I am an Orthodox rabbi angrily denouncing one of the biggest recent box office hits. Which movie has earned my wrath? Here is a clue: it surprised everyone by selling over one hundred million dollars’ worth of tickets in its first week in theaters. No it’s not Mel Gibson’s The Passion. The movie causing me deep distress is a Rosenthal/Tenenbaum production starring Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.
I am sorry to see Barbra Streisand involved in such a flagrant defamation of Judaism. While she was making her film Yentl for which I served as a consultant she studied Judaism regularly and diligently with me. She was a warm and gracious guest on the occasions she had dinner with my family. Yentl’s nostalgic if not altogether authentic glimpse into 19th century Jewish life in Poland evoked a feeling of fondness for the characters; but like many ethnic Jews Streisand is largely isolated from her religious roots. In the new film to which I refer she plays a heinous caricature of a Jewess.
If you would rather not part with good money for the privilege of seeing the Jewish people defamed you should abstain from this movie which I am reluctant to name on account of the implied vulgarity of its title.
Lest you suspect that I am just a grouch with no sense of humor let me tell you a little about this offensive excuse for entertainment. The movie depicts a non-Jewish couple visiting their daughter’s future Jewish in-laws. The conspicuously Jewish parents are portrayed as sexually obsessed constantly concupiscent degenerates. Nice people but depraved. Even the decorations that adorn their home are suggestive.
Along with their son’s bar mitzvah talis they have preserved the foreskin from his bris. To add to the hilarity this souvenir makes a distasteful reappearance at an awkward moment. In reality we Jews treat the foreskin with reverence burying it rather than turn it into a scrapbook joke. The Jewish hosts who exude their ethnicity boast of their son’s inappropriate adventures with the gentile maid and grant us unnecessary glimpses into their personal lives. There are many other examples of Judaism being defamed in this horrible excrescence.
The movie defames Jews in a way I haven’t seen since the worst that Woody Allen dished up. And Woody at his worst was breathtakingly hostile to Judaism. One need only recall how many of Woody’s films portray Jews not to mention rabbis as loathsome liars desperate psychotics pathetic perverts and ridiculously lecherous losers. If Woody Allen were not Jewish surely every Jewish organization would have roundly denounced him. And they would have been right. The problem is that he is Jewish and they don’t denounce him. Instead they celebrate Woody Allen Week at Jewish Community Center film festivals.
It is not only in movies that Jews besmirch Jews. Radio shock-jock Howard Stern intersperses his displays of dehumanizing depravity with a constant stream of oy veys as if subconsciously compelled to highlight his Jewish ethnicity. Ruth Westheimer talks of her love for Judaism but as Dr. Ruth with her grandmotherly appearance and Jewish accent she titillates her audiences with shockingly explicit advice.
A few years ago the Los Angeles Jewish Journal gushingly profiled a Jewish pornographer whose stage name is Ron Jeremy. The piece praised the huge sums he’s been paid to promote immorality. Jeremy who proudly admits to have acted in or directed over 1 500 adult videos cited the preponderance of Jewish men in that industry and explained Jewish families tend to be more liberal than Christian ones they aren’t obsessed by the fear of the devil or going to hell.
