Movie-Made Jews focuses on a rich, usable American Jewish cinematic tradition. This tradition includes fiction and documentary films that make Jews through antisemitism, Holocaust indirection, and discontent with assimilation. It prominently features the unapologetic assertion of Jewishness, queerness, and alliances across race and religion. Author Helene Meyers shows that as we go to our local theater, attend a Jewish film festival, play a DVD, watch streaming videos, Jewishness becomes part of the multicultural mosaic rather than collapsing into a generic whiteness or being represented as a life apart. This engagingly-written book demonstrates that a Jewish movie is neither just a movie nor for Jews only.
With incisive analysis, Movie-Made Jews challenges the assumption that American Jewish cinema is a cinema of impoverishment and assimilation. While it’s a truism that Jews make movies, this book brings into focus the diverse ways movies make Jews.
1 Introduction: Making Jews Onscreen and Off
2 Looking at Antisemites and Jews Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) School Ties (1992) The Believer (2001) Protocols of Zion (2005)
3 Looking at the Shoah from a Distance The Pawnbroker (1964) Enemies, A Love Story (1989) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) Barton Fink (1991) and A Serious Man (2009)
4 Focusing on Assimilation and Its Discontents The Way We Were (1973) Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) Crossing Delancey (1988) Avalon (1990) and Liberty Heights (1999)
5 Assertively Jewish Onscreen Whatever Works (2009) Fading Gigolo (2013) Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish (2010) Keeping Up with the Steins (2006) Wish I Was Here (2014)
6 Queering the Jewish Gaze I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) and Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Milk (2008) Treyf (1998) Trembling Before G-d (2001) Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School (2005)
7 Cinematic Alliances Heart of Stone (2009) Crime after Crime (2011) Zebrahead (1992) Arranged (2007) David (2011)
8 Epilogue: Cinematic Continuity and Change through a Feminist Lens 93Queen (2018) RBG (2018)
Acknowledgments Filmography Notes Selected Bibliography Index
HELENE MEYERS is professor of English and McManis University Chair at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She is the author of Femicidal Fears: Narratives of the Female Gothic Experience, Reading Michael Chabon, and Identity Papers: Contemporary Narratives of American Jewishness.
"Behind this eminently readable survey of American Jewish film is a very smart intervention. Meyers broadens the well-worn examination of Jews in film to include not just Jewish representations or Jews in the production process. She makes a solid case for adding the Jewish audience as part of the equation for what makes Jewish film Jewish."
- Steven Carr (author of Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History up to World War II)
"A significant and lively testament to the vitality of American Jewish cinema and its relationship to Jewish life in America."
- David Desser (co-author of American Jewish Filmmakers)
"An engaging, lively, and important contribution to Jewish film studies."
- Elyce Rae Helford (author of What Price Hollywood?: Gender and Sex in the Films of George Cukor)
"Those with a serious interest in film will definitely want to add this book to their shelves. Other readers may also find themselves intrigued to learn more about their favorite films, or enjoy reading about films with which they are not familiar."
"Well-researched and presents some intriguing ideas for thought and discussion."
(The American Israelite)
"Meyer’s research shows that accurate cultural representation is diverse representation, which challenges stereotypes, while providing viewers insight into Jewish lives or allowing viewers to identify with the Jewish characters they see on their television screens."
"By focusing on very clear, specific, and discrete thematic groupings, Meyers has written a book that speaks volumes in a small package. Through the choices she made, the way she arranged them, and the fascinating analysis and commentary she layers on top, Meyers has produced a book that is a must-have for scholars of film, Jewish studies, cultural studies, and a range of other disciplines. She has created a roadmap text that anyone could use to construct a new course on Jewish American film or revamp an existing course. Jews may make films and films may make Jews, but Meyers has made both into something special."
- Jenny Caplan (Journal of Religion and Film)
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