Jewish Pride: Purim vs Hollywood
Being Jewish is a gift that deserves unwavering pride, gratitude and courage.
When I was fifteen, I asked my parents to buy me a “Magen David” (Star of David). I already had a “Chai” (Hebrew for “life”) on a chain. We were fairly secular - High Holidays, one seder, and Chanukah candles were about the extent of our “formal” Jewish life, so convincing them that I needed two such symbols of Judaism was somewhat of a challenge.
I explained to them that I wanted the Magen David on a shorter chain than the Chai because 1. It was a more obvious symbol of Jewishness (in my mind at the time), and 2. The shorter chain meant that it would be easier for people to see.
I wanted people to know that I am Jewish.
I still have that Magen David.
I’ve never understood why it’s so difficult for some of us to express pride in Jewishness publicly. When I was younger, it never occurred to me that some Jews could be embarrassed or scared to publicly embrace being a Jew.
For me, the shtetl, “don’t make waves,” ghetto mentality has always been embarrassing. If people don’t like me because I am a Jew: that’s THEIR problem. Plus, I’d much rather know who hates me.
As I write this, we just celebrated Purim, while the secular world held its annual spectacle of narcissism and vapidity, the Academy Awards, the week before.
At the end of the Purim story, the Jews of Shushan rejoice and kill (not murder) their enemies. Makes sense to me.
Yet, each year it seems like there is more and more hand-wringing over what seems to me to be an obvious real world choice: if someone tries to murder you, you need to kill them first (obviously, only if there is no other option). One is murder, the other is self-defense.
The exact wording in the Megillah (Book of Esther) is:
“And the rest of the Jews of the king's provinces gathered and stood up for their lives to relieve themselves of their enemies and killed seventy-five thousand of their foes, but took none of the spoils.”
That is a lot of people. But the whining and self-flagellation ignores the fact that the correct reading should not be that we killed a lot of people, it should rather be that we had a lot of enemies that wanted to murder us. Rather than go to the slaughter like sheep – we protected our community; our loved ones.
As Jonathan Tobin put it recently (in an excellent article):
“The Jews are faced with the fact that even after Haman’s execution on the orders of King Ahasuerus, his orders enabling the mass murder of Jews throughout the Persian empire cannot be revoked. That means that the Jews can’t simply sit back and be saved by the king or anyone else. They must, instead, arm and defend themselves against those eager to carry out Haman’s evil command.”
I suspect too that not only could the king’s order not be revoked, but that the Persians were excited at the prospect of Jewish mass murder. We did what needed to be done.
The lesson from this is a lesson which we have learned repeatedly: when our enemies are intent on murdering us, as was the case on 10/7, it is preferable, and obligatory, to do whatever it takes to stop them. But to many modern Jews, particularly on the left, who grew up as I did, in a “golden age” of passive American Jewishness, where threats seemed mostly theoretical, that truth is still surprisingly hard to accept.
The result is that we saw multiple articles about Purim that, dementedly, compared and condemned Israel’s defense of our people post 10/7, and what the Jews did at the time of the Purim story. In other words, the “lesson” they learned was about ambiguous moral equivalence, rather than seeing the unambiguous and obvious parallel to today.
Immediately preceding Purim, the now culturally irrelevant, self-serving, spectacle of unhinged narcissism called the “Academy Awards” took place.
They give out golden statues for a reason.
Having grown up in Los Angeles, around Hollywood types my entire life – I’ve always had a disdain for that industry. Most of the stereotypes are true. Narcissism, ignorance, nepotism, and disdain for Western values and morals are the norm (obviously, there are exceptions). Coupled with extreme vacuity and an absolute need to belong, you must be an obsequious hive-minded automaton to fit in. Individuality, particularly of thought, has no place in their world.
At the same time, no population on earth has as high a regard for themselves.
So, it’s no surprise that even though Jews (literally) founded the film industry in Los Angeles, Jewishness has never been a comfortable part of that world. That’s exactly why when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (responsible for the Academy Awards) opened its museum in 2021 - it “celebrated” every imaginable cultural/ethnic contribution except for… the Jews.
It took them THREE years to (feebly) rectify the situation. Jews can start Hollywood, we can run the major studios for decades, we can act, write and produce… we just can’t be acknowledged for doing any of that as Jews.
Similarly, it makes sense that the Academy Awards ceremonies have become increasingly, and openly, anti-Jewish.
I’m old enough to remember the adults being furious when Vanessa Redgrave got up at the 1978 Oscars and talked about “Zionist hoodlums.” (A viewpoint that this disgusting human being STILL espouses)
Almost 50 years later, 10/7 seems to have given Jew-haters, globally, the idea that antisemitism is more socially acceptable than ever.
Recent awards ceremonies demonstrate that view.
We’ve all seen actors and actresses, who claim to be against war, not Jews, wear the red hand pins commemorating the brutal, bloody deaths of two Jews.
We heard Jonathan Glazer repugnantly say in 2024 “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness.”
We’ve watched for decades as Hollywood has made film after film either making light of the Holocaust (“Life Is Beautiful”), disseminates false narratives about non-Jewish ignorance during the Holocaust (“The Boy in The Striped Pajamas”), or removes Jews from the Holocaust entirely (Glazer’s own “Zone of Interest”). When a story is told well as in Steve Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” it is a story of non-Jewish heroism, and greatly overshadows far less hyped, but far more inspiring, stories of Jewish heroism, as was the case with “Defiance,” an excellent film which tells the true story of the Bielski brothers.
Held days after the Bibas funeral, the ONLY person on stage this year who even mentioned antisemitism was Adriene Brody, who also sputtered the now obligatory (and meaningless) language about “racism” and “othering.”
In other words, there were no Jewish heroes at the Oscars, only cowards who refused to use that immense platform to display their pride in our people or inspire other Jews with their words. There was not a single show of courage to let younger Jews know that it is ok to publicly say “I’m Jewish, I’m proud, and I don’t give the slightest damn if you have a problem with that.”
Yet there was, and has been for several years, a parade of actors/actresses not only wearing red hand pins, but who also signed letters condemning Israel, and in one case, uber antisemite Guy Pearce, even trotted out the old “the Jews run Hollywood” trope.
If only we applied the “Shushan penalty” to the careers of Jew haters like Pearce and his ilk, which include Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef, Ava DuVernay, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Lopez, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie, John Cusack, Viggo Mortenson, Kirsten Dunst, Kristen Stewart, Selena Gomez, Cate Blanchett, Channing Tatum, Brian Cox, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and many, many, many more.
More revealing, not a single documentary about October 7 was nominated for an award. But, a piece of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, garbage, at least partially staged and infused with lies, called “No Other Land” won for best documentary. Of course.
Thank G-d, the weak, ghetto minded, assimilationist viewpoint in Hollywood does not dominate Jewish life. Every Jewish life is precious, and equally valuable, so the rest of us must educate those who are afraid to stand up; we must teach them that it is ok, even necessary, to be proud of being Jewish. Divisiveness and in-fighting does more damage than antisemites could ever do, so teach with love, but remember that our ancestors in Shushan, and our brothers and sisters attacked on 10/7, represent the real world, while assimilation and ignorance is, like the “reel world,” a vapid black-hole of nothingness.
Never be afraid. Never give up.
Am Yisrael Chai.
his article appeared originally in Orange County Jewish Life.
Joshua Namm is a longtime Jewish community pro, passionate Israel advocate, and co-founder/co-CEO of Moptu, a unique social platform designed specifically for article sharing, and dedicated to the principle of free speech.
I was friends with the oldest Bielskis son in college. The family never talked about the heroics. Io only learned who my friend ws ,many years later.
Excellent post.
To me a ghetto Jew is unmistakably Jewish, not pretending to be not Jewish, or embarrassed of their Judaism, not betraying their brothers, just poor and downtrodden.