It’s almost that time of year again: the highest of holidays for all Hollywood’s Jews. The night agents, producers and actors (once named Goldman, Horowitz and Hershlag) take a moment to atone before praying to the powerful little gold God named Oscar. To prepare you for the celebrity, red-carpet slumber party, we’ve scoured and analyzed the Heeb film archives in search of the 100 Greatest Jewish Moments in the Movies. It’s our chance to both reflect upon and enjoy our media reflection. See that Jewish face? Hear that Jewish voice? Is that how they see us? Is this who we are? And if you don’t care about all that crap, here’s your chance to laugh, cry and scream at the officially funniest, saddest and most fucked up Jewy scenes ever filmed. Win/win.
Some are subtle or nuanced, while others are blatant and unsophisticated. Between the Nazi dentist, the TK, and the TK, we found Jews in space, in cartoons and, of course, in New York. Some scenes contradict the stereotypes and others affirm them. We have vampires, mobsters, a few nice Jewish boys and, yeah, even Woody.
Though different standards and metrics were applied, in the end, for us, a great moment in Jewish film is very simply this: Did this particular scene get it? Did it capture a vibe, a sense, a tone that just undeniably feels Jewish? Simply put, is it part of us? Watch the following 100 clips to find out, and know yourself.
100. My Favorite Year (1982)
Peter O’Toole comes home with his Jewish writer/ handler to have dinner with his family, including his Filipino stepfather who serves “Filipino Pork and Beans, ” but tells him confidentially that the meat is really parrot, because “there are Jewish people here.”
99. Where’s Poppa? (1970)
Gordon Hocheiser (George Segal) is head-over-heels for Louise Callan (Trish Van Devere), the nurse of his senile mother (Ruth Gordon), but mom can cock-block with the best of them. When Mrs. Hocheiser bites Gordon’s tushy in front of Callan at the dinner table he finally summons the courage to put his mother in an old age home. Gordon’s sympathetic portrayal as a demented Jewish mom makes Gordon’s decision all the more poignant.
98. Spike of Bensonhurst (1988)
One good sign of having experienced a great Jewish movie moment is that you can barely remember anything else that happened in that movie. Exhibit A: The scene in Spike of Bensonhurst in which TK, the Sicilian assistant of Jewish mob boss TK (Ernest Borgnine) speaks to him in Yiddish so that TK won’t understand.
97. Europa Europa (1990)
In the process of hiding from the Nazis, Solomon (Marco Hofschneider) finds himself undercover in the Nazi Youth. When his eugenics teacher calls him up to the front of the room to measure his skull with a pseudo-scientific apparatus, there is a pregnant pause before the teacher announces to the class: “A perfect Nazi specimen.”
96. Superbad (2007)
Seth Rogen’s cop, when being told that the liquor store robber wasn’t African-American but was “like him” responds “He was Jewish! An odd crime for a Jew to commit. Ok, so we have an African Jew wearing a hoodie.”
95. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Bert Lahr (nee Irving Lahrheim) gave up school for vaudeville at the age of 15, then landed on Broadway, and finally, in this classic film. Even though he was a long way from his native Yorkville, his Cowardly Lion betrays his roots when he sings “If I Only Had the Noive.” Lehr’s performance was the highlight of an otherwise disappointing career in the movies. It’s too bad. If Lahr were alive today, he’d probably end up starring in an Apatow flick.
94. Liberty Heights (1999)
What do Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers, Mel Brooks…okay and Roseanne Barr have in common? Yes, they’ve all sported the infamous Hitler ‘stache for laughs. Here, director Barry Levinson has Ben Kurtzman (Ben Foster) shock his Eastern European-born bubbe when he dresses as Hitler for Halloween. Father Nate (Joe Mantegna) tells mom Ada (Bebe Neuwirth): “Put the Fuhrer on the phone.” After speaking with his father, Ben takes off the costume.
93. Snatch (2000)
The most significant Jewish moment of Guy Ritchie’s life was not the first time he step foot in the Kabbalah Centre, but this scene in which a bunch of crooks dressed as Hasids (one of them, “Franky Four Fingers” is an actual Hasid) pull off a jewel heist.
92. The In-Laws (1979)
Vince Ricardo (Peter Falk) tries to communicate the gravity of the international criminal effort to collapse the global economy he’s become embroiled in to soon-to-be in-law Dr. Sheldon Kornpett, D.D.S. (Alan Arkin) by comparing the situation to Germany before Hitler: “People are gonna panic. There’s gonna be gold riots, atonal music…political chaos, mass suicide….”
91. Role Models (2008)
TK (Sean William Scott) tells a little black kid that KISS was a bunch of Jews. The kid’s shocked “I didn’t know Jews could sing like that!” TK’s response: “Back then they couldn’t, that’s why they had to wear makeup.” The joke hinges on the inability to believe that there was ever a time when Jews had to conceal their heritage from the public spotlight.
90. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
Okay, we can understand the cultural assumption that Jews run the music business, but Hasids? Harold Ramis’s hysterical cameo as a Hasidic A&R man named “L’Chaim” TK
89. Deathwish III (1985)
We’ve watched a lot of Jews in a lot of movies, but the scene in which the old Orthodox couple terrorized by hoodlums kvell as vigilante Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) shows them the human-sized mouse trap is a poetic reminder of another era of rampant inner city violence and the vestige of old world Jews who hadn’t yet fled for suburbia.
88. The Chosen (1981)
The site of the face (and glasses) of Reuven Malter (Barry Miller) being smashed with a softball off the bat of Saunders. Danny Saunders (Robbie Benson) is to softball what Matisyahu is to reggae
87. Batman Returns (1992)
It’s Christmas Eve, when the Penguin’s parents (played by Paul Reubens and Diane Salinger) place their deformed newborn in a basket and watch him float Moses-style into the sewer. Surprised that they don’t seem to own a Christmas tree?
86. Ocean’s 13 (2007)
Wait, isn’t that the dad from Friends? Indeed it was, but believe it or not, Elliot Gould at one point was one of America’s biggest stars who—in the words of J. Hoberman—”was a new breed of schlemiel—handsome, athletic, even dangerous.” There is nothing revolutionary about his Reuben Tishkoff chomping on a cigar, barking Yiddish every other word with a gaudy Star of David nestled in body hair that pokes through an unbuttoned 60s-era lamé shirt, but it is a fascinating coda to a career spent imploding Jewish stereotypes.
85. Avalon (1990)
Writer-Director Levinson shows that questions of Jewish identity can be raised in a way which is poignant, without being maudlin as cousins Izzy (Kevin Pollak) and Jules (Aidan Quinn) tell the family patriarch (Armin Mueller-Stahl) they’re changing their names. We would have like to have seen a little more ewishJay ontentcay in this movie about what multiple generations of an immigrant family gained and lost as they became America, but it’s so beautiful we’re inclined to be forgiving.
84. For Your Consideration (2006)
Christopher Guest may be our favorite stealth Jew, but how many of Hollywood’s obvious Tribesmen or women have ever tried something as audacious as a mockumentary about the making of a period-piece drama about a small town family coming together on Purim? Parker Posey and Catherine O’Hara spinning groggers inside an antebellum home. How can you not respect that?
83. Witness (1985)
Amish kid Samuel Lapp (Lukas Haas) pulls a “reverse Frisco Kid,” mistaking a Hasidic Jew for a fellow Amish.
82. Lolita (1962)
There’s a dissertation waiting to be written on the fascinating and original ways that Peter Sellers signified Jewishness in his roles. Here, playing Clare Quilty, he pretends to be a Jewish émigré, Freudian psychiatrist named “Doctor Zempf” and surprises Humbert Humbert (James Mason) in his home to talk about Lolita’s sexual development. Doctor Zempf argues to grant her permission to participate in the school play (part of a complex plot organized by Quilty so he can sleep with Lo). “Vee Amerikans, vee are progressive and modern,” he proclaims. “Vee believe that it is equally important to prepare the pupils for the mutually satisfactory mating and the successful child rearing. That is vhat we believe.”
81. A Stranger Among Us (1992)
There is no more mystifying a scene on this list than this one. At the Shabbos table, in which the rebbe dances around the table with his never-explained guests—the guy dressed all in white, and the black guy in the kente cloth. A kabbalist and an Ethiopian Jew? Assyrian patriarch and an African prince? A milkman and a street-corner dvd salesman?
80. Spaceballs (1987)
Yogurt’s very mantra that invokes the omniscience of … who knows.
Amanda Hesser
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