A few weeks ago we discussed African American elites and their privileged place in the socioeconomic hierarchy of the United States? Interesting conversation and one worth having. Here is another…
From the early days of the founding of this country, a belief running through this largely Christian culture has been that Jews are an enemy of the christian churches, will suffer the displeasure of God until they accept Jesus, and in more recent years, are members of a group that is intent on bringing down the United States government. Jewish people, many god fearing Christian Americans assert, and some very powerful ones at that, control both the banking and entertainment sectors of our society.
For those of you who do not know the history, and I’ll assume that this represents most of you, the Christian churches have always had a rather rancorous relationship with Jewish people. In spite of the fact that Jesus lived and died as a Jew, and presumably will still be a Jew when/if he ever returns. In spite of the fact that early followers of Christ who wrote the Christian New Testament all considered themselves to be Jewish throughout their lives (yes, I’m not kidding). Jewish Christians turned against their Jewish brethren and throughout the years painted members of this group as the persecutors and murderers of Jesus–not the Romans. Why this happened is an interesting story, and one that I’ll leave you to explore if you have any inclination to do so.
But the bottom line is that Jewish people have long suffered the wrath of Christians with long (albiet distorted) memories and short tempers…and a predilection to savage and brutal behavior. Martin Luther, for example, perhaps the most important figure in the emergence of Protestantism, wrote the script for Adolph Hitler. “Round up the Jews, the scourge of civilization, and put them in work camps or kill them,” is essentially what he said. (Here’s a summary.)
So it is with this in mind that I’m led to the current posting about the prevalence and power of Jewish moguls in Hollywood. Keep in mind that Hollywood does not determine this culture — even though it certain plays a role in how we see ourselves as a people. To understand my reluctance to post the article one only has to read some of the comments that readers made about it. Some are thoughtful and considered, but all too many demonstrate a near total lack of understanding of a very complex issue. For those in this group, the article merely confirms their anti-Semitic thinking.
So when is it acceptable to open up a “pandora’s box” of bigotry and misinterpretation? A few years back the Jewish Theological Seminary sponsored a coffee table book that described how Hollywood is run by Jewish people. It is called “Entertaining America,” in case you’re interested. Hmm… Check out the article and reflect on the implications.
In response to the blog, “When Does Conversation Step Over the Line?”, and the article, “How Jewish is Hollywood”, I do not think that it is that important to stress the involvement of Jews in Hollywood. Why does it matter whether you are Jewish, Catholic, Methodist, Protestant, Muslim, etc. Hollywood is still Hollywood. I do not see how your religious backgrounds affect how you can produce a movie or write a script for a television show. It is one thing to be proud of your religion, but to go around launching a public relations campaign with sayings such as “Hollywood: More Jewish than ever!”; “Hollywood: From the people who brought you the Bible”; and “Hollywood: If you enjoy TV and movies, then you probably like Jews after all.” I just think that is being a bit too arrogant, dramatic, and obnoxious. When Joel Stein called and asked six highly positioned people in the entertainment companies, five of them turned them down because they thought that could possibly be insulting to the Jewish community. I think it is equaly, if not more, insulting to the other religious communities out there. Is he hinting that Jews are better because they are more involved in Hollywood? It is almost as if he is putting down the work of others because they are not Jewish. When he says “I want America to know about our accomplishment”, it does not change my viewpoint any more towards Hollywood. I do not see the big deal that yes, they control Hollywood. The article, I believe, is just producing more negative views against Jewish people. At the end of the article, Stein contradicts himself when he says “But I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government”, because in a couple paragraphs up he said that as a proud Jew, he wants Americans to know about the Jewish accomplishment in Hollywood. And why does he care so much that the Jews keep running Hollywood, Wall Street, or the government? I personally do not see the big deal or understand why religious backgrounds have to come into play while producing entertainment for Americans. The only thing that I think religious backgrounds do affect is when it comes to government. Religion and politics always have a bit of a rough patch.
Yeah there is definitely a belief that Jews are the enemy from the viewpoint of Christians. But it is only to a certain extent. Growing up, I went to Catholic school from preschool to my senior year in high school and did not have one Jewish friend. It was not by choice; it just because I was always surrounded by the Christian community. When I came to Penn State, I formed many friendships with Jewish people and did not know they were Jewish until after a friendship was already made. Maybe I do not have strong enough beliefs, but saying Jews are the enemy, is little too much over the edge.
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Throughout my life I have come to see myself as a very liberal person. In that I’m not quite a tree-hugger or anything but I think very liberally about different situations. As I was reading both the article and the blog, all I could think about was “why does it really matter?” Who really cares what religion the people who make movies observe? When you’re watching a movie, do you ever wonder what religion the person who directed it follows? I’ll be honest when I say that I don’t think I have ever thought anything like that. What does religion have to do with banking or entertainment? I just don’t really understand the big deal about Jewish people controlling Hollywood. As a Jewish person, I was pleased to hear that Jews have some power somewhere, but no one makes a big deal about the fact that everyone in political power is Christian. I just wish sometimes that people would stop and think of what they are wasting their time talking about. People are mad that they do not have total national domination and that Jewish people have control over a few things. Really? I mean I know I am very liberal, as I said earlier and maybe I think a little too simply but, in the big picture, why do these people care about something that affects them so insignificantly? Do people not watch television or movies because of the religion of the people who run the corporations that produce them? I highly doubt it.
I understand why Sam wrote about the history of Judaism and the relationship between Jews and Christians, but I think that it’s fairly irrelevant. Honestly, I feel that Christians do not exactly understand why they are unhappy about the two areas of society where Jewish people dominate, but rather feel that they should be. This may come off sounding conceited but I think that if people thought similarly to how I do, they would be a lot less angry and prejudiced towards others. What I mean by “think how I do” is putting situations as simply as possible. Does it affect your daily life if two men marry each other? How angry would you be if someone told you that you could not get married to the person that you love? In this case it would be something along the lines of “do you like movies any less knowing that they are made by Jewish-run companies?” or “are you not going to watch the movie based upon the producer’s religion?” I guarantee that a lot of people would answer “no” to one or both of these questions and maybe even realize that the fact that they care about Hollywood being run by Jews is stupid. All in all, I just think that people need to recognize how minutely they are affected, if at all, by Jewish people in Hollywood.
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As a Christian, I don’t think it’s that insulting that Jews are at the heads of the major movie and television corporations. Good for them. I don’t see it as a competition between races. For example, if a Jewish person was hired for a job instead of me, I wouldn’t think it was because I was a Catholic and the company prefers Jews. That’s stupid. Obviously, they’re the most qualified or have simply been in power the longest and aren’t ready to leave.
I also think it’s dumb to think that just because they’re Jewish and in charge that the movies and television shows are swayed religiously. To be honest, I can’t think of the last time I saw a movie that was about Judaism or a movie that had the main character a devout jew. There are countless films about Christianity such as Passion of the Christ and others but none on Judaism. Who cares that they’re all Jewish?
However, I guess I can look at it as a type of success story. During the Holocaust, mass genocide left many Jewish families poor and separated from the rest of the world. It’s cool to think that in less than a century many of them hold such prestigious positions.
I don’t really see the problem with this article. I understand that it’s supposed to be bigoted and in a way, racist, but I just think it’s just the writer’s humor coming out. I don’t believe that he really thinks that Jewish people are the absolute supreme of America. I also think that Hollywood is very influential, but not nearly as influential as the government in which most people in head positions are Christian.
The author is also not bashing any other races. He’s speaking up for the power of Judaism. Honestly, it’s about time someone did that. When you’re young, whether it be high school or college, it’s not necessarily considered “cool” to be Jewish. Many Jewish people try to hide from their religion by not sticking up for themselves and their families when racist Jew jokes are told which happens too frequently. This may sound trite, but there’s a basic component of Facebook underneath your Information that says what religion you are. I know many people who are Jewish who simply take that out of their profile. They don’t want it on display that they practice Judaism. For example, my Jewish friend was talking about the dynamics of his frat house. He said “40% of us are Jewish and 70% are anti-semitists.” I questioned that statistic and said, “Didn’t you mean 60% are anti-semitists?” He laughed and replied “No. 10% of us wish we weren’t Jewish.”
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I am not really sure where to start with this as I come from a unique perspective. My mother was raised Irish Catholic, attended Catholic school and raised by pretty religious parents. She turned a lot of head when the man she chose to marry was a Jewish man reigning from public school, my father. My dad’s side is not particularly religious, my grandparents at least. They hail from Staten Island and speak with that stereotypical New York/Jewish accent. My remaining relatives from that side reside in Staten Island. My father quit Hebrew school to play baseball. If you asked him, he would probably identify himself as agnostic or even atheist; however with the last name Solomon, anti-Semitism is something with which he considers himself familiar. He often brings up the fact that Hitler would not have spared his life regardless of his personal religious affiliation. The last name Solomon would have sent him straight to the concentration camps. From what I know, my ancestors emigrated before Holocaust times. That’s beside the point.
My views are pretty up in the air as far as religion goes. I have had the opportunity to celebrate Christian holidays, mostly from the family together-ness aspect. I have also embraced the Jewish culture. I consider myself to be agnostic and I will likely take on whichever religion to which my future husband is native. Truthfully, I feel a bit lost when it comes to religion and partly wish I was raised with some sort of affiliation. Most people who know me are confident I will marry a Jewish man. My most recent boyfriend was Jewish but who knows. I am not opposed. Currently, my college friends are predominately Jewish but this is due to my predominately Jewish sorority. At home, it is evenly split. My background story demonstrates the unique position I have.
When it comes to anti-Semitism I am certainly affected. I have a Jewish last name and have a lot of Jewish friends. Like my father says, Hitler would not have spared me. My confusion with religion often leads me to ponder the fact that Jesus was Jewish. It seems a bit ironic to me, especially with my lack of religious education.
As far as the Jewish dominance in Hollywood, I feel it is pretty representative of the trends we have discussed in class. Certain races excel on the SATs, having higher incomes, and live in poverty. It makes sense that these patterns exist in employment areas. There are some stereotypes that can be true to form. My father is one of the biggest money-savers I know. This could be interpreted as “cheap” or “stingy” like the stereotype says. On the other hand, my father has no qualms buying nice things for himself and the family. He is just smart with his money. There are many Jewish people who are in positions of power. Could it be just one big coincidence? I’m not so sure. It is instinct for cultures to stick together. Heck, since I have gotten to college one of the biggest emphases has been on networking. If Jewish people are associating with other Jewish people, AKA networking, it is no wonder they dominate certain industries. The socialization factor of the Jewish culture is one of the aspects with which I identify very strongly. I think that could largely have to do with concentrated presence of Jewish people in certain areas.
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I really do not see the point of this article. I am not sure why it really matters what religions people are and who is at the top, and I am also not sure that this article was really the best thing for Jewish people. Although it is important to discuss these things, and it is good that there are Jewish elite despite their ancestors rocky (to say the very least) history, I am not sure that people are very willing to hear it, whether this is right or not. I think the way he wrote the article was a little distasteful as well, as he was almost outraged that Americans did not realize Jewish people are at the top of Hollywood. Again, why does this matter?
As far as the comments to this blog, it definitely does show how ignorant some people are. I could not believe the person that wrote “I wish jews wrote pro-Jewish movies. In reality, they write pro-satan movies”. Other people wrote that Jewish people make movies about the holocaust to make us feel guilty one more time about it. These comments really are sickening looking back on history and seeing how Jews have been persecuted throughout life. People seem to just want to forget the past and pretend it never happened.
The thing that really bothers me, however, is the fact that Martin Luther was anti-semantic. As a protestant, I have learned a lot about our history and somehow this escaped the reading and discussions. I realize there are dark sides to every religion, but it is always a slap in the face when you learn something terrible about something you have always believed in. It also seems to be a common trend in all aspects of culture and society. Societies cover up their messy pasts and promote an image for their people to hold true. Maybe this is necessary—you need the majority of people to believe in your propaganda or you will not have a unified orderly group of people. After taking this class though I have been continually disgusted with our society and all that it sweeps under the rug. It seems that religion is just as terrible with this. I always get really strange looks when I tell people I don’t really consider myself to have a particular religion, but I am very religious. People who are really religious especially seem to be very offended or scared and sort of back away. I just never could really accept every part of any religion. Or the bible (or any holy book) for that matter. I agree that it had good intentions, but the words can be misinterpreted in so many terrible ways, leading to anti-gay sentiment and few women’s rights in much of the world today. Also, most of it was written so long after any of the stories took place that who knows what really happened. It just seems funny to me that anyone can really take each word SO seriously. Really I think what you should get out of it all is to be accepting of other people, help them out, thank god, and just be a good person. But sadly, even the most religious are not able to do this. Like the Willard preacher..need I say more.
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Before college, I honestly never put much thought into Jewish culture. I grew up in Houston, Texas where there were many Jewish communities and in fact, my best friend was Jewish. Although I realized that she did not celebrate Christmas and had certain holidays of her own, I did not appreciate the social and cultural divides that separate Jewish-Americans from Christian-Americans. When I moved to southeastern Pennsylvania in 2000, my new community had hardly any Jewish individuals and the majority of the population was Catholic. Now at Penn State, my roommate is Jewish and I finally see how much being Jewish affects her life. Previously, I just considered Judaism another religion and it did not seem all that different to me than the various sects of Christianity. If someone tells me that he or she is Jewish, my opinion of them would not change in the least. Maybe this is because I am not religious myself so I do not really think of religion as a dividing factor. I really think it is silly for Christians to discriminate and feel hatred towards Jews since Jesus himself was Jewish! It is absolutely ridiculous. Judaism was the mother religion according to the Bible. I really am surprised when I hear about anti-Semitic remarks being made today. I guess it should not be too shocking; there is always some group of people who can find a way to hate another group of people. The whole thing just really does not make sense to me. There are many different divisions in Christianity that have pretty different practices and beliefs and they do not seem to have to much trouble with one another.
For my roommate, being Jewish is an integral part of her identity. Even though she is not very religious and is not sure about her beliefs in God and the Bible, she 100% considers herself Jewish. She grew up participating in Jewish youth groups, attending Jewish summer camps, and her entire group of friends throughout high school was Jewish. It is like the cultural part of being a Jew far outweighs the whole religious side of it. This is quite interesting to me because I have never witnessed this sort of behavior with Christians. I guess it stems from the fact that Judaism is a minority religion in the United States so Jewish-Americans take pride in their culture and stick together. I guess because you cannot tell that someone is Jewish by their outward appearance that the social groupings seem a little odder to me. When I see a group of Asians together that seems much more normal than if I was introduced to a group of all Jewish individuals. This social tendency just goes to show that people take comfort in being around others who are similar to themselves both physically and culturally.
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I took a stab at reading the link that was posted in the main article, explaining how Martin Luther was an anti-semite, but it does make sense in a very twisted way. During the Middle Ages there was a further spread of anti-semitism that resulted in many Jews being prosecuted, yet again, for things they had not done. What was this event, however? This little thing called the Black Plague. Jews were blamed for it mercilessly because they lived in further secluded communities that were capable of taking care of themselves and keeping their lives clean. (When I say “clean”, I mean through means such as bathing)
However, it was incredibly interesting to see the ties that existed between Hitler, Martin Luther and many anti-semitist acts as a whole. It almost seems to be the same way how there is now also a very anti-Moslem like culture that exists in the United States and other countries with terrorist issues due to a large portion of their population being Christian. Granted, many may find martin Luther to be this great inspiration, a mover and innovator and yet, this is where a problem exists with things like “Organized Faith”. Many will disagree that Organized Faith can be any sort of real problem due to a large number of hateful crimes exhibited on members of other religions to be by fanatics, but that veil is losing its touch more and more each day. You can look back to the start of the Christian movement, to Assyrian culture (if you really know your history), moving up the line to the Witch Hunts of Salem, and so on. These “fanatics” that are seen are not the only ones that showcase their hatred towards members of other religions and cultures. They aren’t even that fargone either in their ideals that they show. In the time of the Assyrians, they razed Babylon, albeit for less hated reasons than trading reasons back then. At the start of Christianity, Jews were not seen as real citizens in the Roman empire because they were monotheistic as opposed to the popular polytheism back then. Jesus didn’t help their cause much either by also attempting to spread Monotheism.
Perhaps being an Agnostic is skewing my view of how I see things, and this may rightfully be so. But, I feel that the link within the article and the article itself show that it’s better to say “I don’t know” to ultimate judgment, destination, and whatever else have you as opposed to actually declaring your faith. I feel that trying to shove scripture down one’s throat not only inspires them to not follow the faith you’re trying to push upon them, but also leads them to want to commit those “acts of violence” that are so claimed to occur. If it weren’t for people blaming the Jews for every little thing and living in such a hostile area, there would be no such reason for the Zionist movement. But, I suppose every society needs their own form of KKK.
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After reading the article about Jewish people controlling Hollywood, I found myself not caring that much about who ran Hollywood. I never really thought about it. And if it was dominantly run by Christians or Catholics or whomever it does not really matter. But whoever is running Hollywood they are doing a great job and should continue doing what they are doing. If their religion affected what comes out of Hollywood then I think I would notice. A lot of religions want to be recognized in society, especially Jews, and if this is one way to show that they go against the American stereotype then that is great. I am all about people breaking typical negative stereotypes. I agree with Foxman when he said it should not be said that Jews control Hollywood but they just happen to be Jewish. Saying that Jews control Hollywood is for lack of better words scary. No one wants to hear that something that is a big part of their culture is control by someone who is different from themselves.
I grew up in a Christian environment. Everyone that went to my school was some type of Christian, my entire family was Christian, and I was never exposed to the Jewish culture. I never knew a Jewish person. The most I learned about the religion was while I learned about the Holocaust. I even never felt that rival between Christians and Jewish people. There would be the occasional “Jew “ joke where it was said they were cheap but that is just the typical stereotype. My roommate here at school is Jewish. This blog made me question if she has something against me because of my religion. Because I was not taught to hate the Jewish religion I do not judge her because of what she believes in. I just find myself mistakenly asking her if she is going home for Easter. This rival is stupid. I am questioning the integrity of a girl who I have become great friends with over religion. There are so many religions and people get really caught up in them. Believe what you want to believe and let others do the same. No one should waste their time trying to point out that others are wrong to believe in what they believe. On a last note, the website about Martin Luther was a little shocking. That was certainly never taught in school. I always thought Hitler was the one to start the movement against Jewish people in Germany. There are definitely others who did the same, Martin Luther, and those people should be recognized for doing so. What happened before Hitler, the people that also influenced anti-Jewishness, should be taught to show how the Holocaust really came about.
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I think it’s a pretty fair and accurate assessment of the movie industry today to say that Jews are really running the show. The vast majority of Hollywood execs are Jewish, which in turn means that Jewish people have the most power. I don’t think that this is offensive to say, because it is blatantly true. This has been a long standing tradition, since the early days of Hollywood, but I don’t necessarily think it has to or will always be true.
I see how it might be offensive to say that “the Jews control Hollywood” because that implies that they have some kind of negative and biased control over all of the messages and films that are released. It has a sort of sinister sound to it, like there is a conspiracy of the Jews against the rest of the world and the “innocent” audience of these films.
I think that the results of the survey “Only 22% of Americans now believe “the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews,” down from nearly 50% in 1964” is good, despite what the author of the article says. I think this shows a lessening of paranoia by the general American public about some sort of Jewish conspiracy. These individuals may also just be ignorant of the fact that most higher-ups in Hollywood are Jewish. The other surveys that were assessing attitudes towards Hollywood execs were based on ideas people have of the entertainment industry, not prejudices about Jewish people. I think that they would hold the same beliefs and attitudes whether these powerful execs were Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or anything else. I guess I really can’t speak for everyone, but I know that I feel like in order to be that successful in the business you generally have to be kind of ruthless and power-hungry. Because of this, these people probably are not very similar to me, not because they are Jewish.
I am aware of stereotypes about Jewish people, and the long-standing prejudices held by especially Christians. The concept of anti-Semitism from Christians is pretty ridiculous. We should all know that Jesus himself was a Jew, that all of his original followers were Jewish, and that the first half of the Bible is the same as the Pentateuch. I like to think that most Christians know his, but that is obviously not the case, or they just don’t really understand what that means.
This conversation seems a little slippery because the wording in the questions, and the long history of anti-Anti-Semitism. Jewish-Americans have every right to be proud of the accomplishments of Jews in Hollywood, and they may joke that they “control Hollywood”. But non-Jews may feel uncomfortable saying this, and implying some sort of conspiracy or unfair bias in the film industry. Maybe there is a reason that Jewish people are attracted to high jobs in the business, but maybe it’s just because they are really good at that type of work, they see other Jews being successful, and decide to try it as well.
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Why does any of this truly matter? Why does it matter if the executives are Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, etc.? I personally don’t care about the religious background of the Hollywood executives, or any doctors, lawyers, etc. As long as they are doing their job and doing it well, it should not have any meaning to people whatsoever. Would you really need to ask if your doctor was Jewish, Christian, etc. before they performed an emergency operation to save your life? Would it make a difference to you, when you knew they were the only one who could do the operation? I would hope not. If you look at the overall picture (specifically in the case of the article), religion, is not affecting the kinds of movies and television that we see as a public. People don’t go to the movies and say, “Oh my goodness, you could tell that picture was so Jewish.” In fact, before reading that article, I had no idea that all of the Hollywood executives were predominately Jewish. The executives and everyone else in the business are simply there to produce media that the people would find entertaining or interesting, and something that they will sit down and pay money to see. Contrary to what some radical personalities may argue, just because the executives are Jewish does not mean we are getting purely Jewish movies and television.
Don’t get me wrong, I realize that this makes probably makes those of the Jewish faith proud, knowing that they have come such a long way and have people of the religion in such respected positions. I know if I were Jewish, I would probably feel the same way. However, I don’t really think it needs to pointed out to the American public. Yes, it is what it is, and they should be happy and proud just knowing themselves, not proving a point by sharing their accomplishments with the rest of us.
In reference to the fact that Christians find those of the Jewish faith to be enemies of the church, I think this has changed a great deal. I am a Christian, and I do not believe any Jewish person to be my enemy, especially because of the religion they choose to follow. I realize that those who practiced Judaism in the past have been discriminated against, but I believe that has become less commonplace in today’s society. We have changed and have learned from our mistakes. We have learned to be more accepting of others, even if they do not believe the same things as us. Overall, we have come a long way. I think it is safe to say that we have agreed to disagree when it comes to religious beliefs and how we practice our faith.
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As a kid I grew up Greek orthodox, which is basically the same thing as being Christian and the church would have been the same as any American Christian church but the services were entirely in Greek. Now let me throw it out there that to this day I know only a few words in Greek and as a kid refused to go to Greek school. I did not grow up in Greece, I grew up in Virginia. My grandparents however we’re very prominent figures in the Greek church both participated in the choir every week and my grandfather after he passed was actually honored by having the choir room named after him. With all this being said I should tell you that I never had an interest in going to church and quite frankly dreaded the Sunday’s when my parents actually decided to go to church. My father is American and dreaded going to church for the same reasons I did, my grandparents old Greek friends were crazy, and most importantly we didn’t speak Greek. The services were extremely long, so imagine yourself sitting through an hour and a half church service where you didn’t understand a single word that was being spoken. Needless to say because of my experiences in the Greek church I am a little bit naïve when it comes to the stories of the bible or religion in general. I do however believe in God and that Jesus is the son of God. And through my experiences have come to the conclusion that as Sam said, Jesus was a practicing Jew. I am happy to say that two of my best friends in the entire world are Jewish, but neither seem very religious. We share the common belief that there is a God and Jesus is the son of God. I however, could not care less that the people running Hollywood are Jewish. I see no Jewish themes to the shows on TV or the movies that are made. I did however find the comments after the article to be very interesting and some showed a lot of ignorance. I challenge any of those people to show me how the Jewish people are exerting their beliefs in the stuff we watch. The comment about Dolly Parton being denied a reality show because of the religious undertone of the show is ridiculous. I’m pretty sure she was denied because the mass majority of people watching reality TV would rather watch overweight people shed their fat, or Ty Pennington make over homes for underprivileged families. I mean come on, who wants to watch Dolly become an Opera Singer? I know I don’t, Id rather go back to Virginia and sit through a church service.
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I definitely think it is ironic that Jews are so actively persecuted by Christians seeing as Jesus of course was a Jew. But then again, when does anything really make sense. Many of these people are uneducated and follow the masses. I’m sure that all of the Nazis in World War II didn’t hate Jews, (some of them may have secretly been Jewish), but they did what they felt they had to. It’s crazy to think how easily someone can be swayed by the majority. I think it’s called group think. I remember hearing of a study that illustrated this. Three lines were drawn on the board, one being obviously shorter than the other two. A group of people were placed in the room, with the sixth person not knowing anything about the experiment and the others being part of the control. Each of the five people did not choose the overly apparent shortest line as being in the shortest. When it got to the sixth person, they too saw another line as being the shortest. How willing people are to just conform instead of dealing with possible persecution for being different? Especially when it is a life or death situation like it was under Hitler in World War II. But that was back then; haven’t the Jews gotten enough shit from the world?
I don’t really know why Jews are so heavily persecuted these days. Perhaps enough people were convinced in the war that they actually were subhuman. Maybe everyone feels that they are the reasons for various problems that we face in the economy. I mean they were the first money lenders who charged interest. Maybe it is jealousy that fuels the fire; Jews do control banking and entertainment in America today. Or perhaps it is just the majority persecuting the minority. I think at this point it is probably a mixture of all of these things. And of course ignorance. This is probably the case especially down south, where Jews are lacking but their persecution is prevalent. How can you hate someone or something that you have never seen or met. It is called conformity. If your mother, father, brother, friends, neighbors, perhaps even teachers are saying something you are probably going to believe it. If that many people are in accordance, certainly they are speaking the truth. Obviously I am being facetious, but I think that I am not too far off here. I have heard stories of people living down south who have claimed to think that Jews have horns. Are you kidding me? Jews have horns? It is just a religion. You can convert to Judaism. Does that mean that you would grow horns once you converted? Read a book sometime.
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I, along with many other reponses I see, do not think that it is a big deal that Jews are
making up a good portion of Hollywood, and are doing well. I know this is a soc. class, but is
it really important if one race, gender and religon is a majority in a certain industry?
Everything can’t balance perfectly, certain races, genders and religons are goign to dominate in some places and struggle in others thats just how it is. Although it is fitting to the
stereotype that Jews are generally well off, and jobs in Hollywood I’m sure pay well, but I
don’t really care what backgrounds these people have, as long as they do their job well. The entertainment business is difficult, and definatly an industry where you would want the most qualifed people getting the jobs, to maximize quality and entertainment (not that you shouldn’t want the best candidate in every other situation, but I feel that entertainment especially
shouldn’t make exceptions to quotas or anything like that). I also feel that just because a good
portion of Hollywood execs are Jewish does not mean that Jews “run the industry”, or that the industry is Jewish. The fact that these execs are Jewish should be pretty much uninfluecial.
Maybe they way they were raised or their belifes give them a certain point of view on how to do
things, or on ways to run Hollywood for the moment, but it doesn’t make the industry Jewish. I mean what if most of these execs retire in 10 years and Hollywood becomes primarly Christian? If
Hollywood turned from primarily one religon to another would it affect Hollywood at all? I do
not think anything about the work, way things are done, or anythign else involved would change
just because of the execs religous backgrounds. People love categorizing other people and
things, but I do not think that what religon Hollywood execs are is important at all to me, or
that anyone should really care. And as for the whole Christians vs Jews, I feel this argument is
just brought up so much. How many times do I have to hear how ironic it is that Jesus was born and died a Jew, and that the New Testamet is written by men who considered themselves Jewish. Continuing with the Christians vs Jews theme, why do people still bring up problems from hundreds and thousands of years ago that people today have no control over? Why should I hate, or love something or someone just because my ancestors hated or loved something or someone? Sam
talked about this before in terms of racism. Why should white people have to be almost reverse
racists, or feel bad about what happened in the past, while they themselves have done nothing
racist. People should stop focusing on what happened so long ago, learn from the past, but don’t
hold grudges or stereotypes from it.
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Generally, a covenant in biblical terms refers to God’s preferred means of defining his special relationship with Israel, in the form of a “contract” or “promise” that binds God to remain Israel’s patron Deity forever. Separate from the Noachan covenant, which is made with all humankind, the covenant with Abraham is exclusively related to the chosen people and is seen again with reference to the other two major Hebrew patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob. God promises countless descendents, divine presence, land, kingship, and blessing, emphasizing that he binds himself to Abraham’s progeny forever, perpetuating the God-Israel association for eternity. Jacob has a series of theophanies and boldly adds to the covenant promises of God by casting his own stipulations.
Interestingly, these voluntary pledges by God that appear in Genesis, require reciprocal obligations from Israel in Exodus, making God’s vow to protect Israel explicitly, entirely dependent upon the people’s obedience to the legal instruction given at Mount Sinai. God states the requirements in the form of apodictic law and Israel agrees to obey.
Different from this Mosaic covenant, where the agreement is conditional upon the people’s obedience to God’s instruction, the covenant made with David is strikingly similar to that of the Abrahamic covenant, in which God makes an unconditional oath to establish David’s royal line forever (though he did not with Saul), creating a concept of government where one single man is given the power to rule over the population.
Jesus of Nazareth, (7–2 BC/BCE—26–36 AD/CE), also known as Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity and is revered by most Christian churches as the Son of God and the incarnation of God. Islam considers Jesus a prophet, and he is an important figure in several other religions. Jesus’ childhood home is identified as the town of Nazareth in Galilee. The Gospels place almost all events in Jesus’ life in ancient Israel. Only Luke tells that Jesus was found teaching in the temple by his parents after being lost. The Finding in the Temple is the only event between Jesus’ infancy and baptism mentioned in any of the canonical. According to Luke, Jesus was “about thirty years of age” when he was baptized. In Mark, Jesus is called a carpenter. Matthew says he was a carpenter’s son, however, the Greek word used in the Gospel is “tekton” meaning “builder,” which suggests he could have been an artisan of some type as well.
All three synoptic Gospels describe the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, an event that Biblical scholars describe as the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. According to these accounts, Jesus came to the Jordan River where John the Baptist had been preaching and baptizing people in the crowd. After Jesus was baptized and rose from the water, Mark states Jesus “saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven saying: ‘You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’
Mark starts his narration with Jesus’ baptism, specifying that it is a token of repentance and for forgiveness of sins. Matthew omits this reference, emphasizing Jesus’ superiority to John. Matthew describes John as initially hesitant to comply with Jesus’ request for John to baptize him, stating that it was Jesus who should baptize him. Jesus persisted, “It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” In Matthew, God’s public dedication informs the reader that Jesus has become God’s anointed (“Christ”).
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I feel like many people are blatantly ignorant towards Jewish people and do not categorize it with racism because it is more of a religious choice. I was able to grow up as a Catholic in a predominately Jewish community and I loved it. I think that if people had the opportunity to do something that many Jewish people all over the world are able to do, their views would change. I am talking about the Jewish birthright.
Israel Outdoors is an educational tour program which sends people of Jewish birth to Israel. This is done through an organization called Tlalim Tours which has been involved in organizing these tours for 25 years now. There are over one million Jewish people who have been privileged enough to take this “birthright” trip.
“When I went to Israel a few summers ago it really changed my life. It was amazing to see a place so rich in history and beautiful at the same time,” said a recent traveler.
If you are between the ages of 18 and 26, and born Jewish, then you can go on birth right to Israel free of cost. For many Jews it is an opportunity to explore her religion and where her ancestors came from.
Many people of the Jewish faith this program is well known and many people do take the opportunity to go on this tour. You do not have to be Orthodox to go on the trip; simply you must be born Jewish. The program in funded by various Jewish federations from all over the world.
People are able to go on the trip with friends for ten days. Every day they would wake up early and eat breakfast. Then they would continue on their way to a different city, historical site, or the beach. Tour guides are provided on the trip who are very knowledgeable on Israel on it history. Tour guides are usually with people constantly, and always telling cool things about Israel adding in cool historic information as well. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and can really educate people.
“It was so cool to just learn about such an important place. Even the ground feels different there, it’s so awesome,” said a recent non-Jewish traveler.
As a child most Jews go to Hebrew school and attend synagogue on Saturdays regularly. This is not different form most other religions which leads me to believe we are very similar.
If you don’t believe in the Jewish faith that’s fine, we just need peace between all people. Life is not all about religion. Religion is a part of your life and your relationship with God is personal.
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I am not surprised that the jewish people are largely in control of the entertainment industry. As a jew (half) I am very proud to say that the jewish people in general are a intelligent population. The majority of Jewish people that I know are fairly well off. Most of the Jewish parents that I know are professionals like doctors, dentists, lawyers, or other prominent professions. I do not know what it is about the Jewish people that make them so successful. Maybe it is just that the Jewish has a very smart gene pool. The Jews that I am familiar with are mostly hard working and productive citizens to society. That is why im not surprised that Jews are largely in control of the entertainment and banking industries. The stereotype that jews are cheap is not necessarily true, but many jews are certainly good with money. That helps for all professions, especially banking. The fact that Jews are in control of the entertainment industry reminds me of Les Grossman from the movie Tropic Thunder. He was a fat Jewish guy played by Tom Cruise, and he was the CEO of a large entertainment industry. He was a hilarious character. Throughout the movie he danced to Get Low and screamed his head off. This is not typical of Jews, but being high up in the entertainment industry certainly seems to be. So maybe this Les Grossman was based off of a real person. It certainly could be possible. The fact that Jews are so widely discriminated against baffles me. Do people really care that much that Jewish people do not consider Jesus Christ to be a god? It seems silly especially considering the jewish population is much more discriminated against than those who do not believe in any god at all. It surprised me that people hate on jews so heavily. This, I feel, because the Jewish people that I know are normal people, just like any Christian or any religion. The hatred on jews is stupid considering what they do for society. They make up a lot of our lawyers, medical doctors, bankers, accountants, dentists, and all types of prominent professions. The fact that Jews run the entertainment industry shows how much these people can do. The entertainment industry in America is a very large industry. The Jewish population is a very small population. The fact that such a small populations can control such a large industry says a lot about the Jewish people. The Jewish people hold so many high positions in our society. It is even more impressive considering that Jews become so successful despite the hatred against them. Anti-semitism is very evident in America and Jews still succeed.
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Jews running Hollywood, I have to admit it’s not something I thought about nor did I think it was really that prevalent. I kind of always assumed that Hollywood was just run, by a bunch of rich white men. I’ve never thought about religion and I think in this day and age I don’t think people readily talk about religion. I’m not sure if that’s because people fear being discriminated against or if it’s because we live in a politically correct age where people don’t ask what your religion is. I know that I personally don’t know the religions of a lot of my friends nor do I share what my religion with all of my friends. It doesn’t matter to me and I think a lot of people of my generation don’t really care who has what religion. I’m not saying that’s the case with all people, but I think it’s much more common now not to know what a person’s specific religion is. With that in mind it doesn’t surprise me that not a lot of Americans know that there are a lot of Jewish people in Hollywood, but I don’t think they know how many people are Catholic and Baptist either. It’s just not common knowledge. However, I think for better or for worst the Christian influence is still heavy in Hollywood, all you have to do is look at shows like “7th Heaven”, people like Mel Gibson, and movies like “The Passion of the Christ,” to see that. The country is primarily Christian, so I believe that’s why we have yet to have a Jewish or Muslim president and a lot of media has Christian values and beliefs in it. So I don’t necessarily agree with the article’s author statement that without Jewish people all we would have to watch is the “700 Club,” because there are Christian values hidden in a lot of media you just have to look for it. It’s true that the Jewish were persecuted by many Christians and I know some of that still exists, but speaking as a Catholic person myself I can say I don’t feel that’s right and the Christians that do, at least, are in the minority. I was never taught that it was the fault of Jewish that Jesus died, in fact for the eight years that I was in religion classes I was always taught that it was the fault of the Romans for what happened to Jesus. I don’t believe the majority of the public feels upset with having a lot of Jewish people in Hollywood, perhaps this is naïve of me to say, but I think the majority people don’t care whose in Hollywood as long as they get the entertain they expect to get.
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Many times when we thing of racism in the United States we immediately think of black prejudice because we hear so much about it and has become so common in our culture (sadly). However, there are many other racial groups that suffer as much or worse than blacks from racism, it is just not as talked about. Jewish people since the beginning of time (literally) have been persecuted and discriminated against. And even today, despite everything that the Jewish culture has been through, such as the persecution by the Romans not to mention the Nazi’s, Jews are still discriminated against. Many people blame this phenomenon on the Christian culture, which would not be far off from saying. After all, the Christians were the first ones to start the killing of Jews way back in Jesus’ time. However, aren’t people who are Christian supposed to be . . . well . . . . Christian? Being a Christian myself I found it hard to believe that people who truly consider themselves Christian could act this way towards the Jews. After all, Jesus, the son of God, our “savior”, was indeed a Jewish man. The people who wrote the bible were Jewish. The Jewish religion and culture is a HUGE part of Christianity because it is what it stems from. I recently found out through a friend taking a Jewish Studies Class that the Catholic in fact helped the Nazi’s during World War Two in the “cleansing of Jews”. Additionally, from this post I had never known that many blame the Jews, not the Romans who were actually responsible, for the death of Jesus or that Martin Luther wrote the script for Hitler to “Round the Jews . . . “ These two pieces of information boggle my mind! I just cannot wrap my head around why people would have such animosity towards a group of practically their own! Why they would want to persecute the culture of their savior?
Additionally, it is no secret that most of Hollywood’s most profitable studio heads, as well as the producers, directors, and actors, such as Woody Allen, Natalie Portman, Jerry Seinfeld, Harvey Firestein, and Ben Stiller, that work with these studios are Jewish. These people have created some of the most beloved movies and television out today such as Star Wars, Seinfeld, Annie Hall, Meet the Parents and etc. In the article that was posted in the blog from the LA Times said, “Yes, we [Jews] control Hollywood. Without us, you’d be flipping between “The 700 Club” and “Davey and Goliath” on TV all day.” This is so true. When you start to think of your favorite television shows and movies most of them have Jewish people as the main actors. So again, why do we will continue to discriminate a culture that has birthed ours? This is something I have never been able to understand and I don’t think I ever will.
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There has been a long history of discrimination against the Jewish people. This discrimination stems from the fact that although they are an extreme minority group in the World and in the United States that the Jewish people represent a high majority of certain job markets. These include certain political positions, bankers, and jobs dealing with money, and those which are part of Hollywood.
I have heard these issues over my lifetime as someone who is proud of my Jewish culture and immerged in the studying of current events related to Judaism. I am always curious as to why issues about dominance in certain industries by a certain race, nationality, or religion are an issue. I found the article, “How Jewish is Hollywood?” to be very well written as well as a good source of facts on the issue. A statement in the article that I found most fascinating was, “I don’t care if Americans think we’re running the news media, Hollywood, Wall Street or the government. I just care that we get to keep running them.” I could not agree more. If the issues are being taken care of, Hollywood is succeeding, Wall Street is being run fair and ethically, then I do not think there is a problem. If the issue can be proved that the Jewish people are not hiring other just as qualified candidates because there are Jewish candidates with whom they are competing with, then that should be dealt with.
I have discussed in my discussion group that the discrimination against the Jewish people has many similarities and differences to other discrimination studies. For example, the Jewish people, although a minority, do not often fit the commonalities among other minorities. We have learned in class that minorities are often faced with lower median family incomes. This average cannot be applied across the Jewish people, like we have applied in class to Native Americans, Hispanics, Blacks, and other minorities of color.
Furthermore, an issue which currently has been in the news is that dealing with the New York Jets, first two home games, and the Jewish High Holy Days. Jets fans who observe these holidays are complaining that that they will miss a quarter of home games this season. At the same time many people find issues with the high number of Jews in Sports management and ownership just as they do with Jews in Hollywood. My problem with this is that, people are unhappy that the Jewish people are dominating the industry, which in their opinion excludes others. Even if they have a majority of the industry they clearly are not catering the industry to meet their needs. If they were trying to benefit the Jewish people then there would never have been games schedules on these days.
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This is very ironic that this blog is about Christians and Jews. Just a few days ago I was discussing my Easter weekend with a friend from physics class. He asked me how it was and I told him that I did not do much since I am only half Christian, and half Jewish. He looked at me with a disgusted look on his face and then with a smirk said, “Ha! I’m sure that goes well with your parents. Do they even get along?” I was absolutely shocked with his comment that I couldn’t even respond the first few seconds after he said that. I then smiled back and said, “Actually they get along great thanks, and we enjoy very much the fact that we celebrate all the holidays within both religions.” He then shook his head with doubt. I responded to his uncertainty with, “I am actually very glad that this worked out for me and my family. We don’t have a barrier between us, nor do I have parents who force beliefs onto me. I am very thankful for being able to make my own decisions on my morals and personal beliefs without having the constant pressure of being told how to live my life and who I should look up to.” Well that certainly shut him up. But either way I was thinking about what had happened throughout the day. I have been asked about my religious beliefs plenty of times in my life, but for some reason this one was different. I think it was mainly because he specifically talked down upon my family, in particular my parents relationship. Most people just ask whether I focus more on one or the other, and to answer that question, no we practice both equally without having to go to church or temple.
When I started to read the article and blog, I completely disregarded the main issue, which was about Hollywood, and instantly thought about my personal experience that was previously described. Then after giving all of this some thought, I realized that it shouldn’t matter what religion anyone is. Who cares if they rule Hollywood? Who cares if “only 22% of Americans now believe the movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews?” If the people producing the movies and television shows are not focusing mainly on Jews or trying to persuade everyone and their brother to become Jewish, then so be it. Don’t sit there are try to make something a big deal that is obviously not a problem. Why go and start something that will only cause things to get worse? As my dad always said, “Pick your fights, because not every one is worth picking.”
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“I wish Jews did make pro-Jewish movies. In reality, they make pro-Satan movies.” This is just one of the comments that leapt off the page at me as I read the article and the postings, some thoughtful, some completely ignorant. This, obviously, was one of the completely ignorant postings, just like the rant yesterday in class’ postings that made me very frustrated and angry. I hate when people who are ignorant, and do not understand the complexity of a situation, try to comment on it and throw their two cents in about it. Never has two cents been worth so little.
First, I want to address this particular comment. The Anti-Semitism seemed to leapt out of the java-script of the page. Clearly, Satan himself is lurking in the shadows of every TV show and every movie in Hollywood today. Any time anyone perceives media depicting views, thoughts, or creeds different than those they personally subscribe to, they quickly blame it on some outlet. Damn Christians. Damn immigrants. Or, in this case, damn Jews. I guarantee most of the people commenting on this page about this issue wasn’t even aware that there were this many Jews in Hollywood. I would be willing to guess that the average American doesn’t even care who’s involved in the “behind the scenes” aspects of film and television; they just care that they can watch American Idol and CSI when they’re supposed to be on.
Another piece of Anti-Semitism that grabbed me was the cartoon that accompanied the blog this week. There’s an Anti-Semitic cartoon contest? Are you kidding? Where do people come up with this stuff? Since when did being the biggest bigot become such a valued superlative to hold onto? Secondly, the issues in this particular cartoon illustrated so much hate and ignorance, my mouth almost literally dropped. 9/11, the Holocaust, and Avian Flu as Jewish inventions? Wow.
I think people should be forced to learn more about issues and actually know what they’re talking about before they are allowed to comment on an issue. It seems so sad that people are so short-sighted and so ignorant, and most of them probably have no desire to be any different. They are quick to blame, quick to judge, and quick to choose sides and draw lines. Anybody reading this article with any kind of critical, journalistic mind could see that this is a complex, complicated issue. It is obviously not as simple as “Jews are controlling Hollywood and the media”, and not about Jews taking over the country and spreading their Zionistic propaganda. I just wish people would take more initiative to learn about things and seek the truth to issues, rather than remaining ignorant and uneducated.
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This is an interesting topic because if you think about it, the Jewish culture is one of those that have the most prevalent stereotypes. In fact, a couple weeks ago in discussion group we did actually get into this discussion about stereotypes which led to the talk of popular Jewish stereotypes. For example, one of said stereotypes is that Jewish people tend to have bigger noses than most on average. Another is that they are greedy and hate to spend money. However, one of the most common assumptions is the fact that Jewish people tend to control power in ways such as controlling banks and even Hollywood. This may be an actual valid view that people may notice, but it is not to say that every bank is controlled and operated by Jewish people. Similarly, even if Hollywood were controlled by primarily Jewish people there are still many other people who are not Jewish that run the game. It is therefore a stereotype to say something like Hollywood is controlled solely by Jewish people or that they are what make it run so this is not really a valid assumption. Going on this, one should never really open up a “Pandora’s box” of bigotry because if you do intend to carry out an act such as this you most definitely should begin to look at the facts before you speak. Do the research and see if what you claim is true; because chances are is that it is not. Take for instance the Luther article. Many peoples comments I’m sure were very closed minded and anti-Semitic. This just goes to show how people will talk without thinking and knowing the facts. People may even agree with what was said in the Luther article even though this is coming from a man who lived five hundred years ago in a time of severe religious conflict. Luther criticized everyone not only Jewish people. He criticized the catholic religion and even the pope. He may have been the founder of Protestantism but why does that give him any credibility at all in his criticisms. You have to look into a topic and find out the facts for yourself to really have any understanding of it. You can’t take things at surface level and just believe what someone tells you is true and if you do you will lead a very misinformed life. Not to add irony to the equation, but I did once hear the saying “Ninety percent of all statistics are made up on the spot”. Obviously there is irony in this statement because this exact statistic was probably made up on the spot by the person who told me it but it is a relatively true saying if you think about it. In its essence it just means be wary of what you hear because it could very easily have been made up. On the contrary, it could have not been made up at all but it could have even more easily been twisted until it was so far from the original statement that it might as well have been made up. For example a statistic of forty percent could easily have become forty five the next time someone told it and then fifty, ect. Cetera That is why I always think back to this before I dive into something that I know nothing about.
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I am not really sure how I feel about this. While I do not think that it is appropriate to go out and throw slander at an industry to group because it happens to be run by a specific racial group, is it really so bad to simply point it out? I feel that by trying to keep it hush and politically correct by not saying things, emotions get pent up. In this case would it be wrong or inaccurate to say that Hollywood is run by Jewish people? Not if the numbers are there. Do black people dominate basketball? Yes, and is that a negative statement? No, they really do. Just like south Americans and Asians handle baseball on an international scale, Brazilians always make it far in the world cup and hockey is mostly white people… really really white people. Are these statements untrue? No. Slanderous? No. So what’s the problem? I do not really know. That is the boundary however. If people start to throw slander in their direction, that’s when it crosses the line I feel. I have another statement for you. Japan runs seafood. While you could try to make an argument like, “well I like my lobster from Maine, or my whale from Norway,” that does not disprove that Japan runs seafood. That country alone consumes 1/3 of the world’s seafood every year. A fucking third! Out of 6 billion people! I would say that constitutes running a market. Is it slanderous? Again no, impressive if you ask me. Simply stating the fact is not so bad, however if you try to extrapolate why it is a specific group runs a specific industry then you might be crossing the line again, as that sports commentator whom I can’t remember his name did when he explained that the success of blacks in sports, I think it was football, dates back to slavery when only the strong survived or something to that extent. Maybe I’m different however, but I feel that I would feel the same way if I was Jewish and someone said, “oh well your race runs the entertainment industry, and the medical industry.” I would not perceive that as an insult, and you could point it out as much as you liked, because accusing a group of being successful is not such a bad thing. Maybe that is why I do not quite understand it. At the same time, I went to the liquor store recently and the woman at the cash register wanted me to say Minnesota with a long O like they do in the movie Fargo, assuming we all talked like that. However she was disappointed when I shot her down on that request because that pissed me off. In short, I guess I proved I don’t know where I stand on this issue.
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I often feel that people are more passionate and hateful about the topic of religion than the topic of race. At least where I am from, I do not hear a lot of racist comments, except from my grandparents who are old and just don’t care. Religion, on the other hand, is a huge topic of debate – it is right up there with politics. Within my family, marrying outside of our religion, which is Roman Catholic, would create unimaginable tension and chaos. My brother married a Christian girl and they did not get married in a Catholic Church. My mother was in shambles. Also, when I was younger, my sister brought home a black boyfriend. No mention of race at the dinner table, but the poor guy did undergo interrogation about his religion, which thankfully for him was Roman Catholic.
With all of that said, it really does not surprise me that this article caused such steamy debate from the people who commented. I think it is important to keep in mind that the people who commented are those that are most passionate. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t point that out. It’s difficult for me to move past the fact that this article was even written. The word “control” is so highly stigmatized…no one wants to be referred to as controlling or having complete control – it is a bad thing to be labeled. So why is Stein happy that Jews have “control” in Hollywood? It makes me think he has a complex. Jews have been beaten down again and again throughout history, and still face so much Semitism it is pretty unreal. Something I have picked up on from hanging out with Jewish people is that they often need to be the best at things, or at least better than people of other religions. They are also protective of what is theirs. In this case, Stein feels Hollywood is the property of the Jews, and does not want that taken away.
In reality though, anti-Semitism has been around forever. The Jews have a horrible history of being hated for all kinds of reasons, by people who are not Jewish. But so do Catholics. And Hindus. And Atheists. There is so much hatred toward religion in our country and in the world.
Switching gears a bit, what really stood out to me in Sam’s post was when he said “Hollywood does not determine this culture”. One of the ongoing debates I like to argue is whether we determine our culture or if our culture is determined for us. To me, our culture is always changing and evolving, and Hollywood and the media play a huge part in culture. So I have to disagree with Sam there, because I think in a way Hollywood does determine our culture. It tells us what is cool, what to wear and watch, how to act, among other things. However, it is up to us how we want to react to Hollywood.
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So this is a little funny. For some reason Jewish people have been subject to countless amounts of discrimination since being enslaved by the Egyptians and then later vilified by radical Christians for allegedly killing their lord and savior. What often comes to mind when I think about these things is the old demonized depictions of Jews as hiding their horns beneath their curly hair and having an international “Jew club” that was responsible for taking everyone’s money and hoarding it into a secret cave in order to finance their world takeover. These notions are laughable and it just seems so ridiculous that someone would ever believe this stuff. The same thing goes for more recent assertions that Jews are in control of the banking and entertainment industry. Not to say that some Jewish people may not have a controlling interest in some banks and production studios. But to imply that they are all in cahoots for some larger conspiracy to bring down the United States government is ridiculous at best.
Most people who make these assertions have a very distorted or selective vision/ memory of past events. The Torah and the Old Testament is more or less the same thing; Jesus was Jewish from when he was born to the day he died, as were all his disciples and immediate followers, and was executed by the Romans not the Jews. Slander against the Jews by Christians is probably originally rooted in the fact that Christianity was a newborn fledgling religion and needed to gain more followers, so they preached how wrong and evil the Jews were in order to do so. The same is probably true for Martin Luther’s statements against the Jews when the Protestant sect of Christianity and Lutheran was first emerging. Speaking of Martin Luther, until reading that article I was completely unaware of Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic nature and overall hatred toward all Jews. The fact that he was so highly spoken of by Christians led to these less known about books i.e. “The Jews and their Lies”, to be used as propaganda for Hitler to influence very impressionable people facing hard times to gain power. The fact that he enacted many of Luther’s thoughts of concentration camps and burning synagogues is all the more horrifying.
Overall the article on Jews running Hollywood shouldn’t really be relevant to anything. Great there are a bunch of Jews running our banks and production studios, who cares! Guess what, there are barely any Jews in professional sports at all. I dare anyone to name more than three off the top of their head. I bet you can’t. Should that really matter? I don’t think so. It’s not a conspiracy it’s just the way it is.
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I am Jewish, and while reading Stein’s article “How Jewish Is Hollywood,” my blood began to boil. This guy made me mad and almost ashamed to say I am Jewish. Do I think it is wrong for him to be proud of the Jews in Hollywood? No, not at all. But I do have a problem with him being so arrogant and condescending about it. Stein rants and brags about all the Jews in Hollywood and says that “Without us, you’d be flipping between ‘The 700 Club’ and ‘Davey and Goliath’ on TV all day.” He gives the impression that Jews are so much more advanced and knowledgeable than others and that they couldn’t come up with a good film idea without Jews. Thank God (no pun intended), for Abe Foxman trying to set Stein straight (even though he didn’t get the message). It is fine to say that executives happen to be Jewish or something of that sort, but when you start saying that Jews control Hollywood, you begin to take it too far. Control is such a strong word and in this context, it seems to demean the people who are not in the “us” category.
I don’t have a problem with Joel Stein being proud of his fellow Jews, but why does he care so much what other people think? If people do not know that Hollywood executives are Jewish, who cares? As a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, Stein should have something more important to write about than to whine that people don’t praise Jewish Hollywood executives. It also really bothered me when he said he only cares about wanting Jews to keep on running media, Hollywood, Wall Street and the government. I do not understand why it would be such a bad thing if the aforementioned were proportionately represented. I never used to understand the stereotype of the greedy Jew, but this article sure points it out. Stein reinforces and strengthens these stereotypes but proclaiming his greed for all the power. It is probably for people like Stein that our race relations are not as advanced as they could be. Some non-Jews never grow up around Jews or with Jewish friends and I know if I was one of those people, and I read this article, I would absolutely believe the stereotypes out there. There is already enough hate toward Jews out in the world; Stein shouldn’t be creating any more. For example, one of the comments on the article, “Ahhh no wonder we get such negative portrayal of the Church, Muslims, blacks and Latinoes in film thats because, you wont let creative ideas in your little fraternity, the hell with Hollywood, it’s time to wake up, Hollywood produces garbage with the same one sided plots.” Stein’s article gives off the idea that Jewish executives are in cahoots with each other and won’t let any other people in. Great job Stein, I hope you’re proud of yourself.
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I consider myself to not practice a specific religion, since I was raised in a neutral family consisting of a (raised) Catholic mother and a (ancestrally) Jewish father. Our family celebrated a “commercialized/Americanized” Christmas, not a religious one.
Now, after being in this class for almost a full semester, I’ve noticed myself becoming more and more partial to Jews and the Jewish population. Why? I don’t really know for sure…but I think a lot of the “Christian Killers” media we watched in class made me very disgusted with Christianity and followers of this faith. I am very aware that these were extreme examples, and that no religion is free of their of extremists. BUT, regardless, I’ve found myself feeling very connected to Judaism over the past few months.
So, after reading this article, I almost want to say, “Hell yeah, Jews, own Hollywood”. Because I feel like Christians have owned so many other mainstream national institutions, especially politics. Sure, we have a Black president, but certainly we’ve never had a Jewish one. American presidents have been Christian through and through. A lot of conservative views tend to be heavily “Christian”—especially with the last presidency of Bush. As someone without an official religion, I found it uncomfortable and almost offensive when laws/politics were influenced by the deep Christianity of the former president. The thing about Jews in Hollywood is, they don’t coat every movie, television show, and media display with some Jewish overtone. They simply happen to be powerful Jews. They didn’t turn Hollywood into a religious spectacle. Hollywood doesn’t represent a religion. These Jewish execs aren’t churning out tv shows about the All American Jewish family—featuring episodes on the daughter’s bat mitzvah or the college son’s birth right to Israel trip. MAYBE there’s a Jewish “friend” or neighbor…maybe. So I don’t see any reason for Christians (or anyone) to get in a fuss about Jews controlling everything. They may control Hollywood, but they’re not manipulating Hollywood. I think that’s the key difference.
Jews are powerful. Christians are powerful, too. I’m not going to get into other religions because I honestly feel uneducated on the issues as a whole to really be able to make judgments. The bottom line is that *rich* people are at the top—the small minority of powerful people are there and will stay there most likely due to family ties and last names.
There’s something about this article that made me feel fearful that the stereotype of a rich or successful Jewish person would be presented. Often times that can be the way non-Jews view the picture. That’s the only problem I found with the article. Fear that the author/writer/reporter (Stein?) would be seen as snobbish.
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Hey Christians, want to know why there are so many Jews in positions of power in Hollywood. It’s because they’re smart enough to know that movies and television are a business with the sole goal of making money. If Christians stopped using religion as a scapegoat and started thinking about the business logistics of Hollywood, maybe they would be in positions of power in Hollywood as well. I am a proud Jew, although not a very religious one. I believe that Joel Stein’s article was written with the intention of being funny, but in fact failed miserably. Considering he wrote an entire article supporting stereotypes, I’m going to throw one out there as well. Stein definitely is not a good comedian, although stereotypes say that many comedians are Jewish. I disagree with Stein’s belief that the stereotype of Jews “controlling” Hollywood is a good thing. Yes there are many Jews in prominent positions in Hollywood, but the stereotype implies that Jews use Hollywood to force their beliefs on others and that they only want to ensure that Jews remain in power in Hollywood. The stereotype clearly is detrimental to Jews as proven by the many outrageous and heinous comments posted in response to this article. The responses I’ve read infuriate me so much, it makes me angry at Christians even though I know not all of them support the idiotic opinions of the people who read this article. Unfortunately I’m not surprised by these blatantly anti-semitic comments, as Jews have been used as a scapegoat for people’s problems since the early days of Judaism. I haven’t forgotten that 6 million Jews were killed in concentration camps just 65 years ago. Movies about the Holocaust are important because they remind us of the mistakes of the past so we aren’t doomed to repeat them again. Clearly the hatred towards Jews that many people in this country have has clouded these people’s judgment. These idiots think that the only movies made are the ones that help advance this so-called agenda of the Jewish people. I’m sorry but know there are plenty more movies about Christmas than ones about Chanukah, Passover, Yom Kippur, and Rosh Hashanah combined. Just look at Vince Vaughn’s recent movies. He’s come out with terrible Christmas comedies in each of the last two Christmases. December is the worst time of year for Jews in the media because the only thing on television or in theatres are Christmas movies or Christmas specials. One of the comments to the article stated that the movie The Ten Commandments is always on television during the time of Passover. This person’s right, Jews have one movie the entire year that plays occasionally channels like AMC. The only reason this movie is on television so often during Passover is that it gets good ratings because it’s the only thing on TV that celebrates the Jewish faith while everything else on TV celebrates Easter. If Christians think it’s annoying to have to watch two seconds of a movie about Judaism or any other religion, imagine how annoying it is for Jews and others to watch movies about Christmas and Jesus all the time. Christians need to stop using Jews and everyone else who doesn’t share their beliefs as scapegoats. The sooner they do this, the sooner they can become better at business and other industries in which Jews have prominent representation. Thank God Jews run the country than a bunch of naïve, prejudice, idiotic, and asinine Christians.
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“When does conversation step over the line.” – Response. I found this intriguing for multiple reasons. First of which is the hypocricy of the Christian religion. What happened to love thy neighbor? I mean just because they identify as a different people does not mean they are not our neighbors. This is one of the reasons why I myself am not that religious. For the most part religion is misunderstood and used to do more bad then good. People take words and twist them. They also have no problem discriminating everyone who does not see things as they do. Jews have been getting the raw end of the deal for centuries, this is a fact. I mean I think especially in a country where we say that everyone can be what they want, believe what they want, we sit here and preach how their way is the wrong way. Another factor in history that has played a significant role in the discrimination of Jewish people is the fact that they know how to make money and more importantly keep it. Hitler went after them because they were the ones who had the money, he forced them into jobs that were seen as not respectable, trade jobs and such. This plan backfired in that the Jews have since made significant headway in these professions and thus money. They are also very responsible with their money, if this is a sterotype then so be it but its true. The Hollywood Industry is basically run by smart, business savy Jewish people because they know what they are doing and know how to capitalize on investments. I mean maybe all of this discrmination is based on envy which in itself can destroy a people’s culture. That’s how it has been for centuries, you see a group of people who have something you want another group of people mainly white people will go after them to get want they have. I think in 2009 we really should be past this shit, I mean what will the next 100 years bring if we don’t start correcting the problems we face now. Its like King of the Hill, you always want to be on the top and once up there you help people of your group get up there with you. If one Jewish man/women made it to the top of the Hollywood ladder such as say a producer or CEO of a recording company then they are more likely to help their friends. I think after all the persecuting the people of Jewish culture have faced we should not see their success as a bad thing, to be so discriminated for so long to reach the top of the cultural hill is an accomplishment.
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When I first read the title of the article of Jews running Hollywood, I started to think about all the Jewish actors and comedians I enjoy watching and find entertaining. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld have led to a huge influence on the television industry, and now every sitcom is undoubtedly compared to that famous “show about nothing.” May I please give props to Larry David as being possibly one of the most natural comics in the biz. His timing and conducting of improvisational dialogue on his show is incredible. Find me a recent successful comedy of the last few years that doesn’t have Judd Apatow either producing or directing it and I’ll shake your hand with absolute earnestly and respect. Apatow and his fellow friend and Jew, Adam Sandler, continue to destroy the box office. As long as I’m discussing comedy, I must give credit where credit is due and support the brilliant comedic mind of actor, writer, and director, Mel Brooks. If you don’t find Blazing Saddles funny, well then me and my friends will have to “work up a Number 6 on ya” (if you’ve seen the movie; you’ll get it). Basically, I have concluded in my head that Jews have seemed to secure their leading control of the comedy scene in Hollywood. Then the author of the article started listed all of the Jewish CEOS and owners of Hollywood studios who wanted to the SAG actors to finish negotiated contracts or whatever they were doing. Maybe he is onto something.
But WHO CARES?!?
Someone’s religion just doesn’t seem necessary to attach to their career, unless that person’s career is involved with the place of worship of their beliefs or they work in a career devoted to the service of their belief system, i.e. if a person is a rabbi or a minister. I do understand, though, how Jewish people would call upon this fact that most of the controlling positions in Hollywood are occupied by Jewish Americans and how they would celebrate that fact. I think they deserve that right. Over the years Jewish people have had to overcome a lot. First fleeing with Moses, then the awful Holocaust ordeal, and they still get shit from Christians for the whole killing Jesus thing (not trying to be insensitive). Why not brag a little here and there for such an accomplishment of controlling Hollywood, though it’s a moot point? Perhaps because of the Jewish bloodline having to go through so much, they were blessed with the characteristic to persevere time and time again. Now that things have settled, those same characteristics exist in Jewish DNA leaving Jewish Americans and all Jewish people to follow opportunity, work extra hard, and reach the goals they set, whether they be high up or not.
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When it comes to religion, I do not have one that I follow. I understand that religion shapes a person’s perception of life, but I cannot stand it when some tries to impose their religion and views on someone else. So having conflicts between people of different religions is very unnecessary. It shouldn’t matter what religion one follows, it’s not like their belief is affecting your life directly. I do not understand the author’s point of the article “How Jewish is Hollywood”. In my opinion it does not matter of whether who makes the movie or holds high position in the entertainment business because I will still watch them. As long as I’m being entertained it does not matter of who would produce them. Is the author purposely trying to create some type of controversy or is he trying to praise is fellow Jewish people?
It’s not like they are using the media as a means of propaganda to sway people to follow a specific religion. If anything when there are movies or shows that talk about religion Christianity is the number religion that is referred to. This country is run by Christianity, so it does not matter if the people who have high position in entertainment are of a different religion. There are more advertisement for Christian holidays or events rather than any other religion. I don’t want to sound harsh but honestly I don’t think that anyone even thought about it or even cared before that article. Regardless the entertainment business will not lose any money from this article. In fact the author could be just trying to give praise to Jewish people, so there is no harm in that. If there is any controversy, people should just stop getting upset at stuff that does not have an immediate effect to their life.
In regards to the blog I agree that Jewish and Christians as well as Muslims have been in conflict with each other ever since they were all founded. All three of these religions have the same basic views but they all just have different interpretations of god and the prophets that they believe. So this on-going conflict between each religion should stop because people are so concerned about the views of others rather than themselves.
But I would like to know when will America will be ready for a president that has a different background. There are a lot of people around this country who are not Christian and hold high positions. From the article the citizens of the United States do not have a problem with Jewish people having the majority of high positions in Hollywood. I would like to see what issues arise when a person who is not Christian runs for president. I remember they tried to give Barack Obama problems because of his diverse religious background.
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My reaction to the article about Jews controlling Hollywood is who cares? I understand that it’s a “feat” because Jews were looked down on by Christians after the crucifixion. However, I don’t get why that man was “so upset” that only 22% of Americans thought Hollywood was run by Jews. This man makes it seem like a competition and he’s mad that Christians think they are winning the competition in Hollywood, when really the Jews have “taken the lead”. Jews have the stereotype of being very “well-to-do” and wealthy because they are extremely hard-working. It doesn’t surprise me that a lot of people who are rich or control Hollywood are Jewish. I feel that religion is important, but it shouldn’t define our success. If I were to become a wealthy woman, I would not be offended if someone didn’t acknowledge the fact I was a Christian woman. I think faith is something that helps keep us grounded and it a part of us. I was also kind of surprised at the Martin Luther article. I grew up a very conservative Lutheran. My entire family, both immediate and extended, is Lutheran and has grown up attending church every single Sunday. I had learned a lot about Martin Luther and even went to see the movie. Yet, I never once learned about his anti-Semitic views. I was always taught that since I was a Christian, I should love everyone and treat everyone the same, regardless of their religion, skin color, hair color, or any defining attributes. I think we should keep our faith to ourselves and practice it in our own way. Why should we make it known to everyone which religion is running the media? How would this man have felt if Muslims were actually the majority in Hollywood? It really is stupid. I think that this man’s competitiveness is why we should keep religion out of Hollywood. There is such attention on Tom Cruise’s belief in scientology and how Madonna is practicing the Kabala. Who gives a hoot? Our world revolves around Hollywood more and more each day, with Extra, Perez Hilton, and US Weekly. We concentrate way too much on how much certain groups were oppressed and I believe that’s why we can’t move forward and get past racism, sexism, and discrimination in general. Personally, even though I feel we should not be looking at the wealthier people’s races and religions, I feel it is great that we do have people whose ancestors were oppressed, now running our country. We have a black president and Jews are “controlling Hollywood”. So now let’s go back to practicing our faith in peace and try to work TOGETHER instead of separately in groups. Hallelujah!
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The article seriously was meaningless. The world s going insane when it comes o race and religion. I don’t understand all of this crap. Religion is supposed to be some sort of relationship a person had with God and that’s it. No one should force it on others or make it a public statement. I seriously think hat every person should respect the other person’s religion and not turn into an argument or fight or war. The world is having wars over the stupidest things you can imagine. I wish that everyone would take this class and open their eyes. To be exact I wish politicians would! The article to be honest didn’t mean a thing to me. Hollywood is Hollywood. It’s diverse full of people that come and accomplish their dreams. They want o become an actor, director, produce, etc regardless of their religion. I never watched a movie and actually questioned where is this person from. What is his religion? It’s my last concern I just watch the movie and enjoy it. if I like the actor I just go through the internet and look up where that person’s from how did he come to who he’s today but not look at his religion and say oh yeah he’s Jewish I’m in love with him, oh he’s Christian I hate him, oh he’s Muslim TERRORIST. The person who wrote the article wants to say yeah Jewish are here and Hollywood is Jewish. Man I understand that Jews what to make it a statement that we are still here and we are not going anywhere because of the holocaust and what they’ve been through. But every person has to put these things behind. It’s so similar to the issue with black and white every issue I see just builds up from history and I know it’s hard to ignore history. But someone has to make the change for the world o change or else we would never be in peace. NEVER EVER! I’m just really fed up with a of this every person stereotypes a religion and that’s it the don’t even think about it twice. There’s more to it not everyone is the same. We are each different. It is tiring as in honestly. I see us in Penn state getting along every person coming from a different background. Es for sure there are people who just hate other religions and races but at the same time there are others who just want to get to know about these different races and religions. People who want to know what is beyond this bubble that we live in. Maybe it is freedom of speech is what causes all thee problems?
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Im really happy that a post like this was brought up before the semester is over. The topic of Judaism as an culture or ethnicity or religion has been lightly touched upon, and it is definitely an issue I can relate to. Being from a predominately Jewish area in New York, I assumed that everyone understood the relationship between Judaism and the Christianity. I always saw it as generally positive, not hostile, just a simple difference in belief.
To come to college and realize how unaware some of me peers of the similarities between the two religions was really alarming. I never encountered such closed mindedness and inexperience when I told my new friends that I am Jewish. People were surprised, others rarely spoke to me again. It was a very weird experience for me coming from my hometown where almost every one was Jewish.
I felt more aware and open to learn about our differences and found that there is no logical reason for the hostility. People fail to realize that the main difference between Judaism and Christianity is our belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah (or son of G-d). We share many of the same ideals and believe in most of the same biblical stories. We all answer to the same big man upstairs. As it is mentioned in the blog, at one point in history, every present day Chirstian had a Jewish ancestor.
This class has taught me so much about awareness and understanding of races that are not my own. I think that antisemetic views could reduce if people are open and willing to learn about people that differ from them. Sometimes the religion issue is just as big as the race issue. Wars are fought and lives are lost everyday because of religious differences. Millions of Jewish lives were lost because of this sort of narrow minded thinking.
On a different note, in regards to the article, I always thought of the prevalence of Jewish Hollywood moguls was similar to the prevalence of Black men in professional basketball. I don’t see how either could be viewed as a negative issue.
When Hollywood was first becoming prevalent, in order to be successful in the entertainment industry, it was imperitive that you had a strong and broad social network. The best way to get recognized was to be aware of everyone else’s business, or in Yiddish, to be a “yenta” or gossip. It does not surprise me that the amount of Jewish people in the entertainment industry has decreased, because of the popularity of social websites like Perez Hilton and Us Weekly and Twitter.
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In response to “When does a conversation step over the line,” I must say that I agree that Hollywood is run, not completely, but mostly by those of the Jewish faith. I was never sure whether or not the term “Jews” was acceptable when addressing Jewish folks, but I’m going to use it anyway for the sake that the blog entry uses it and I don’t really believe in being “politically correct” all the time. Anyway, it is true that Hollywood is predominantly Jewish. Why not? Look at the facts and examples; one cannot get away with telling me that Hollywood is not Jewish. What the hell do you think Stephen Spielberg is? Yes, the most innovative and creative director and producer in the history of filmmaking is a Jew. Awesome. Ari Gold, the character from Entourage, why do you think he’s Jewish? Because, the popular show, which I myself love and enjoy is making the stereotype (because it is in fact true) that many agents and successful people in Hollywood are Jews. Woody Allen! One of my personal favorite directors and actors as well, is VERY Jewish. Elliot Gould, Harvey Weinstein, Jerry Seinfeld, Brett Ratner, etc, are all jews and they make the shows and movies that I watch, the shows I love. There is no way that Hollywood would be as successful today if it weren’t for the jews. And again, with another stereotype, jews that are good accountants. It’s true. I bet ninety percent, if not more of the accountants in Hollywood are jewish. I’m not exactly sure how to explain why, but I just think that it is in their blood or their culture that numbers and successful business are just preprogrammed in jewish people. I must say, if Stephen Spielberg was not jewish, or the fact that him being jewish for some reason would have halted is success, then I doubt there would be the Hollywood that we all know and love today. In my own opinion, because he (Mr. Spielberg) has made such an impact on the entertainment industry, if he did not exist, then I probably wouldn’t enjoy movies as much as I do. If there was another Spielberg, and if somehow he did not exist and one was just there to take his place, say in an alternate universe, then how is he not in existence right now? If one Spielberg is great, why not two? Not to get all into race and religion and gender and all that, but it just so happens that his is how Hollywood is and I have no problem with that. I would not take anything in Hollywood and change it, except for a few directors and actors that I think are shit. Go Jews!
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Prejudice towards Jews is unique for the fact that it spans both the globe and much of human history. I’m not an expert on the matter but there has to be more at play than the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I think much of it can be linked to the discrimination which every other culture has endured. Sam pointed out that each group of immigrants to the United States shares the fact that at one time they were depicted as less than human. I think this may be the first step in spreading racism (if it’s not it is an important step regardless).
Immigrants in particular have served as targets for this discrimination. When we begin to view entire groups of people as being all of the same mold it becomes easier to deny them their rights and the common courtesy they deserve. Immigration has been a hot topic for as long as I can remember. As a white middle class male it’s easy to be caught up in the hysteria surrounding “Mexican immigrants stealing American jobs”. Often the situation depicts someone who I cannot connect to, a Mexican man who doesn’t speak English, stealing the source of income from a White man. “Mexican” is thrown around as an insulting term and if I were never to meet a person from Mexico it would be easy to begin thinking that there is something wrong with claiming Mexican heritage. With the economy on a downturn it becomes easy to get riled up as people begin losing their jobs. Who’s to blame? Those Mexicans is the message that you begin to hear.
It’s always easier when someone else is to blame for your struggles so we’re more than happy to push this on the Mexican culture. It’s even easier when those perceived to be responsible are seen as having less value than one’s own culture.
Over winter break I worked a construction job in New York City. I knew nothing about this line of work but I knew someone who got me a temporary job. The work was dangerous at times, we were not on the ground, and January in New York City isn’t exactly beach weather. It should come as no surprise that the majority of these scaffolding workers were Hispanic. In fact, many could not even speak English. Over the course of 10 days I began to realize that my mere presence was probably just slowing them down. In spite of this fact they showed me the ropes and made sure I did not kill myself. It was my first real interaction with Mexican immigrants. Until that experience, they were “those people stealing our jobs”, but now I hear Mexican immigrant and I begin to think of those guys I worked with. They were in many ways no different than my Irish ancestors who worked back breaking jobs in that very same city only a short while ago. The issue of immigration is much more complex than it’s often made out to be. No matter how you feel about it, I think it does no harm to remember that we’re still talking about human beings.
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I really don’t care if the “chiefs of Hollywood” are Jewish or not. Obviously Joel Stein was bent out of shape by the results of a poll taken concerning “Jews in Hollywood” and wanted to set the record straight because he gets some satisfaction knowing that people of his race continue to be successful in many fields. I can’t really understand this “gang” perspective because I have never felt that I strongly identified with any race or particular religion. My connections have been to family and friends regardless of their religion or race. My pride has been rooted in my personal accomplishments, and the positive events that occur in our society although often few in number sustain my faith that humanity is reaching beyond itself for a higher purpose. It is okay that Stein has pride about his heritage to a point, but it is obnoxious and bordering on rude to rant on and on about how great he thinks Jews are at everything they do. It is great that the individuals he mentions have been successful, but drawing conclusions about the extraordinary talents of his entire race is bogus.
Truthfully, proclaiming superiority serves no purpose but to separate and alienate people. More importantly Mr. Stein, what exactly have you accomplished with your life? Maybe Stein and the multitude of other racially biased people should focus on people as individuals and on their own paths and contributions to society. Try addressing this challenge: the elimination of racial prejudice. Steins editorial only serves to outrage anti-Semitics and instigate conflict. I’m sure the fanatical Christian Right would love to blame “the fall of American youth from moral grace” on the “evil” Jews that control Hollywood! The reason these individuals have been successful in Hollywood is because they have dedicated their time to achieve success in their field. It is not because they are Jewish. Because I do not possess the religious fervor that fosters hatred of any race, I know that I am naïve about the extent of anti-Semitism in our country. Isn’t it just so ironical for all those Jew hating and fearing Americans to know that the media is controlled by these extremely capable and obviously intelligent individuals who just happen to be Jewish
Martin Luther’s hatred of the Jews infuriates me. The seeds of hatred that he planted in the 1500’s caused the near annihilation of a race in the twentieth century. It is ironic that the roots of evil can lie in religious beliefs (even “Christianity”), which proclaim guidelines for morality. It is when religious fanatics distort moral philosophies that people are led astray. Justifying murder because of prejudice against a person’s religious beliefs is immoral and insane. It illustrates the danger and error of human interpretation of divine philosophy. Perhaps this is the main reason that I am hesitant to follow a religious doctrine. Although I consider myself a spiritual person and believe in a higher power, I am not a member of a religious denomination. In most cases, it seems that joining demands a gang mentality kind of loyalty. I don’t want to participate in something that separates people, promotes intolerance, and closes minds.
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What’s so cool about dissing Jews?
I think it is appalling how an entire group of people can be accused for the wrong doing of a few and what happened in the past. (Muslims and terrorism, so I can feel the pain of Jewish people). I can honestly say that I have no problems with the Jewish people over what happens with Israel and the Middle East, and whatever issues have occurred with the Jewish people of the past. I feel so sorry how Jews were given a bad name years ago, but now that we look at it, the jewish people have come back and they’ve come back strong. They have the most rich lobbyists, and they control many major industries. This is a great improvement over how the Jewish people were segregated from the community and how they were mercilessly persecuted throughout history.
I think that the paranoia that is felt towards the Jewish people is unrealistic, and that is heavily-founded. Who cares, unless they are using that power for evil or whatever. There is nothing wrong with how they have improved themselves. The Jewish people’s strongest asset is their togetherness. They are able to come together so that they can better each other. What I don’t understand is how the peaceful people can scare populations so much. People fear so much, and they fear what they do not know. I don’t know why the American people or people fear Jews so much.
Another thing, I have to say is that I have no qualms with Jewish people or Israelis, but I have a problem with the Israeli government. This government is creating the same type of racism the Jewish people fled from, and thus they have become as evil as those who persecuted them. I guess the persecuted will persecute their weaker “foes”. They are repeating the crimes of their oppressors through numerous ways upon the Palestinian people, and everyone is staying silent and not talking about it.
With the anti-Semitism comic. What in the world? Anyway, as weird and stupid as it was I found it interesting that the more of the categories had to do with how Jews apparently beat down the Arabs. What was more interesting was that the writer of the comic had a convincingly European name. I was very confused about that, if he was an anti-Semitist than what stopped him from being anti-Arab. That part really confused me since I had no idea that a white European would actually care about Arabs even though he was a racist in his own right. Anyway, I believe that anti-Semitism is wrong, but some people are far to guilty of what happened to the Jewish people even though it wasn’t their fault, and are allowing Israel to do what they want.
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Joel Stein’s article “How Jewish is Hollywood” is incredibly irrelevant. Does it really matter who is running Hollywood? I can’t ever recall watching a film with a pro-Judaism message. Much more than religion movies are determined by politics, almost every movie, especially ones that get recognized by the Academy, have a very liberal message. Besides the fact that many major studio executives are Jewish is a meaningless statistic the has little influence over anything, the writer Joel Stein seems to brag and get some kind of satisfaction from Jewish people being in control, this is both sad and weird. I never here black people brag about almost everyone in the NBA and NFL are black, or Christian people in general dominate many fields proportionately. When people start bragging about one ethnic or religious group does better or worse than another it can get real messy. It is only when we ignore or don’t find anything significant behind the fact certain ethnic or religious groups seem to have a niche in society will bigotry continue to disappear. Nothing good comes from people joking about stereotypes, but even less comes from bragging about what your religious or ethnic group does superior to others. Joel’s article states that he is just a proud Jew trying to put out the fact that Jewish people are very successful in society, Hollywood in particular, but it comes out more along the lines of ethnocentrism than just being proud. Saying that without Jews all people would be watching is the “700 Club” and other crappy television shows is incredibly ethnocentric, not just being proud. Religion has nothing to do with how well one can write a television show. Joel Stein also comments that Jewish people run the government and Wall-Street, which is news to me, but that is beside the point. My point is that I do not understand why Joel Stein needs to shove the success of Jewish people in the reader’s face, but they like every other religious group doesn’t have anything to prove anyway, and when Joel Stein gets caught up on what he thinks separates Jews from the rest he just further divides people when we really should be focusing on coming together. However, I liked a phrase ADL Chairman Abe Foxman used; saying just because Jews happen to be well represented in Hollywood as well as the law and medical fields doesn’t mean their religion affects their work, “This does not mean Jews make pro-Judaism movies just like Jewish doctors don’t perform pro-Judaism surgery. Joel Stein is obviously very passionate and proud of his heritage, but I feel he is off base and should focus on being more sensitive and productive towards fighting stereo-types and anti-Semitism rather than bragging that no one can entertain like Jews.
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I really find it odd how easy it is for people to get away with Jewish jokes and taunts. I am not referring to anything anti-Semitic or something to that level but simply how the term Jewish can be attached to negative terms such as being greedy, stingy, conniving, crafty and so on and so forth. Pretty much throughout history Jews have had it pretty bad and have always been blamed for anything that happens or has happened to go wrong. I remember in Sam’s class one time how he mentioned that there are two absolutes throughout the world in terms of race relations; anti-Semitism and Negrophobia. From events such as the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and other numerous pogroms around the globe Jews have been expelled, persecuted and vilified by numerous groups of people many of them acting having been inspired by religious and political authorities like the Catholic Church, numerous governments in the Middle East and Nazi Germany.
Anyways, I am always perplexed at how people perceive Jews to be the ones running the world and everything from the financial system to the US government. I mean I know that there is a lot of heavy Jewish influence in many areas of banking, finance, mining, industry, politics etc. and granted that is okay in my opinion but the rumors about a Jewish controlled global economy fail to convince me. About a Jewish controlled Hollywood, I could care less. Maybe it’s true but I fail to see that as a sort of negative issue that needs a remedy or something like that. Anti-Semitism in my eyes is not any different from any racism that we typically see and as a matter of fact it appears to be getting worse with many people using the issue of the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a bulwark to advance their denigration of the Jewish people. Hey I am not Jewish by the way. Jews have contributed a lot to fields of medicine, industry, business, education and they have managed to achieve these feats despite their past experiences of discrimination and persecution. I salute them for that.
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Whether or not you are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Lutheran, Catholic, or any other religion, if you are more qualified for the position in Hollywood, then you deserve it. So what if there is a trend that most successful producers and movie stars are Jewish? It is true, as the article had discussed, it is not like they are acting in order to force their Jewish beliefs upon their audiences. I can bet the majority of the public that does not look too far into what religious backgrounds the producers and actors/actresses come from, would have any idea they were Jewish to begin with. We need to take the time to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. I mean come on, is that all we really care about? Quite frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that this is even being discussed because religion is a personal choice or preference that no one should even have the right to bash on what religion a person is. I think there are just some people that are always finding ways to stir up controversy when it is completely unnecessary.
In addition, I have to disagree that all Christians view Jews as the enemy. I was born and raised Catholic by a STRICT catholic family. My parents are strict Catholics and my grandparents are even more. However, we have never bashed on Jews or looked at them any differently than any Muslim, Protestant, or Born again Christian. We are not one of those families that think Catholicism is the only great religion and everyone should practice it. Yes, we have discussed how difficult it would be to raise a family with one Jewish parent and one Catholic parent, but we never thought of Jewish people as our enemies. My parents would be accepting if we were to have a Jewish person in our family no matter how difficult it would be. Even though I only knew two Jewish kids in my high school, many of my best friends here at Penn State are Jewish and I would never have known that if it hadn’t come up in conversation. I would be a hypocrite to say that Jewish people are my enemies because that would mean anyone that had different beliefs or views on matters from me are my enemies as well. We each have our own beliefs and practices that we take pride in. Can’t we all just practice or own religions and get on with it? We need to stop wasting our time on stupid matters such as these when there are much more important things to worry about.
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When does a conversation step over the line?
I am not really sure how to respond to this article. Is it supposed to be offensive? Is it supposed to be prideful? Is it saying “yay for Jewish people, they own Hollywood” or “boo Jewish people, they are taking over our culture”? I do not really see an issue with it personally. Ok, so Jewish people are really prevalent in Hollywood. Great, what does that matter? Christians are pretty much prevalent in all the rest of society. Every religion is more prevalent than another in some situation. Does that mean they are forcing their Jewish beliefs on us subliminally through media? Some people who are Jewish, just are culturally and not necessarily religiously. I think of this differently than how we think of people who are Christian. If you are Christian, it means you hold Christian beliefs. If you are Jewish, you could hold Jewish beliefs, or your mother could just be Jewish. I guess even the term “Jewish” could be broken up to mean two different things. In one aspect a religious term, in another aspect a cultural or even racial term. I wonder if you extend the term Jewish to mean a race? I know we talked about this exact topic in our group one time, but I think we discussed how a race is something you can physically see. At the time I agreed, now I am not so sure. I think race has more to do with where your ancestry originated geographically (which then could influence the physical aspects) and then how it can be passed genetically from one generation to another. In that sense “Jewish” could be a race. Maybe; I guess if you include having it be able to be passed down through the father as well. The other sketchy part of it being a race, is how you can convert to being Jewish. You can’t really convert to a different race, you are just born with it and stuck in that race for the rest of your life. I have gotten off topic at this point, but it’s an interesting question, the classification of being Jewish.
I read through some of the comments on the article, and, as Sam mentioned, some were intelligent, some not so intelligent, some outright ridiculous. People think the Jews are plotting to take over the world? Really? Taking away our morality? Playing the victim card? They are scared to promote Christianity? All of these ideas are very frustrating to me. The first one is ridiculous- have they looked at world statistics? 14 million Jews world-wide vs. 2.1 billion Christians and 1.5 billion Islamics as counter forces? They’d have to have some crazy underground plots going on. Are people aware the Jewish people have the same basic beliefs as what all the other monotheists believe and even share the same sacred texts? I am not even sure how the victim card comes into play in Hollywood, why would they even need to use it, if they own most of it to begin with? And in America, which was founded NOT BY CHRISTIANS contrary to common belief, but has somehow become a strongly Christian nation…do we need to worry about promoting more Christianity? Is 76% not a great enough percentage, I thought we were supposed to be an open-minded religious freedom country? I am not Christian by the way, if you had not guessed, I am part of a religious minority. Anyway, this has turned into more of a rant, but I’ll close by saying I think many of the comments would be funny if they weren’t actually serious about what they were saying. The only guy who I felt connected with what he was saying was the one who said at the end, “What difference does it make who made them? God made us all. Shalom”. If ever you were to try to convert me to a religion, it would be by example, not by trying to persuade me to believe what you believe.
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Interesting article. For a while I couldn’t tell if the guy was joking or serious. I think he was actually serious now that I’ve read through. It is interesting to me because it seems like a totally new perspective. Usually I hear people bitching about being mad that the Jews have control of the entertainment industry and that Christians can never seem to break in. Yet this guy just seems really proud that his kind are in control of all eight major studio. Seems kind of closed minded. It seems if you really wanted to entertain people you would want lots of diversity, lots of ideas from all over the world. This guy seems like he wants Jews to run Hollywood forever; and he wants everyone to know about it. I guess it is good he has pride in his culture, but he seems a little to worked up about getting everyone to know Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole is run by Jews. He seems kind of like the opposite of anti-sematic, like anti-Christian I guess. Yet maybe if I had to put with all the shit Christians have given Jewish people I would be the same way. I wonder how it ended up that all eight major studios are run by Jewish people. Maybe they look out for their own even more because they feel secluded by the majority of Christians in our society today. I think this has a very negative affect on our society though, and only fuels the fire for Christians against Jews and vice versa. Why can’t we all just love each other you know. I do not identify with any particular religion, unless you say atheism is a religion, but I can imagine reading this article as a strong hearted Christian, as most Americans claim to be, there would be some anger at what I read. It honestly sounds like this guy is bragging they have kept Christians out of entertainment and that it will be like that forever. Pride and bragging are two different things and this guy seems to have taken it to the level of bragging. It is certainly not helping the Jewish population or the Christian population and really if he wants to keep it all in the family and make sure everyone in the industry is Jewish he probably shouldn’t make it his main goal to brag about how no one else has succedded in the indutry. It only inspires others to come and work their ass off to make it big. I wish religion didn’t cause so many problems in our society, but it to me it sometimes seems like more of an issue than race. We just need to realize people believe different things and coexist in peace.
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I think when people talk about privilege it is hard to talk about them relating to people with “no privileges. I feel like people look at other and complain about what they do not have. We seem to loose focus on making money because we need to survive and try to make money because you friend has it. It just weird to hear all of the names that is associated with Jews. I have heard Jewish people called all types of name but the name I hear the most is “stingy” referring to money. I never understood the concept of people trying to keep lol. I personally think that Jew are just like any other person, but what I also think is that an older generation of Jews especially in America was coming from over seas and may have been poor. With this concept it is telling there families that saving money is great especially in America where we spend a lot of money on bullshit that really don’t mean nothing after we buy it. I guess everywhere we go in the world some group of people will have some type of concept that others will not understand. The thing is I am here and in this country there are concepts that I do not understand. For the time being I will just try to adjust to certain thing and if I cant adjust then so be it. I feel like there will always be a groups of people that understand certain thing that others just will not. On other hand it can work in vice versa because the people who you may not understand might believe the same way that you might believe. If there was a certain fear for white that I didn’t understand and if white felt the same about me here really is no difference. The fear is the exactly the same. I don’t know really know what to say about it because we can not always speak out of ignorance. I feel that the more ignorant thing that we may speak about has a strong chance of making this become more of a political correct definition. Like people who run media probably would put on an advertisement that black love chicken, instead of stating that all people love chicken. For the rest of my life I feel as though because I’m black I will always be associated with chick as Jews are associated with their stinginess. Do I like it? Not really. Its pretty dumb, but I I am past it. There is just more thing to worry about in the world. Whites run the media, but black have a big part to it as well and I will not believe for one second that there is one black man in a room of all white saying, “Put a black man in the chicken commercial. You know how they love their chicken.” Is it stupid? Yes. Am I past it? Yes.
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In response to the blog, “When Does Conversation Step Over the Line?” I found this to be a very relevant topic to where I lived all my life. Growing up in a predominantly jewish area in Pennsylvania known as the Main Line, I have been around Jewish people my entire life. My best friends are jewish and they will be for the rest of my life. I felt like Sam’s article was very pessimistic and outdated. He made it seem like everyone hates Jewish people, and while they are often ridiculed or stereotyped on many occasions, this is not the case. Call me a biased Catholic, but I have never heard of the Jewish community being the “enemy of the Christian Church” in contemporary society. Actually, that is absurd. Never has anyone from my Church or surrounding churches denounced Judaism. Never has any of my CCD teachers said anything demoting or disrespecting Judaism. We respect the religion and its people. They are no different from us in most regards. Sure, kids joke around and stereotype Jewish kids as “cheap” but every religion has its stereotypes. I was not aware of the “Wrath of Christians” either in today’s society. Maybe I am misinterpreting what you are trying to say, but you are making it seem like we (Christians) are the enemies and every Jewish person has a clean slate. Maybe you are trying to provoke more passionate responses, but I did not feel that way when reading your article.
Having been around jewish tradition and holidays my entire life I am very familiar with Jewish culture. Actually my grandfather is Jewish and married my grandmother who was Christian. My grandfather always celebrated by himself, though he did always give us some gelt which you could say put me in the Holiday spirit. Furthermore, my entire hometown practically celebrated Jewish Holidays. Rarely would my schools get a day off for a “less important” Christian holiday but my public elementary school, middle school and high school all closed school for Jewish holidays. Of course I never complained about that–getting a day off of school to do whatever I wanted was great. Even here, I have many close ties with jewish kids in my fraternity and other fraternities alike. I have never distiniguished between religions and never will.
Now, in regards to the movie business in Hollywood, I find it absolutely ridiculous that they distinguish between religions. I do not have an issue with the movie business having a mostly jewish set of employees. If they are the most fit for the job then they deserve it. In the twenty first century, I think it is fair to assume that this should be less of a concern.
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The fact that so many Jewish people run Hollywood is certainly fascinating, and it is easy to understand why many people would consider it some sort of conspiracy against Christianity. I hold nothing against them for their achievements, but would find it interesting to look into the history of how it became fact that Jewish people ran Hollywood. I would have appreciated some of that history from the author of the article, but instead he seems to just be glorifying how great his people are. That stance, to me, is a bit pointless. It is great to be loving of your own people, but if you’re going to tell others how great you are, at least offer some insight into how those people became so great.
The most fascinating part of this article for me was the quote by Martin Luther. I was raised in the Lutheran church, and although I was never very interested in it and do not involve myself with it anymore, it is interesting that something so awful as that has never been mentioned by anyone I know. The entire church is based around the philosophy of an individual who was a gigantic bigot, and nobody questions that philosophy? Baffling. I wonder how my parents, both of whom are extremely caring and accepting of all people, would react to finding out about this. Even more amazing, I wonder how my pastor would react. Does he know? It seems pretty unlikely that he went through biblical school and had never heard that Martin Luther was a gigantic anti-Semite. He seems to me like a really decent guy too.
This is not to say that I wasn’t aware of some of the ugly sides of the church I was raised in. At a very young age I noticed that hanging from the church Christmas tree was the cross shape that the KKK uses as one of their symbols. My mom explained it by saying that it was bastardized by the KKK in the same way the swastika was bastardized by the Nazis. But either way, that means that a lot of members of the KKK are possibly Lutheran. And maybe I’m wrong to judge my church based on some extremists. It’s not like I’ve ever really paid attention to what my church was teaching teaching. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that such a terrible group of people spawned from protestant roots.
But returning to the original point of the article, I see no problem with the prevalence of Jews in Hollywood. They earned their spot there quite some time ago, and now they are established. Nepotism is a large part of capitalism and I honestly don’t see any problem with it.
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On a daily basis I am amazed at my ignorance, as individual cases of it seem to crop up incessantly. I had no idea Jews “ruled” Hollywood. To me this is both surprising and unsurprising, not from an evaluation of the character of Hollywood’s output, but as an extension and perpetuation of a pervasive cultural phenomenon.
During one (or perhaps several) lectures, Sam brought up the tendency for some of the more significant instances of domestic cultural appropriation or change to find their roots in minority or “fringe” groups. He brought up skateboarder attire and popular music. Popular music (jazz, rock, etc) is a distinctly American product, and finds its roots in African-American music that eventually came to be termed “the blues.” Perhaps we’re seeing something of the sort with Hollywood, and American film, as a Jewish product.
In any event, this wouldn’t be the first time Jews have “done such a thing.” Western music in the classical sense has certainly had its fair share of crucial Jewish contributors including Adler, Babbitt, Berg, Berlin, Bernstein, Copland, Davidovsky, Eisler, Feldman, Foss, Gershwin, Glass, Kagel, Kern, Kirchner, Klemperer, Kurtag, Ligeti, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Milhaud, Offenbach, Perle, Reich, Rubinstein, Schnittke, Schoenberg, Slonimsky, Subotnick, (Tilson) Thomas, Weill, Zemlinsky, Zorn. The list goes on, and those few I’ve listed already read like a who’s who. In point of fact, the Nazis had a hard time reconciling what they considered the true German art form (absolute musik) with some of the most influential German musicians themselves (i.e. their backgrounds). Music is clearly not the only arena in which may major figures have been Jewish, of course, but the musical example should suffice for now.
In all, I think it somewhat confounding to, in this instance, consider Jews as a fringe group (albeit a technical minority) in American culture. Their dominance in Hollywood should be evidence enough to their firm integration as a driving cultural force. They are a Part of America, and moreover, they are American. The distinction the author of the article draws between these Jews and the rest of America is somewhat shortsighted, I feel. Apart from being a numerical majority, I don’t necessarily feel that, intuitively, Christians have a more significant influence on our cultural values and perception. Of course, “Christian” values may indeed pervade our cultural core, but how different are these than Jewish values? I’m no Semitic expert, and I’d love some feedback. Do we not share the 10 Commandments? What teachings are uniquely Christian besides the words of Jesus, and how far do they deviate from Jewish ones aside from his claim to Messiah-hood? Besides, I don’t think mores regarding decency, modesty, or propriety from any religious source have much bearing on mainstream American culture today anyhow. Neither Judaism nor Christianity can be said to promote what Hollywood tends to, that being sexual saturation, drugs, violence, and cheap thrills, among other things. I know, I’m old-fashioned and simple minded. I’m Catholic. Oh snap!!!
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This post reminds me a lot to the times when I was a kid looking at the missalette during Good Friday service, before the reading of the passion of Christ there was a statement from the Catholic church that pretty much said Jews should not be persecuted or reviled as the murderers of Jesus. The statement said Jesus, his family and all the disciples were Jews and that Jesus died in order to fulfill the prophecy that he died for our sins. I never really understood why this had to be printed because I never really thought about it that way, but I guess there are a lot of anti-Semitics out there that views Jews as the murderer of Christ.
I can kind of understand where the anti-Semitic feelings come from, whenever there is a group that has a lot of power, or is believed to have a lot of power, people are going to feel resentment, anger or fear. Of course it’s not right, and it’s kind of ironic because many of the people with anti-Semitic feelings are white people who are seen as the most powerful people in our society, so I guess they have to take out some of their troubles on someone and since Jews are viewed as the most powerful people in banking and entertainment they are the ones that become subject to the ridicule.
I can understand where some of the Christian sentiment comes from because according to the gospels Pontius Pilate wasn’t the one that wanted to kill Jesus, he wanted to him go but the Jews said Jesus had to die according to their law, so if you take that literally the Jews did kill Jesus, but they can’t be held accountable for that, that’d be like holding a 16-year-old Alabaman responsible for Slavery or me responsible for the terrible atrocities suffered by Native Americans.
As far as Hollywood influencing society, it does happen, but if you look at media it’s not like all actors and actresses are Jewish, and even the Jewish actors and actresses don’t really act out the Jewish stereotypes, they act more white and that’s because producers and directors know what America wants and identifies with and that’s white people, so in order to be successful and make money they appeal to what America wants. So I don’t really feel like Jews are running the country or controlling society, but at the same time I also feel like they’re wrongly accused and ostrascized, it’s unfortunate and often gets overlooked and it needs to be examined more closely because it’s a part of race relations that doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
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Being that I am Jewish I felt almost obligated to comment on this blog. I found myself scanning through my classmates’ responses to this blog and seemed to make a consensus of those who say, “I don’t care who runs Hollywood,” “Why should I care?.” I find this quite funny that everyone does not care about this, but we are so quick to say that a black man is running our country or white people dominate country music. Why does it not matter? To me, it matters a lot. It matters that people of my religion are doing big things in the world, because years ago we would not have been given that opportunity. It matters because people who are scared of Jews or who have never met a Jew in their life are being more influenced by them than the really know. I understand that this article took somewhat of a satirical approach to the concept but so did many of our other articles read on this blog and everyone seemed to care a lot more about those.
Jews do run Hollywood; there is absolutely no ifs, ands or buts about it. Network heads, studio heads, most major producers and directors don’t work on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippor, because they are Jews. Jews have faced, and in my mind will always face anti-Semitism. There is always going to be that one group who hates the Jews, just like there is always going to be that one group that hates the blacks. I think that Jews should celebrate their success in a booming industry like entertainment. We are shaping the minds of the entire world through movies, and although Jewish ideology is not being pushed through messages in the movie, it is nice for me to know that the person backing the production and I have a connection. I don’t think that bigotry is a word that can be used to discuss Joel Stein’s article. Stein does not mention once being intolerant of other’s ideologies, he mentions that he is frustrated that people don’t recognize the success of people that share his religion in high places. His ideas of campaigning to people to get the word out of Jews in Hollywood seems like a pure comedienne routine and I don’t think that people should take that seriously.
It makes me really frustrated that Soc 119 is still filled with a bunch of people who don’t care. This is exactly what Sam is telling us is the wrong thing to do. You should notice race, you should notice religion and you should care. Not caring leads to allowing others to discriminate, not caring is the first step to disaster. So in closing class, please care a little more next time, and if you don’t care at least pretend to.
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I do not understand what the issue is really with the public thinking that Jewish people run Hollywood or not; which could be due to my lack of fully comprehending the issue at hand or because of the fact that I am accepting and open-minded so this topic is not something that I naturally think too much about one way or the other. Also, it should be taken into account that I have a strange relationship with all things Jewish because when I was younger I was raised as Jewish and went to temple every week, but now I consider myself to be agnostic. I do not relate to being Jewish at all, except for the fact that I might “look” Jewish and/or if someone asks me “what I am” I normally say Italian and Jewish, for whatever the reason. So due to the above, I have a complicated relationship with the concept of being Jewish or not, and as a matter of fact I do not quite understand any religion at all or the fact that different religions have such strong conflicts and no tolerance for each other. While thinking about these aspects that shape my opinion on this issue I come to realize that I cannot grasp and probably do not share the same outlook as most individuals on this topic (or the view of a Christian or a Jew, which seem to be the two opposing sides here). But, from my point of view, I think this whole article is barely worth discussing. The author of the article starts off by saying he has never been so upset by a poll in his life and that he wants to start a campaign to convince Americans that Jews run Hollywood, his whole point is that he is outraged and wants everyone to believe and to know that Jews do indeed run Hollywood. But then he ends the article by saying I do not care what Americans think, I just care that we keep running Hollywood, which is hypocritical to his entire article. In addition, if only 22% of Americans think that Hollywood is run by Jewish people, then why would they think that Jewish people are controlling the industry and making decisions that have the best outcome for Jews, like the ADL Chairman said. He relates this to the fact that the ADL poll “showed that 59% of Americans think Hollywood execs ‘do not share the religious and moral values of most Americans,’ and 43% think the entertainment industry is waging an organized campaign to ‘weaken the influence of religious values in this country’”. But obviously again if the number of Americans that think Jews are running the entertainment business is only 22%, then they are not referring to Jews in this ADL poll, since the numbers do not match up by any means. When I hear 43% and 59% of the public thinks that Hollywood is not sharing and is weakening religious and moral values I do not think it has anything to do with the personal religious views of the executives, I just feel like it refers to the content that is produced promoting sex and violence and so on in our media. This media content by nature would weaken values, but I did not think that Americans were thinking this because they also thought that these executives were Jewish. I am not sure if I am wording my opinion well enough here that it is making sense, but I tried to explain how I interpreted this article, though it might not be correct.
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