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As landmark Saul Bellow documentary premieres, a look back at his life through the JTA archive
(JTA) — Given his place in the international literary canon, it’s hard to believe that there has never been a widely-released documentary made about the Jewish Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow.
That’s about to change, as PBS debuts “American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow” on Monday night.
The documentary, which was filmed by Israeli director Asaf Galay between 2016 and 2019 and features what is being touted as the last interview Philip Roth gave before his death in 2018, digs deep into Bellow’s personal life and inspirations. Many know about his successful novels and memorable (usually Jewish) characters, but as the film shows, Bellow had a turbulent personal life that involved five marriages. Several of his closest friends and family members felt betrayed or offended by how Bellow wrote unflattering characters closely based on them. His moderate conservative political leanings put him at odds with the ethos of the 1960s, and some saw his framing of occasional Black characters as racist.
But the film also devotes time to explaining — through interviews with scholars, other novelists and members of the Bellow clan — how Bellow’s deep-rooted sense of “otherness” as the son of Jewish immigrants influenced his work, and how he, in turn, influenced many Jewish American writers who followed him. Roth, for instance, says on camera that Bellow inspired him to create fuller Jewish characters in his own work.
To mark the milestone film, we looked back through all of the Saul Bellow content in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s archive. What emerged was a portrait of a leading Jewish intellectual of his time who was deeply invested in the Soviet Jewry movement and Israel, and who was beloved by the American Jewish community — despite his complicated relationship to his Jewishness and his bristling at being called a “Jewish writer.”
The Soviet Jewry movement
Bellow was born in 1915 in Canada to parents with Lithuanian ancestry who first immigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia. In the 1920s, when Bellow was 9, the family moved to Chicago. By the 1950s, the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union — who were forbidden from openly practicing their religion and from emigrating — had become a rallying cry for American Jews. As a 1958 JTA report shows, Bellow was passionate about the issue; in January of that year, he signed a letter to The New York Times about “the purge of Yiddish writers, the refusal of the current Soviet regime to permit a renaissance of Jewish culture and the existence of a quota system on Jews in education, professional and civil service fields.” Other signatories included fellow Jewish writers Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin and Lionel Trilling.
Saul Bellow, Anita Goshkin (his first wife) and their son Gregory Bellow, circa 1940. Bellow’s turbulent personal life involved five marriages. (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
He signed another letter to the Times on the topic in 1965, and in 1969 he circulated an appeal for cultural freedom for Jews to the Soviet Writers Union, getting other prominent writers such as Noam Chomsky and Nat Hentoff to sign. By 1970, the issue had become widely publicized, and Bellow stayed involved, signing onto a petition with several other thought leaders that asked: “Has the government of the Soviet Union no concern for human rights or for the decent opinion of mankind?”
Israel
Like many American Jews, Bellow had complicated feelings on Israel. “If you want everyone to love you, don’t discuss Israeli politics,” he once wrote.
In the 1970s, JTA reports show that he followed Israeli diplomacy closely and was a strong supporter of the Jewish state in the face of international criticism. In 1974, at a PEN press conference, he called for a boycott of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural heritage arm that has historically been very critical of Israeli policy.
In 1984, Bellow met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was in the United States on an official state visit.
But Bellow wasn’t a blanket supporter of Israel — in 1979, he signed a letter protesting West Bank settlement expansion that was read at a rally of 30,000 people in Tel Aviv. In 1987, while in Haifa for a conference on his work, Bellow criticized the Israeli government for the way it handled the Jonathan Pollard spy case, bringing up an issue that still reverberates in Israel-Diaspora conversation — and in U.S. politics.
“I think the American Jews are very sensitive to the question of dual allegiance, and it is probably wrong of Israel to press this question because it is one which is very often used by antisemites,” Bellow said.
Nobel Prize
After garnering multiple National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. JTA’s report on the award noted that Bellow’s most recent book at the time, published right around the time of the Nobel announcements, was a memoir about his 1975 stay in Jerusalem, titled “To Jerusalem and Back.” The report added: “Two of his books, ‘Herzog,’ published in 1964 and ‘Mr. Sammler’s Planet,’ which won him the National Book Award in 1971, have been translated into Hebrew and were enthusiastically received by Israeli critics and public.”
(Bellow wasn’t the only Jew to win a Nobel that year: Milton Friedman won the economics prize, Baruch Blumberg shared the medicine prize and Burton Richter shared the physics prize.)
Bellow, center, with his fifth wife Janis Freedman-Bellow and longtime friend Allan Bloom, who is the subject of Bellow’s last novel, “Ravelstein.” (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
A “Jewish writer”?
The Anti-Defamation League also gave Bellow an award in 1976. According to a JTA report, Seymour Graubard, honorary national chairman of the ADL at the time, said that Bellow “has correctly rejected all efforts to pigeonhole him as a ‘Jewish writer.’ Rather, he has simply found in the Jewish experience those common strains of humanity that are part of all of us — and therein lies his greatness as an American writer.”
Debate over whether or not Bellow should be labeled a “Jewish writer,” and what that meant, dogged him for much of his career. After his death in 2005, at 89, a New York Jewish Week obituary focused on Bellow as “a literary giant who did not want to be bound by the tag of Jewish writer.”
“Mr. Bellow bridled at being considered a Jewish writer, though his early novels, most notably 1944’s ‘The Victim,’ dealt with anti-Semitism and featured characters who spoke Yiddish and Russian,” Steve Lipman wrote.
Bellow’s biographer James Atlas added in the obituary: “He always said he was a writer first, an American second and Jewish third. But all three were elements of his genius. His greatest contribution was that he was able to write fiction that had tremendous philosophical depth.”
In a JTA essay at the time of Bellow’s death, academic and fiction writer John J. Clayton argued: “No good writer wants to be pigeonholed or limited in scope. But he is deeply a Jewish writer — not just a Jew by birth.
“Jewish culture, Jewish sensibility, a Jewish sense of holiness in the everyday, permeate his work.”
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Cooper Union settles antisemitism case with 10 Jewish students who were barricaded in library after Oct. 7
(JTA) — The Cooper Union has settled a Title VI case of antisemitic discrimination dating back to a highly publicized incident in which Jewish students were trapped in a school library by protesters after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
The Manhattan engineering college has agreed to pay an unspecified sum to 10 affected Jewish students, create a Title VI coordinator position who will monitor cases “including discrimination or harassment based on antisemitism or anti-Zionism,” and ban masks at protests.
“This landmark settlement is the result of the extraordinary courage of the students who came forward to demand accountability from Cooper Union,” Ziporah Reich, an attorney with the pro-Israel legal group The Lawfare Project, said in a statement announcing the settlement. The Lawfare Project sued the school on behalf of the Jewish students.
Reich’s statement continued, “Jewish students deserve to learn without being targeted, harassed, or excluded because of who they are or what they believe. This case sends a clear message that universities have a legal duty to protect them and will be held accountable when they fail to do so.”
In a statement, Cooper Union’s president Steven W. McLaughlin said the settlement “reflects our ongoing commitment to maintaining a campus where every student in our community feels respected, safe, and included.”
McLaughlin, who became president last year following the resignation of the school’s previous president, continued, “We are dedicated to continuing our efforts to confront discrimination of any kind, including antisemitism, and to fostering a productive culture of curiosity and compassion. Settling this litigation is an important step as we move forward.”
Cooper Union Hillel/Midrash, a student-run Jewish organization that several of the plaintiffs belong to, did not immediately return a request for comment.
In the immediate weeks after Oct. 7, The Cooper Union was one of the first colleges thrust into the national spotlight for alleged antisemitic behavior on campus. Viral video showed Jewish students having barricaded themselves in the campus library for 20 minutes while pro-Palestinian protesters pounded on the doors and shouted slogans.
Under President Joe Biden, the Department of Education opened a Title VI civil rights investigation into the school. The Jewish students separately sued the school over their treatment, a suit The Cooper Union attempted to have thrown out. Last year a judge ruled the lawsuit could continue.
The settlement comes as the Trump administration has more aggressively prosecuted other elite colleges for fostering antisemitic environments, freezing federal grants and forcing large payouts. It also comes days after New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, reversed an executive order for the city to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism.
As part of The Cooper Union’s settlement, the private school’s new Title VI coordinator “will implement all applicable guidance” established under Biden to consider IHRA in discrimination cases, the school’s statement said.
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Following pressure from Jewish leaders, Australian PM Anthony Albanese announces inquiry into Bondi attack
(JTA) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday the launch of a Royal Commission inquiry, the country’s highest level of inquiry, into the antisemitic terrorist attack on Bondi Beach last month.
The wide-ranging inquiry will also investigate the “nature and prevalence of antisemitism” in the country, provide recommendations to law enforcement to combat antisemitism and counter the “spread of ideologically and religiously motivated extremism in Australia,” according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s office.
“I’ve repeatedly said that our government’s priority is to promote unity and social cohesion, and this is what Australia needs to heal, to learn, to come together in a spirit of national unity,” Albanese told reporters on Thursday. “It’s clear to me that a royal commission is essential to achieving this.”
The announcement of the inquiry comes weeks after two attackers motivated by “Islamic State ideology” killed 15 people and injured dozens more at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney. Until now, Albanese had largely dismissed mounting pressure from the victims’ families as well as Jewish groups to launch a Royal Commission.
“I’ve listened, and in a democracy that’s a good thing. To listen to what people are saying and what people are saying is, yes, we’re concerned,” Albanese told reporters. Last month, Albanese also announced a review of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
In the government’s press release, it also pointed to its previous actions in the wake of the attack, which have included tightening gun ownership laws and introducing legislation to curb hate speech.
The president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Daniel Aghion, said that the Australian government had “made the right decision” in establishing the royal commission in a statement.
He added that the group expected the commission to “allow an honest examination of government policies and the conduct and policies of key institutions and figures in major sectors of our society in contributing or failing to adequately respond to the unprecedented levels of antisemitism in Australia over the past two years or more.”
He added, “This is the only way that Australia’s time-honoured standards of decency and fairness can be upheld.”
The inquiry will be led by former High Court judge Virginia Bell, whose appointment raised concerns among some Jewish leaders in Australia who pointed to her role in a ruling that was cited by the New South Wales Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a ban on a pro-Palestinian march in August, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The Prime Minister has been told directly by leaders of the Jewish community that they have serious concerns about this appointment,” said former treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a post on X. He did not elaborate on his opposition to Bell in the post.
Following the attack, Albanese also invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Australia. While the invitation was welcomed by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, some Labor party members and progressive Jewish groups called for Albanese to rescind his invitation.
The announcement of the inquiry comes as Gefen Bitton, an Israeli living in Australia who was critically injured while trying to confront the Bondi attackers alongside Ahmed al-Ahmed, was slated to be flown to Israel on Wednesday for continued medical treatment.
It also comes as al-Ahmed, a Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers, was feted in New York City by the Chabad movement, whose emissaries were holding the Hanukkah event and were among the dead. Al-Ahmed arrived in New York City on Tuesday where he visited the Ohel, the gravesite of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s late leader Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, before being honored at a gala recognizing defenders of the Jews.
“Ahmed did what he did that day because he believed that God placed him at the scene for a reason, and that’s what gave him the strength to save lives,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, whose son-in-law, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, was killed in the attack, told Chabad.org. “This is something people from all walks of life can and must learn from.”
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Trans screenwriter Our Lady J condemns anti-Zionism in LGBTQ spaces: ‘Zionism is not a dirty word’
(JTA) — Prominent transgender writer, actress and producer Our Lady J took aim at anti-Zionism within the LGBTQ community in a post on Instagram Tuesday.
“Until the LGBTQ community distances itself from all forms of antisemitism, including antizionism, our allies will continue to fall away, and we will remain defenseless in the face of attack,” wrote Our Lady J in the Instagram post.
The post, which at some point had its comments turned off, has ignited controversy in queer spaces, where anti-Israel sentiment has prevailed in recent years. “Check out Our Lady J’s Zionist page and unfollow them on Instagram,” wrote one user on X, while another referred to her as a “turncoat prick.”
Thousands of users also flooded the comment sections of posts from the LGBTQ magazine Them on Instagram and Facebook about her statement. “You can’t use trans rights etc to cover up a genocide,” wrote one user on Instagram.
In recent years, queer activism has grown increasingly aligned with anti-Zionist activism, a trend that has placed many Zionist Jews in the LGBTQ community at a crossroads. Over the summer, Pride celebrations were widely marred by debates over Israel. In Brooklyn, a Pride interfaith service was canceled allegedly over some groups’ opposition to the hosting synagogue’s “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.”
In December, the pro-Israel LGBTQ group A Wider Bridge shut down its operations amid financial strain. While not cited as a reason for its closure, the group also faced criticism from other LGBTQ groups for “pinkwashing,” a claim that efforts to highlight Israel’s record on LGBTQ rights are used to distract from or justify its policies towards Palestinians.
Our Lady J grew up in an evangelical Christian family and, around 2015, became the first trans writer to be hired in a television writers’ room for the hit TV show “Transparent,” which follows the story of a Jewish family in Los Angeles whose parent comes out as trans. The show’s fourth season, while filmed in Los Angeles, shows the family traveling to Israel.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTLV0AJCXLu/?img_index=1
In her post, Our Lady J claimed that “Zionists have always been at the core of LGBTQ progress,” citing prominent pro-Israel Jewish activists including Magnus Hirschfeld, Elizabeth Taylor, Larry Kramer and Eli Windsor.
“Zionism is not a dirty word. It is the belief in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Any definition of Zionism that aligns it with oppression or imperialism is a strategic attempt to undermine Jewish self-determination,” continued Our Lady J.
She concluded, “Not only does antizionism erode Jewish solidarity, it erases LGBTQ history, preventing us from understanding the foundation our own self-determination was built on.”
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