Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition by Helene Meyers

Abstract

Reviewed by: Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition by Helene Meyers Nathan Abrams Helene Meyers. Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021. 224 pp. Any new book on the representation of Jews on screen is always welcome, especially one that considers a fast-moving topic that presents lots of new examples. Into the breach steps Helene Meyers’s Movie-Made Jews: An American Tradition. Meyers’s basic premise is not only that Jews make movies that feature Jews but also that such movies help to make Jews, in that movies can help to shape viewers’ sense of themselves as Jews. Thus, there are not only the Jews in the movies but also those who make them and those who watch them, and Meyers aims to shift attention toward the latter rather than focusing purely on the on-screen representations. Meyers pays close attention to the production and reception histories of these diverse films. An example she provides is how, after making Protocols of Zion in 2005, its director Marc Levin rejoined a synagogue. In terms of structure, because Meyers’s stated goal is “to chart a usable tradition of continuity and change rather than a narrative of progress” (13), she has organized the chapters of her book thematically rather than chronologically, while remaining attuned to chronology within those chapters. Naturally, for any book about Jews, antisemitism is the predictable subject of the first chapter after the introduction. It begins with Gentleman’s Agreement before considering School Ties, The Believer, and The Protocols of Zion, which, very timely, explores post-9/11 conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazi groups, evangelical Christians, and Jewish Hollywood insiders. Levin’s film, Meyers, says “seems especially prescient viewed from the post-Charlottesville, post-Pittsburgh era” (13), as well as in the age of QAnon (not discussed here). The next chapter explores a set of fiction films that deal with the Holocaust through indirection, where the Shoah is present at a remove, including The Pawnbroker, Enemies, A Love Story, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Barton Fink, and A Serious Man. Entitled “Focusing on Assimilation and Its Discontents,” chapter 4 considers The Way We Were, Next Stop, Greenwich Village, Crossing Delancey, Avalon, and Liberty Heights. In chapter 5, “Assertively Jewish Onscreen,” Meyers considers unapologetic representations of cultural and religious Jews. Here, the selections may be considered contentious as they include another Woody Allen film (Whatever Works) as well as a film in which he stars, Fading Gigolo. Interestingly, chapter 6, “Queering the Jewish Gaze,” discusses I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry alongside Trembling before G-d. Chapter 7, “Cinematic Alliances,” focuses on representations of Jews in relation to other groups. It is here that Meyers discusses Schindler’s List rather than under the section on the Holocaust, which some may consider an unusual choice but makes sense in not following the typical tendency. Finally, chapter 8, “Epilogue: Cinematic Continuity and Change through a Feminist Lens,” focuses on two Jewish feminist documentaries of 2018: Paula Eiselt’s 93Queen and Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s RBG. [End Page 194] Thankfully, Movie-Made Jews is not another survey of American Jewish cinema relying on the old favorites, although the choices of the earlier chapters do tend toward the predictable. Neither is it purely restricted to feature films; rather, the book blends fiction and documentary films, which is unusual for a book of this type. It also does not purely focus on what is on screen in the belief that “Jewish stories of film production and reception” are central to the history of American Jewish cinema (5). Consequently, it offers a methodological challenge to what is still a limited field in Jewish studies scholarship. The pleasure in reading such a book, then, comes when the reader is introduced to a variety of new films; because of her deliberate decision to include documentaries, I am sure that readers both familiar and new to the topic will make some discoveries. Meyers’s aims are ambitious and there is a clear commitment to education beyond the academy. As she states, “Movie-Made Jews is, quite intentionally, a work of cinematic and religious pluralism. By highlighting a diverse cinematic tradition that...