Blog

This week we will be reading from parashat Shoftim. It begins shoftim v’shotrim titen lecha b’chol sh’arecha asher Adonai Elohecha notein l’cha, you shall appoint magistrates and officials for your tribes, in all the settlements that the Eternal your God is giving you, and they shall govern the people with due justice. You shall not judge unfairly: you shall show no partiality; you shall not take bribes, for bribes blind the eyes of the discerning and upset the plea of the just. Tzedek, Tzedek tirdof, justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may thrive and occupy the land that the Eternal your God is giving you.”[1]  

Here Moses is instructing the Israelites in the ethical and administrative expectations for the new community that they are about to establish for themselves. At the heart of it, Tzedek, Tzedek, tirdof, the passionate pursuit of justice. A theme that has and continues to define how we, as Jews, interact with the world.

This idea of how we interact with the world is the central theme of Torah study, of Talmud study, and is also the topic of almost every sermon given from the pulpit. But there is a darker side to the conversation, and that is, how the world interacts with us, and how we are expected or are supposed to respond. But more on this in a moment.

Not to date myself, but as a child of the 80s and 90s, I was exposed to any number of bands and genres of music, which has greatly impacted my musical taste. There was new wave like Devo. Punk bands like The Clash. Metal like Metallica. Rock like U2 and Guns n Roses, and so many others that we could spend all night talking about them.

But there is one I wanted to talk about tonight, and that was a band that came out of Athens, Georgia. As Alli Patton, a writer for American Song Writer wrote, “More than just a sulky college-rock quartet, R.E.M. were post-punk pagan priests enchanting a generation stuck somewhere between the dissolution of gritty punk and the emergence of pop-y new wave. Instrumental in the creation of the alternative rock scene in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, R.E.M. blazed the trail. They helped disenfranchised punks everywhere escape into music, inspiring once fledgling bands like Nirvana, Radiohead … Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots … to pursue a sound that betrayed all things mainstream.”[2]

As Ally goes on to write, “their music will endure, but only one song will soundtrack the end times: “It’s the End of the World as We know it (And I feel fine)…

The song is a flurry of words probably about as chaotic as any rapture will be. Mentions of earthquakes, hurricanes, and continental drifts are sung alongside images of birthday parties, cheesecake, and jellybeans in a paradox of sounds.”[3]

At the heart of the song, amidst the jumble of words, at just about any party, you can hear Michael Stipe sing, and everyone in the audience shout, “Leonard Bernstein.” When I first heard this name, I had to ask, who was Leonard Bernstein, and what did he have to do with the coming apocalypse. According to singer Michael Stipe, he had a dream where he and his bandmates attended a party attended by Leonard Bernstein, Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs (all LBs). Perhaps Freud could find the connection between the four, but given that this song came out three years before his death, it helped to immortalize the Bernstein among a new generation of music aficionados.

Now there is a new attempt to immortalize Bernstein, but this one is by far, much more controversial with Bradley Cooper’s new movie, which he wrote, directed and starred in as Leonard Bernstein. As far as I can tell, there are two major controversies associated with Maestro, the first is as Cooper, who is not Jewish, portraying Bernstein on film. And the second, his choice to wear a prosthetic nose, which may or may not get into some antisemitic motifs. The first, Cooper playing Bernstein, is part of a larger cultural conversation about representation in film.

As writer Mary Ellen Dowd notes, ““Representation in the fictional world signifies social existence. Absence means symbolic annihilation.” - George Gerbner

Representation is a key aspect of individual empowerment in a society that so highly values media as a forecaster of culture. It becomes increasingly more difficult for an individual or group of individuals to find value in their differences when they are constantly ignored or, worse, alienated for those differences by popular media.

In terms of race and film, this process of ignoration and alienation began with the inception of the moving picture and continues to some extent today.”[4]

As the founders of what would later become Hollywood, Jews were involved in every element of production from owning the studios to writing, acting and directing. However, more often than not, they were to create the idealized picture of an American, not necessarily a Jewish-American. That being said, there does seem to be a concerning trend with more and more non-Jews playing Jewish characters. But that is a conversation for another day.

The issue has also been raised with regards to Helen Mirren’s (another non-Jew) portrayal of Golda Meir in the upcoming movie Golda. In both cases, though, the producers have made the decision to exaggerate the noses of both Golda and Leonard.

Now to be fair, Leonard Bernstein’s children have offered up their own thoughts stating, “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that,” the statement continues. “We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well. Any strident complaints around this issue strike us above all as disingenuous attempts to bring a successful person down a notch — a practice we observed all too often perpetrated on our own father.”[5]

And yet, even with their reassurances, we may still be bothered by the choice of the prosthetic nose. What is more concerning at this moment, is the potential return of the tradition of ‘Jewface.’ As writer Brynn Shiovitz notes in the Jewish Journal, “Jewface’ is an American vaudeville tradition which stems from such a practice of Othering. On the vaudeville stage, Jews and non-Jews would wear prosthetic noses and beards, adopt fake Yiddish accents, and play roles similar to those grotesque literary characters, in order to poke fun at or reinforce pre-existing stereotypes of Jewish immigrants. Within this specific late 19^th/early 20^th-century performance practice, Jewface was always an intended form of mockery.”[6]

Was this the intent of either film, their producers, the actors, or directors? Of course not. They were making artistic choices how to represent on film, real, living breathing human beings. The problem is, someone, somewhere along the line, should have been aware or at least more aware of the long-standing tradition of stereotyping of Jews. When it comes to the “Jewish nose,” that tradition dates back to at least the 13^th century in Europe. Though it really caught on in the late 19^th century with such written titles as “the satirical antisemitic 1893 book The Operated Jew which revolves around a plot of cosmetic surgery as a "cure" for Jewishness.”[7]

We can debate about the challenges of representation in film, especially given that Jews come in all shapes, sizes, races, genders and colors. But what we can and should hold people accountable for is when, in the pursuit of artistic integrity, some choose to ignore the history of antisemitic depictions in written and cinematic form. Better to forgo the ‘Jewish nose’ so that the audience instead is thinking about the depiction of the likes of Bernstein and Golda Meir on the screen.

Now of course, with any controversial topic, there is debate, even among our own Jewish communities as to whether or not this is really an issue. Especially when it comes to potentially calling out antisemitism where none exists. I would argue, that in these two cases, it doesn’t exist, but knowledge of it, could certainly have led to better decisions.

As actor Tracy Ann Oberman said, “As actors, we should be able to play anyone. That is our job and I’ve had a wide and varied career playing a multitude of parts. However, we are living in a time of enormous sensitivity around the appropriation of characters played by people who aren’t from that background. I have seen little similar concern about Jewish characters where their Jewish religious and cultural identity is intrinsic to who they are being discussed with the same respect.”[8]

Cooper may be a sincere actor, writer and director, but alas, he was not fully cognizant of the role that the stereotyping of certain physical stereotypes has played in our larger history as Jews. It is not a condemnation of his choice, but more shines a light on a larger cultural pervasiveness to ignore concerns of the Jewish community. That somehow, we, as Jews, are exempt when such issues arise has only emboldened those who wish to do us harm.

Depictions and portrayals matter just as much as how we interact with the world. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if there can be more focus on our interaction with the world than using a stereotyped physical attribute to help define one’s ‘Jewishness?’ Or would that result in the end of the world as we know it?

Shabbat Shalom.

--

Watch the entirety of Friday’s service here.

Temple Talk is a recap of sermons given from the Bimah for those who missed a Sermon or who wanted to revisit the words spoken at a previous sermon.