On King's <em>The Beauty of Judaism on Film</em>

Abstract

On King's The Beauty of Judaism on Film David B. Levy (bio) The Beauty of Judaism on Film. By Mike King. London: Stochastic Press, 2017. 216 pp., ISBN 978-0995648029 (pb), US $14.00. Mike King's The Beauty of Judaism on Film offers a thoughtful, insightful, and sensitive contribution to film studies, Jewish studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and religious studies. It lends itself superbly as a text for a course on Judaism in film, as a film-club guide, or as an introduction for anyone seeking a better understanding of Judaism. It can serve as a first—but not last—step in a journey of appreciating, respecting, and learning about but also from the holiness of Judaism. King's thesis is that the inner drama of Judaism is represented well by the dynamics of narrative cinema. In examining a wide range of both historical and contemporary films, King demonstrates that great insight and nuanced cinematic art can be found in films representing and exploring the cultural and religious aspects of Judaism. As King phrases it in his typically articulate manner, cinema offers an opening to "new religious vistas" (190), which can be explored by the unique nature of the medium. Like an entranceway to a Borgesian mystical maze or a Kafkaesque link to the "castle world," the book sends the novice reader on an introductory journey through various worlds of Judaism. Yet King's exegesis gives the reader a glimpse not into what Mordecai Kaplan in Judaism as a Civilization called the culture of Judaism but rather into the notion of Judaism as a religion. This is not merely a sociological perspective of how Jews [End Page 116] became white folks or what Nathan Abrams describes as the normalization of the Jew as a typical American, free of the past negative stereotypes of the "Jew as thief" or the "Jew as liar." King's book fills a void that Abrams identifies in his The New Jew in Film: "It is surprising to note that to date not much work has been done on Judaism, overshadowed by a tendency to focus on the image of the Jew/ess or on the Holocaust in film."1 Although this book can be enjoyed by lay readers and academics alike, King draws from the inspiring writing of foundational scholars such as Gershom Scholem, Martin Buber, and Milton Steinberg. King uses examples from popular cinema that form the structure of the book, which is organized thematically. King recognizes the great importance of written sacred texts as sources in Judaism (3), which is part of Elliot Gertel's critique of the limits of the moving image.2 However King also argues against Michael Medved's assertion that film is inadequate to depict Judaism respectfully and factually.3 The chapters of King's book are organized into nine major, creatively conceived categories, including extended examinations of mystical Judaism, musical Judaism, Holocaust Judaism, and family Judaism. Forty films have been chosen and classified within these rubrics to illustrate the beauty of Judaism. For example, mystical film texts studied in the book include Pi (Darren Aronofsky, USA, 1998), Bee Season (Scott McGehee, David Siegel, USA, 2005), and A Stranger Among Us (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1992). Musical film texts include Yentl (Barbra Streisand, UK, USA, 1984), Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, USA, 1971), and two of the four produced film versions of The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, USA, 1927; and Richard Fleischer, USA, 1980). Holocaust Judaism texts include The Believer (Henry Bean, USA, 2001), The Diary of Anne Frank (George Stevens, USA, 1959), Left Luggage (Jeroen Krabbé, Netherlands, 1998), The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet, USA, 1964), The Quarrel (Eli Cohen, Canada, 1991), and the Devil's Arithmetic (Donna Deitch, USA, 1999). In the appendix King rates the ten best films with plot summaries to aid the reader. King's analytic sharpness shines when he describes the following three main clusters of filmmaking: (1) Hasidic Jews in New York, (2) Haredi or ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem, and (3) shtetl Jews from Eastern Europe. One film, however, is about Sephardic Jews, and another takes place in North Africa. King acknowledges that the scope of his project is limited to...