House

From Museum to Mesopotamia and Back Again

This blog comes from Monica, one of our Museum Educators, who has just completed her student teaching across the street at Battery Park City’s new public school as part of her Masters program at the Bank Street College. We were delighted when the school opened and very curious to know how our new neighbors were faring. We’re glad to hear they are in such good hands.

This past fall I was able to complete my student teaching requirement in the Museum’s backyard at PS/IS276. I was placed in a 6th and 7th grade social studies classroom. I had about 150 students in total with whom I worked three days a week. I was given the opportunity to write the 6th grade unit on the Ancient Civilization of Mesopotamia and also the beginning of the Ancient Egypt unit. Using my museum background, I included hands on work and incorporated artifacts throughout my lessons. I brought in photographs of works of art for the students to use as resources for their study of each unit. Over the holiday break I assigned an extra credit assignment for students to visit a museum in NYC. I asked them to pick an artifact they could connect to something related to their Social Studies class. I am happy to say that a few of my students took the opportunity to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage and even stopped by my office to say hello. It was a great learning experience and I hope to bring my experiences back into the Museum’s galleries.