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As ‘Death of a Salesman’ returns to Broadway, the question remains — how Jewish is Willy Loman?
Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman, currently on Broadway in a new production starring Nathan Lane as Willy Loman, was inspired by an uncle of Miller’s and a suicidal colleague of his father’s, both Jewish salesmen.
On the play’s 50th anniversary, Miller told an interviewer that Willy Loman and his family were indeed intended to be Jews. But, he added, they were oblivious to this identity since in postwar America, the Lomans were “light-years away from religion or a community that might have fostered Jewish identity.”
More to the point, in 1947, Miller had lectured at the Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists, and Scientists about a possible new Jewish literary movement in America. After the success of Focus, his 1945 novel about antisemitism, Miller opined: “Jewish artists and writers have it as their duty to address themselves in their works to Jewish themes, Jewish history and contemporary Jewish life.”
Yet despite this belief, Miller proceeded to explain that the Holocaust had temporarily made it impossible for him to write about Jewish life without being “defensive and combative” or to treat Jewish themes “in relation to antisemitism.” A delusional failure, Loman was no role model in his professional or family life, and presenting him as a Jew might have fed already-burgeoning antisemitism among audiences.
Miller would return to Yiddishkeit in his later plays After the Fall (1964); Incident at Vichy (1965); The Price (1968); Playing for Time (1980); and Broken Glass (1994), but Salesman reflected a cagier ethnic identity.
Even so, alert audiences picked up on Yiddishisms or Brooklyn Jewish inflections, such as when Loman’s wife Linda says: “Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.”
The literary critic Leslie Fiedler deemed these echoes of Yiddishkeit a symptom of Miller’s being “devious” in creating “crypto-Jewish characters” who are presented instead as generic Americans, supposedly to appeal to a wider American audience.
In a 1998 essay, the playwright David Mamet alleged that by not overtly dwelling on the characters’ Judaism in Salesman, Miller had shortchanged Jewish culture; the play is the “story of a Jew told by a Jew,” he wrote, but Loman’s fate is “never avowed as a Jewish story, and so a great contribution to Jewish American history is lost.”
To which Miller politely retorted that Mamet had discerned the Jewish content in the play, “so it couldn’t have been lost. I mean, what more could anyone want?”
What some observers wanted was a literal embrace of Jewish tradition, which they received when the Yiddish stage actor Joseph Buloff, best remembered for his role as a peddler in the Broadway premiere of the musical Oklahoma! and as a Russian agent in the 1957 MGM musical film Silk Stockings. In 1951, Buloff translated and staged Salesman in Yiddish, a version which has since been revived and performed widely.
The plangent tone of the Yiddish “Toyt fun a Salesman,” made it an audience pleaser, and the literary critic Harold Bloom, a native Yiddish speaker, considered the Buloff translation the “most satisfactory performance” he ever saw of Salesman.
Less internationally celebrated was a contemporaneous staging by The Habima Theatre, the national theater of Israel. Directed by the Czech Jewish theatrical maestro Julius Gellner, it starred a powerhouse cast led by Aharon Meskin, an acclaimed Othello, Golem, and Shylock. Linda Loman was played by Hanna Rovina, who was known as the First Lady of Hebrew Theater; she had previously appeared with Meskin in the Habima production of S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk, and their exalted, visionary scope suited the epic, oneiric moments in Salesman.
Yet Israeli audiences seemed to prefer Miller’s All My Sons to Salesman, reportedly because Loman was a schmendrick, a small-time loser, and his pathetic demise excluded him as an appropriate hero/martyr for the new Jewish state.
Unlike the tearful Yiddish-language Loman and exalted, mythical Hebrew version, both of which glorified Jewish identity, the original Broadway cast was more ambiguous. Loman was played by Lee J. Cobb (born Leo Jacoby) a bellowing bulvan of a performer whose one-note paroxysm riveted audiences with its grim weight. In a televised interview (see the 5-minute mark), the Jewish performer Zero Mostel later complained that even a failed salesman needed humorous charm, entirely missing from the doom-laden Cobb rendition.
Of course, Mostel had suffered during the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings in Washington, DC, at which Cobb and the Salesman stage director Elia Kazan were friendly witnesses, naming names of former friends to placate the government witch hunt, just a few years after Salesman premiered.
By contrast, Miller himself courageously confronted the HUAC and refused to yield to threats, winning admiration even from Jewish critics who did not always laud his work. To celebrate Miller’s 87th birthday, the sometimes waspish Robert Brustein proclaimed the playwright a “true public intellectual” who created “powerful plays, but also a shining moral example unmatched in American theater.”
This praise refutes decades of obloquy, often from fellow Jewish writers, some of whom oddly resented Miller for being married for a few years to Marilyn Monroe, who converted to Judaism before their wedding. Such personal attacks, like Loman, Miller and the play itself, now belong to the ages.
Miller’s play has also won applause for productions with African-American and international casts, including a celebrated staging in Beijing, which resulted in a book and documentary film on the topic. Miller, who traveled to China for the production, explained that the play’s filial theme was as poignant in Chinese tradition as it is for Jews. Indeed, Salesman in China, a 2024 Canadian play by Leanna Brodie and Jovanni Sy freshly revisits that historic production.
As the literary historian Leah Garrett has noted, Willy Loman and Salesman can be simultaneously Jewish and universal. Some theatergoers believe that the finest modern interpretation of the role was performed by Warren Mitchell, an English Jewish actor whose Loman at times sounded vaguely like the Jewish comedian George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum).
The most powerful, yet nuanced, Loman I ever saw onstage was incarnated by a non-Jewish actor, George C. Scott, who had previously played the role of the biblical patriarch Abraham in the 1966 epic film The Bible: In the Beginning… After a Loman tirade just before intermission, the house lights went up and the audience at New York’s Circle in the Square Theater sat in stunned silence, riveted. The impact resembled that of a 1950 Berlin production at which the audience refused to leave the theater after the show was over.
This immense force of Miller’s play is not always conveyed on stage or screen, even when accomplished actors like Dustin Hoffman and Brian Dennehy have played Loman. But the drama’s inherent force shows how the play has survived triumphantly as an American Jewish literary achievement.
The post As ‘Death of a Salesman’ returns to Broadway, the question remains — how Jewish is Willy Loman? appeared first on The Forward.
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London Police Set Up Specialist Jewish Protection Team
A police officer stands at the scene, after a man was arrested following a stabbing incident in the Golders Green area, which is home to a large Jewish population, in London, Britain, April 29, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British police are setting up a new team of 100 officers including counter terrorism specialists to help protect Jewish communities across London after a series of antisemitic attacks including the stabbing of two men.
The plan announced on Wednesday for a dedicated protection team comes as officers announced more arrests for antisemitism, including detaining a 35-year-old man on Saturday after rocks were thrown at an ambulance belonging to the Jewish community.
London‘s top police boss Mark Rowley said Jewish communities were facing “sustained threats” from hostile state actors as well as extreme right-wing groups, elements of the extreme left, and Islamist terrorists.
Detectives are examining whether the arson incidents have possible Iranian links, after British security officials warned that Iran was using criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.
Since late March, there have been a number of high-profile arson attacks with four Jewish ambulances burned and synagogues targeted. Last week, two Jewish men were also stabbed. Both victims survived the attack.
Over the past four weeks, police said they had arrested around 50 people for antisemitic hate crimes and charged eight individuals. On top of that, 28 arrests have been made as part of investigations alongside counter terrorism policing for arson and other serious incidents.
“This new team will be primarily focused on protecting the Jewish community, which faces some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats,” said a statement from London‘s Metropolitan Police force.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened a meeting on Monday with business, health and cultural leaders aimed at trying to tackle antisemitism.
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Iran Reviewing US Proposal to End War, Though Key Demands Remain Unaddressed
People walk on a street near a mural featuring an image of the late Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran, Iran, May 6, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran said on Wednesday it was reviewing a US peace proposal that sources said would formally end the war while leaving unresolved the key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson cited by Iran‘s ISNA news agency said Tehran would convey its response. US President Donald Trump said he believed Iran wanted an agreement.
“They want to make a deal. We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Earlier in the day, Trump had sounded more pessimistic about the chances of a deal. In a Truth Social post, he threatened to restart the US bombing campaign in Iran, calling the possibility of Tehran agreeing to the latest US proposal a “big assumption.”
Trump has repeatedly played up the prospect of an agreement that would end the war that started Feb. 28, so far without success. The two sides remain at odds over a variety of difficult issues, such as Iran‘s nuclear ambitions and its control of the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply.
A Pakistani source and another source briefed on the mediation said an agreement was close on a one-page memorandum that would formally end the conflict. That would kick off discussions to unblock shipping through the strait, lift US sanctions on Iran, and set curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, the sources said.
It was unclear how the memorandum differs from a 14-point plan proposed by Iran last week, and Iran has yet to respond to the latest US proposal.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said the US proposal contained some unacceptable provisions, without specifying which ones.
Iranian lawmaker Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for parliament’s powerful foreign policy and national security committee, described the text as “more of an American wish-list than a reality.”
“The Americans will not gain anything in a war they are losing that they have not gained in face-to-face negotiations,” he wrote on social media.
OIL PRICES TUMBLE
Reports of a possible agreement caused global oil prices to tumble to two-week lows, with benchmark Brent crude futures falling around 11% to around $98 a barrel at one point before rising back above the $100 mark.
Global share prices also leapt and bond yields fell on optimism about an end to a war that has disrupted energy supplies.
Trump on Tuesday paused a two-day-old naval mission to reopen the blockaded strait, citing progress in peace talks.
The US military has kept up its own blockade on Iranian ships in the region. US Central Command said forces fired at an unladen Iranian-flagged tanker on Wednesday, disabling the vessel as it attempted to sail toward an Iranian port in violation of the blockade.
NO MENTION OF KEY US DEMANDS
The source briefed on the mediation said the US negotiations were being led by Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. If both sides agreed on the preliminary deal, that would start the clock on 30 days of detailed negotiations to reach a full agreement.
The full agreement would end the competing US and Iranian blockades on the strait, lift US sanctions, and release frozen Iranian funds. It would also include some curbs on Iran‘s nuclear program, with the aim of a pause or moratorium on Iranian enrichment of uranium.
While the sources said the memorandum would not initially require concessions from either side, they did not mention several key demands Washington has made in the past, which Iran has rejected, such as curbs on Iran‘s missile program and an end to its support for proxy militias in the Middle East.
The sources also made no mention of Iran‘s existing stockpile of more than 400 kg (900 pounds) of near-weapons-grade uranium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump’s ally against Iran, said on Wednesday the two leaders agreed that all enriched uranium must be removed from Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb.
Tehran denies wanting to acquire a nuclear weapon.
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Brussels cathedral installs plaques apologizing for medieval antisemitic persecution depicted in stained glass
(JTA) — More than 650 years after Jews in Brussels were executed and expelled following false antisemitic accusations, church officials at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula have installed a plaque apologizing for the persecution commemorated in its stained glass windows.
At a ceremony on April 27, Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Mechelen-Brussels and Rabbi Albert Guigui, the chief rabbi of Brussels, unveiled four plaques, written in Dutch, French, English and Hebrew, providing historical context for the windows and an apology for the antisemitic persecution tied to the events they depict.
The plaques, which Terlinden signed, state that “baseless accusations of the desecration of the Eucharistic host were made against Jewish communities” in medieval Europe and that the accusations “led to persecution, massacres, and unjustifiable expulsions.” The windows show Jews being executed at the stake in response to their alleged attacks on the Eucharist, bread that Catholic doctrine considers a literal representation of Jesus’ body.
“Theological and social anti-Judaism is in direct contradiction with the Gospel of Christ, which calls for truth, justice, and brotherhood,” the plaques say. “We ask forgiveness from the Jewish people for the suffering these accusations have caused.”
The stained glass windows in the cathedral depict the “Brussels Host Desecration,” an antisemitic accusation in 1370 that Jews had desecrated communion wafers, leading to the execution of Jews in Brussels and the expulsion of the city’s Jewish community.
The windows have drawn scrutiny for decades, particularly as the Catholic Church sought to reckon with its history of antisemitism. In 1969, shortly after the landmark Nostra Aetate declaration rejecting longstanding anti-Jewish Catholic doctrine, the Archbishop of Brussels ordered that several paintings be removed and a plaque be mounted to offer context about the remaining depictions.
Several years later, the European Jewish Congress noted last week, Catholic leaders did install a plaque that drew readers’ attention to “the biased nature of the accusations [against the Jews accused of the desecration] and to the legendary presentation of the ‘miracle.’”
But Flora Cassen, the director of the Brandeis Center for Jewish Studies and a scholar of European antisemitism, said the existing plaque was “very ambiguous about the responsibility and what happened” and installed in an easy-to-miss location. The new plaques, she said, contain a clear and “very moving” apology and cannot be missed by anyone who comes to see the windows.
“The significance is enormous of the church finally putting a plaque there that tells the story, that acknowledges the antisemitism behind it, that acknowledges that it was a slander and that it resulted in persecution and in the execution of Jews in Brussels and their expulsion,” Cassen said.
The new plaques cite Nostra Aetate and the Catholic Church’s subsequent effort under Pope John Paul II to reckon with historical antisemitism in 2000. They affirm the church’s “commitment to combat all forms of antisemitism, to deepen dialogue between Jews and Christians, and to pass on to future generations a clear remembrance, based on the acknowledgement of truth and mutual respect.”
While some have called for the historic windows to be removed, Guigui said in a statement that the plaques represented an appropriate way to address relics of historical antisemitism.
“What matters today is how we look at these images,” the rabbi said. “They must not be erased, because they are part of history, but they must be accompanied by explanation and moral insight in order to understand the context and avoid repeating past mistakes.”
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