Features
Seeking gangsters, must speak Yiddish: Bringing the Hasidic underworld to life in ‘Caught Stealing’
By PJ Grisar September 3, 2025
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
A duo of burly, gun-toting Hasidic gangsters and their doting bubbe are the breakout characters in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing — at least, for figures not of the feline variety. To bring them to life, the film had a secret weapon: a Yiddish whisperer.
Motl Didner, program director for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, first heard rumblings of the crime caper through a casting notice seeking Yiddish-speaking actors. He didn’t know the notice was for an Aronofsky film, but he passed the details along to members of the company, and even sent in a self-tape to be considered for a role.
Later, the production got in touch to use him as a Yiddish coach.
“That’s when I found out who exactly it was that I lost out to,” Didner said in a phone interview. “I don’t feel so bad about losing out to, like, Liev Schreiber.”
Didner worked with Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio and Carol Kane — respectively playing a pair of frightening drug lords and their grandmother — settling on a Hungarian dialect for their dialogue, and even rewriting some of their Yiddish lines. (The dynasty to which the brothers belong is never specified, but their scenes with Kane were filmed on location at a Lubavitcher household in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.)
The duo show up as a threat to the film’s protagonist, Hank (Austin Butler), who finds himself caught in the middle of their quest to recover piles of money from other ethnic gangs in 1998 New York City.
Kane, Didner said, took naturally to the mamaloshen. While she isn’t conversational in Yiddish in real life, her breakout role was as a Yiddish-speaking immigrant in Hester Street, and she more recently had Yiddish scenes in the Amazon Prime show Hunters.
Schreiber, for his part, sang Yiddish songs growing up, and “had an ear for it,” Didner said.
D’Onofrio, who isn’t Jewish, was “really kind of thrown deep into the Jewish world,” Didner said, but was very meticulous in getting his “meshugenahs” on point. Crucially, he nails the pronunciation of his beloved bubbe’s title: For native Yiddish speakers, it sounds more like “boh-beh” than “bubbie.”
Didner was on set for the scene in which Butler’s Hank slurps a bowl of matzo ball soup with the brothers. Somehow, word spread that the Oscar winner was shooting in the neighborhood, something of a novelty for the Hasidic enclave. Evidently the heartthrob has a young Chabad fan base.
“When filming wrapped at the end of the day, there were a couple hundred teenage girls waiting to get a glimpse of Austin Butler,” Didner recalled. It was like the reception of the Beatles or, better yet, Elvis.
Didner wasn’t the only dialect coach for D’Onofrio and Schreiber; they had a separate one for English.
“Darren Aronofsky was very specific,” Didner said of “the boys” — how Aronofsky referred to the characters. “He didn’t want them to speak English with a Yiddish accent.”
Instead, they speak with Hank in a measured, yet still menacing, American aksent. It’s when they discuss how to handle him — and whether he deserves to be roughed up — that they revert to Yiddish.
There were also separate consultants, Didner said, to make sure the customs included in a bustling pre-Shabbat sequence at Bubbe’s house were authentic.
Didner saw the film over the weekend, and was happy to see diverse languages included in it.
“There’s also Spanish and Russian in there,” Didner said, adding he hopes that linguistic richness is “part of an increasing trend that people are looking for that sort of authenticity.”
PJ Grisar is a Forward culture reporter. He can be reached at grisar@forward.com and @pjgrisar on Twitter.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
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Features
Musings from Dizengoff Street – by Bruce Brown
(August 8, 2026)
Outside Basimta Café in Central Jerusalem. Love the red shirt against a tiny sea of black. Not sure I am shrugging because of the ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat or the lack of an ultra-orthodox uproar over a Jerusalem café operating on Shabbat. For the last six weeks Israeli headlines shouted about the cafe chaos. With the ultra-religious blocking entrances and storming the café. While shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Upsetting the secular amongst us just wanting to enjoy our Saturday iced matchas. So the wife and I thought we would check it out. And. Yes. Buy something to support the business. Uproar. Not. Blocked entrances. Not. Storming the café. Not. Albeit there were police barriers separating the devout protesters from the coffee drinkers. The protesters being just a few dozen black clad, pious Jews. Mostly teenagers. And yes. Shouting ‘Shabbos! Shabbos!’ Certainly underwhelming in its reported mayhem. Reminds me of the famous saying misattributed to Mark Twain – “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do, you’re misinformed.” But I did enjoy my iced matcha.
(August 6, 2026)
Here we go again. Another round of forever negotiations. As someone who negotiates for a living. The way things are going in the straits. If I had to recommend a book on the subject to a new hire. Between The Art of the Deal, A Presidential Edition by Donald J. Trump or The Real Art of the Deal by the Mullahs of Iran with a special forward by the IRGC. Well. I would choose the latter.
(August 3)
Bravo Yoav Segalovitz, Liberal Yesh Atid MK and Monsour Abbas, United Arab Ra’am MK and party head. For breaking a glass ceiling where a Jewish lawmaker joins an Arab political party. No less a political earthquake in my little shtetl. Which can significantly impact coalition block arithmetic and posturing and strategy in the upcoming elections. Now Ra’am can be considered a legitimate ‘Zionist’ partner when forming coalition blocks and potentially pushing the ‘center left/right’ party over the 60 seat majority threshold. In our crazy parliamentary democracy defined by a multi-party (about fourteen!!), proportional representation system. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Israel’s proportional representation model of governance is the best parliamentary democracy system except for all other forms of working democracies. Stay tuned for more amateurish political musings as we move towards Israel’s 26th national election – five of them held since 2019.
(August 1)
Although both sides say they are open to diplomacy. Neither really trusts the other. And American military action, or its threat, continues. I read headlines in the middle of the night -it’s a nervous habit lately– that the Dynamic Duo of Trump and Netanyahu may again strike in unison. Possibly this weekend. Yikes! Prompting me, at 2:30 AM, to dash around the house stocking my safe room. Bottled water. Canned food. Medicines. Documents. The beat goes on….
If it’s crazy here. It’s insane in Italy. With a recent online ‘Jew Hunt’ in the Milan area. Before being removed, the digital forms urged reportings of Israelis and Italian Jews staying in local hotels. The infamous Global Sumud Movement -yes, the one coordinating ‘peace and humanitarian’ flotillas to Gaza- was somehow connected. Although they deny involvement?! This deranged decree was looking to identify Zionist tourism and Zionist neo-colonization in Italy. I’ll stick with stocking the saferoom.
Then there’s New York Mayor Mamdani, a Global Sumud Movement supporter, threatening to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu if he comes to New York. But since discovered he has no legal right for such a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic antic. Maybe Mandami should be arrested! Or at least impeached. For being a grandstanding, antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-Western, anti-democratic mayor.
Here’s a post Bruce sent us Friday, July 31:
WARTIME MUSINGS
Should credible threats against FLOTUS and ‘FSOTUS’ (first son..) not be justification to attack first.
As for yesterday’s summit. Netanyahu really can’t win. Explainer. If Trump now attacks without victory its ’cause of Netanyahu. If Trump now attacks with victory its ’cause of Trump. And, in Israel, if Trump doesn’t attack -victory or not- Netanyahu failed in his eighth meeting with Trump. And if Trump does attack -victory or not- half the country will vilify Bibi anyway. Missing a permutation?
Ya. I know. Kinda’ need a definition of victory for that musing to work.
And here in my little shtetle. We go to sleep unsure if there will be a code red in the middle of the night. And if not. We wake up thinking it will be tonight. How do you define stress?
Seemed like an appropriate way to end this musing.
Bruce Brown is a former Winnipegger who made aliyah to Israel over 35 years ago. Bruce first began writing for us – in his own inimitable style, in 2012, during what was known as “Operation Pillar of Defense.” His occasional musings on aspects of life in Israel that were far from what you’d typically read in other reports from Israel were hugely popular – both in the print Jewish Post & News and on this website.
We’re now glad to report that Bruce is back writing for us – this time on a regular basis. We will post Bruce’s reports as they arrive – with the date of each post at the beginning of that post.
Here’s some information about Bruce – and awards he’s received for his writing:
Bruce Brown. Canadian born. Now living in Israel (for a long time). Bruce works in Israel’s hi-tech sector by day and, in spurts, is a somewhat inspired writer by night. He received the American Jewish Press Association’s award for writing excellence in 2019 and 2025. And wrote the 1998 satire, “An Israeli is….” Bruce’s musings are political, social, economic and personal. With lots of biting, contrarian, sardonic and irreverent insight.
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