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Dave Chappelle isn’t the first to suggest that Jews run Hollywood. Here are the origins of the trope.
(JTA) – On “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Dave Chappelle really wanted his audience to know there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood.
“I’ve been to Hollywood, this is just what I saw,” he said during his widely dissected monologue. “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot.”
While suggesting that it might not be fair to say Jews run the industry, the comedian said that coming to that conclusion is “not a crazy thing to think.” Chappelle’s “SNL” episode drew a season-high 4.8 million viewers when it aired on NBC (eclipsing Jewish comedian Amy Schumer’s own hosting stint the week before), and his monologue had more than 8.1 million views on YouTube as of Wednesday.
The Anti-Defamation League was quick to denounce Chappelle’s act, calling it antisemitic. Other prominent Jews have followed suit.
“I was very disturbed to see him speaking, to millions of people, a lot of antisemitic tropes,” Pamela Nadell, a professor at American University who researches antisemitism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
But Chappelle, who was himself riffing on recent antisemitism controversies involving Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, wasn’t exactly breaking new ground by insinuating that Jews run Hollywood. The trope has been a part of show business since its earliest days — when, in a literal sense, Jews did run Hollywood. Or the studios, anyway.
Nearly every major movie studio was founded in the early 20th century by a group of first-generation secular Jews who immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. Carl Laemmle (Universal), Adolph Zukor (Paramount), William Fox (Fox), Louis B. Mayer (MGM), and Benjamin Warner (Warner) were all Jewish silver-screen pioneers, laying the groundwork for the size and scale of the industry to follow.
But the industry has diversified greatly in the century since, with studios largely swallowed up by corporate behemoths. And while individual Jews may be overrepresented in an industry that has long welcomed and rewarded them, the rhetorical danger, Nadell said, comes in conflating a large Jewish presence in an industry with ownership and control of that industry.
“Jews remain active in Hollywood in a variety of roles, but it would be impossible to say that they run Hollywood, that they own Hollywood,” she said.
“Whenever the Jews enter into any kind of position where they might have influence over people who are not Jewish, then all of a sudden it’s seen as some kind of conspiracy.”
Conspiracy theories dogged Jews in Hollywood from the industry’s beginning. Because so many Jews were in control in Hollywood in its early years, Joseph Breen, who for decades ran the industry’s Production Code office and tried to make movies palatable to Catholic morality groups, blamed “the Jews” for sneaking sex, violence and moral depravity into the movies.
But their rise to the top of the still-young motion picture industry wasn’t because they were a part of some secretive cabal; it’s because, historians say, Hollywood provided a low barrier to entry for enterprising businessmen, and was lacking the antisemitic guardrails of more established industries.
“There were no social barriers in a business as new and faintly disreputable as the movies were in the early years of [the 20th] century,” historian Neal Gabler writes in his landmark 1988 book “An Empire Of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood.”
In the book, Gabler notes that the movie business, which evolved out of other professions like vaudeville and the garment industry where Jews had already found a toehold, lacked “the impediments imposed by loftier professions and more firmly entrenched businesses to keep Jews and other undesirables out.”
As such, Jews (particularly recent immigrants) were able to thrive in show business in a way they couldn’t in most other industries. Once they were in, family ties or the general phenomenon of affinity groups often led to them elevating other Jews in the industry: For example, prolific Jewish producer David O. Selznick, whose credits include “Gone With The Wind,” “Rebecca” and a huge string of other hits in the 1930s and ’40s, spent many years at MGM, run by his father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer.
Areas like the film, garment and publishing industries were attractive to Jews, Nadell said, “because there were so many other sectors of the economy where they were barred from.”
But in exchange, Hollywood’s prominent Jews had to effectively extinguish their Jewishness.
Yearning to assimilate into American society, the Jews who ran these studios were beset on all sides by antisemitic invective — first from Christian groups like the Legion of Decency, then by anti-Communist groups, both of whom accused Hollywood’s Jews of conspiring to undermine American society with their loose morals.
As such, the Jewish studio heads largely refrained from making any movies about Jewish themes, or snuffing out antisemitic content even within their own films, or otherwise exerting their influence in any obviously Jewish way, even as many of the Golden Era of Hollywood’s most acclaimed writers and directors (Herman Mankiewicz, Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor, Billy Wilder) were also Jewish. “Gentleman’s Agreement,” the landmark 1947 film about antisemitism, didn’t have any Jewish producers, directors or major stars (though some of its credited writers were Jewish).
Famously, Hollywood’s Jews also went out of their way to avoid offending Hitler during the Nazi era, continuing to do business with Germany and largely avoiding featuring Nazis as villains in the prewar years.
Director Steven Spielberg speaks at the Academy Awards in Hollywood, Feb. 9, 2020. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
With the demise of the studio system in the 1960s, Jewish creatives ranging from Mel Brooks to Steven Spielberg to Natalie Portman no longer had to hide their identity from audiences, but instead made it an essential part of their public personas. Earlier this week, in a New York Times interview, Spielberg acknowledged that Hollywood was a welcoming place for Jews when he arrived as a young filmmaker.
“Being Jewish in America is not the same as being Jewish in Hollywood,” he said while promoting “The Fabelmans,” a loose retelling of his own Jewish upbringing. “Being Jewish in Hollywood is like wanting to be in the popular circle and immediately being accepted as I have been in that circle, by a lot of diversity but also by a lot of people who in fact are Jewish.”
Still, such ethnic affinity has often been deemed conspiratorial. “Hollywood is run by Jews” and “owned by Jews,” Marlon Brando declared in a 1996 interview with Larry King, further claiming that Jewish studio executives prevented antisemitic stereotypes from being depicted on screen while allowing stereotypes of every other minority group “because that’s where you circle the wagons around.”
(Despite this outburst, which prompted intense backlash from Jewish groups, Brando was known for having close relationships with Jews and demonstrating a strong understanding of Jewish theology and culture throughout his life, and apparently spoke Yiddish quite well.)
This general air of suspicion around Jews in show business has continued into the modern day, as evidenced by Chappelle and West’s comments. In the tweets that precipitated the collapse of his businesses, West singled out Jewish producers and managers in the entertainment industry he had affiliations with, echoing how believers in antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control tend to fixate on Jews in leadership positions outside of the public eye.
Attorney Allen Grubman, left, and rocker John Mellencamp speak onstage during the 37th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Los Angeles, Nov. 5, 2022. (Amy Sussman/WireImage)
Ignoring the many industry leaders who are not Jewish, such conspiracy theorists tend to focus on the successful managers and lawyers in Hollywood who are, including Jeremy Zimmer, Ari Emanuel, Allen Grubman — and Harvey Weinstein, whose decades of sexual abuse, scorched-earth targeting of his accusers and eventual downfall are the subject of the new movie “She Said.”
And in a similar fashion to Brando, Chappelle suggested that there is a double standard in talking about ethnic groups, with jokes about Jews being seen as taboo in a way that jokes about Black people and other groups are not: “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
At the same time as Jews in and out of the industry are fighting such perceptions, they are also pushing for greater visibility. The unveiling of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles last year almost entirely omitted Jews from Hollywood’s founding narrative, leading to backlash from Jews in the industry and, ultimately, the guarantee of a new permanent exhibition space focusing on Jews.
And there was one other way in which the Chappelle episode hearkened back to the age-old dynamics of the relationship between Jews and Hollywood: “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels, who presumably allowed the monologue on the air, is Jewish.
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The post Dave Chappelle isn’t the first to suggest that Jews run Hollywood. Here are the origins of the trope. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Eleven Arrested Amid Heavy UK Police Presence at Soccer Match Between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa
Soccer Football – UEFA Europa League – Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv – Villa Park, Birmingham, Britain – Nov. 6, 2025, Aston Villa’s Ian Maatsen scores their first goal. Photo: Action Images via Reuters
British police said 11 men were arrested during protests outside Maccabi Tel Aviv’s UEFA Europa League game on Thursday night against Aston Villa in the United Kingdom, a match in which the Israeli team lost and also had its fans banned from attending.
West Midlands Police said a 63-year-old man was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offense after he was heard shouting a racist remark during a road rage incident near Villa Park, the arena where the match was taking place. A 21-year-old man was arrested for failing to comply with an order to remove a face mask, and a 17-year-old boy was arrested for failing to comply with a dispersal order.
Three other people were arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offenses, including a 34-year-old and 29-year-old who both shouted abuse toward pro-Israel demonstrators. The latter was also arrested for possession of an illegal drug, and a 67-year-old was arrested for shouting racist abuse at a police officer.
A 32-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense after shouting racist abuse toward a pro-Palestinian group. Meanwhile, a 21-year-old man was arrested after trying to throw fireworks on the ground, and another was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply drugs.
West Midlands Police maintained a “high-visibility police presence” around Villa Park throughout the night, the police department said. Roughly 700 officers were dispatched to keep order outside the arena amid planned protests by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups. There were also police horses, police dogs, a drone unit, roads policing unit, and protest liaison officers.
“This has definitely been one of the most contentious and controversial matches we’ve hosted for some time, but our priority, really clearly, is public safety,” said Birmingham Police Commander and Chief Superintendent Tom Joyce. “It’s about protecting the communities that live in and around Aston Villa, and reassuring those communities who are potentially affected by the match tonight.”
Aston Villa beat Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-0 in the league phase match taking place at Villa Park, which located in the city of Birmingham in central England. At the end of the match, lines of police officers made sure soccer fans leaving the stadium were separated from the anti-Israel protesters who remained outside the area and there were no confrontations, according to The Independent. Police officers also pushed back protestors outside Villa Park during the game.
Before the start of the game, hundreds attended a protest outside of Villa Park, organized by the group Palestine Solidarity Campaign, to demand Israel be excluded from all international soccer competitions. Attendees held signs with anti-Israel messages and Palestinian flags, and chanted “Free, free Palestine.” A smaller counter-protest took place in solidarity with the Israeli club and its fans, who had been banned from attending the game.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fan and Arab-Christian activist Yoseph Haddad traveled from Israel to express support for Maccabi Tel Aviv at the venue and protest the ban against the club’s supporters.
“You have a problem with us and not the fact that people cannot come to Britain and watch a football game because you have extremists here who don’t want certain people to be here? You should check yourself,” he said in a video shared on X. “We’re not in Nazi Germany. This is not the 1940s. And I promise you we will not be silent. We will be here, and show the truth of the Israeli society, and we will scream it and shout it as loud as possible. Stop the hate.”
I’m here in Birmingham outside Aston Villa’s stadium standing proudly.
Because we have nothing to be ashamed of and no reason to be afraid – it’s the terror supporters who need to hide, not us! pic.twitter.com/lzs3C6fW8l— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) November 6, 2025
The ban against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was imposed by Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group and police, which deemed the match as “high risk” and said the ban was necessary “to mitigate risks to public safety.” Government officials in Israel and the UK, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, condemned the decision. The UK government said it was taking steps to try to reverse the move, but Maccabi Tel Aviv then announced it would decline to accept any allocated tickets for its fans due to its own safety concerns.
Joyce told Sky News that “significant levels of hooliganism” among Maccabi Tel Aviv fans is the reason they were banned from Thursday’s match.
“We are simply trying to make decisions based on community safety, driven by the intelligence that was available to us and our assessment of the risk that was coming from admitting traveling fans,” Joyce said ahead of the match. “I’m aware there’s a lot of commentary around the threat to the [Maccabi] fans being the reason for the decision. To be clear, that was not the primary driver. That was a consideration. We have intelligence and information that says that there is a section of Maccabi fans, not all Maccabi fans, but a section who engage in quite significant levels of hooliganism.”
Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Chief Executive Jack Angelide criticized the “blatant falsehoods” about the club’s supporters.
“We have not been given a clear reason,” he told Sky News. “I have seen people coming up with all sorts of stories about our fans, especially in Amsterdam, where there was, what the Amsterdam authorities themselves classified as “a Jew hunt,” being portrayed as organized fighters, soldiers, etc., etc. It’s just blatant falsehoods, and people who say those things know that they’re false and shame on them.”
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Could poetry revive Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy among young American Jews?
Perhaps the most enduring phrase from the period following Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, 30 years ago this week, was then-President Bill Clinton’s valediction for his slain friend: “Shalom, haver” — goodbye, friend. It exemplified not just the genuine kinship between Clinton and Rabin, one amiable and telegenic, the other awkward and camera-shy, but also the ironclad bond between Israel and the United States.
Today, however, the so-called special relationship is under considerable duress — not least because generations of younger American Jews are increasingly suspicious of Zionism. And Rabin? He’s at risk of being forgotten altogether in the US, said Barak Sella, editor of Class of 95, a new English translation of an Israeli poetry anthology about Rabin’s murder and legacy.
Sella, who was born in Texas but came to Israel in 1994 when he was 10, was part of a generation of Israeli schoolchildren for whom Rabin’s death in November 1995 loomed impossibly large. “It was my moment of political awakening,” he said. “The first event I went to at my youth movement was a Rabin memorial ceremony. So for me, the assassination ran parallel to my socialization into Israeli society.”
In 2013, Dror L’Nefesh, the printing press of the Habonim Dror Youth movement to which Sella belonged — he was by this point also a well-established activist and community organizer — published the anthology in Hebrew under the title ‘Machzor 95’. Its publication was something of a happy accident: The movement had wanted to do something literary to mark the 18th anniversary of Rabin’s passing, Sella recalled, “but we couldn’t find any poetry or literature about it — only op-eds and articles.” When they put out an open call for contributors, the response was so overwhelming they had enough material to produce Israel’s first poetry anthology dedicated to Rabin’s passing.
The title, Machzor 95, was a pun of sorts, for in Hebrew Machzor has both a colloquial meaning — class, or generation — and a liturgical one: a Machzor is a prayer book for Jewish holidays. The aim was “to create a tradition of memory that was cyclical,” Sella said, “to create an artifact you can return to year after year.”
By 2022, when a second Hebrew-language edition was published, Sella was already toying with the idea of putting together an English version, as he’d always seen Rabin’s assassination “not as an Israeli event, but as a Jewish event.” Indeed, in 1995, much of American Jewry had mourned Rabin intensely. “It was everything American Jews talked about,” Sella said. “One of the largest ever Jewish gatherings was for Rabin’s shloshim in Madison Square Garden.” (On Dec. 11, 1995, a crowd of more than 15,000 packed the New York arena to mark thirty days, shloshim in Hebrew, since Rabin’s death.)
But Rabin’s legacy faded from view, Sella believed, because Israel itself could not agree on what he represented. “Israel is still so deeply divided about this,” he said. “So it’s very hard to expect American Jews to create some kind of shared culture around Rabin’s memory.”
That’s where the translated anthology comes in, which Sella hopes will serve “as an education tool,” something “teachers and rabbis who want to talk to their community about the assassination can pick up, choose a poem or two, and invite people into a conversation.”
The anthology is at once a guide to the assassination and a window into how Israeli society responded. One poem, Shachar-Mario Mordechai’s ‘Before the Government of Israel Announces With Astonishment’, invokes the official announcement of Rabin’s death. Another, ‘Blank’, by Raanan Ben Tovim, explores the claim, never substantiated, that immediately after the shots rang out somebody shouted “srak, srak” (in English, blank) a phrase that, among Israelis, has become a shorthand for Rabin’s murder — and has fueled conspiracy theories ever since.
Sella’s vision for the anthology is decidedly long-term. “This translation is not only for the thirty-year anniversary,” he said. “I’m thinking about, you know, in 50 years, in 100 years, what are the artifacts of our time that will assist not only the current generation, but also future ones, to build a story, to understand, and to reflect?”
The translation is therefore aimed especially at younger American Jews. “The people who will carry this memory forward are not going to be those who were at the square,” Sella said. He still firmly believes Rabin can be a “symbol for overcoming our differences, for shared destiny and democracy.” In short, American Jews would do well to recall not simply that Yitzhak Rabin was killed, but, no less important, the ideals he died for.
The post Could poetry revive Yitzhak Rabin’s legacy among young American Jews? appeared first on The Forward.
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Hundreds Attend Elie Tahari Runway Show in Miami Honoring Female IDF Soldiers, Hosted at Catholic University
Elie Tahari, right, with wounded IDF solider Dvorah Lea Bart. Photo: Provided
Eight hundred people attended a fashion show on Thursday night in Miami by renowned Israeli fashion designer Elie Tahari that honored female soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and supported Tahari’s new initiative to provide clothing for wounded IDF veterans.
The runway show highlighted 40-50 garments from Tahari’s Fall 2026 collection, assembled into a new collection for the event titled “Threads of Valor.” Its name draws inspiration from a chapter in the Book of Proverbs called Eshet Chayil (“Women of Valor”), which praises a woman as the matriarch of her family and household, and is traditionally sung by a husband on Friday night before the start of the Shabbat meal. “Eshet Chayil” includes lines that talk about a woman making and selling garments.
“Tonight has been the best night of my life,” Tahari said on stage at the runway show. “I’m very proud to be a part of this. Anything I can do for the soldiers — they are my heroes; they are always going to be my heroes. And it makes me feel happy.”
The Israeli-born fashion designer immigrated to New York in 1971 with less than $100 and built a billion-dollar fashion empire that has been successful for over 50 years. Since the Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, he has been passionate about supporting IDF veterans, with 100 percent of his e-commerce going directly to help female IDF soldiers.
Thursday’s runway show took place at St. Thomas University (STU), a Catholic school. It was co-organized by Ashlee Rzyczycki, director of STU’s Fashion Merchandising and Design program, as well as Tobi Rubinstein, who serves on the school’s fashion advisory committee and had a career in fashion for the last 45 years. The show was also organized in collaboration with Yedidim – an organization that assists IDF veterans — and Soireee Events.
The runway show was divided into different segments and each revolved around a different theme – including resilience, command, power, freedom, confidence, and sacrifice – that related to the journey and stories of the IDF soldiers honored at the event. Students in STU’s fashion design program collaborated in picking garments by Tahari that would be featured in the runway show, in line with the chosen themes, but students also helped create the lineup and worked behind the scenes at Thursday night’s event.
“It’s an interfaith collaboration. We are a Catholic school, but we can have conversations about faith. It’s been such an amazing learning opportunity for my students,” Rzyczycki told The Algemeiner. “The fashion show is taking audience members on this journey that these women have gone through, when they are in the army, and what they experience from that. It’s kind of a visual, artistic interpretation of that sacrifice … of what they do and incorporating how fashion can be part of that story and narrative.”
“It’s like bringing New York Fashon Week together with a charity event, blending it together and putting it in a major fashion school,” added Rubinstein, who is also a best-selling author and founder of the House of Faith and Fashion movement. “It’s really quite something, and the irony of it being in a Catholic fashion school that is so pro-Israel just makes it all the most delicious.”
Among the models who walked the runway on Thursday night were IDF soldiers, Jewish STU students, influencers, and pro-Israel activists, including former UC Santa Barbara Student Body President Tessa Veksler, who was featured in the “Blind Spot” documentary; Lawfare Project founder Brooke Goldstein; and artist, designer, and entrepreneur Elizabeth Sutton.
“It was an immense privilege to walk the runway for such a monumental fashion moment in support of Israel — alongside legendary women who have fought for Israel not only on the frontlines of the war itself, but also on the frontlines of the global war against antisemitism. It was humbling,” Sutton told The Algemeiner. “To witness a fashion icon like Elie Tahari commit such bold philanthropy — pledging all e-commerce sales in perpetuity to wounded soldiers — was profoundly inspiring, and reaffirmed my own goals as a Jewish businesswoman, leader, and designer.”
Proceeds from Thursday night’s event when directly to supporting female IDF veterans through Tahari’s new initiative Project Wardrobe, which provides wounded female IDF veterans with clothing so they can feel empowered while acclimating back into society after they finish their army service. As part of the initiative, launched in collaboration with Yedidim and Soiree Events, Tahari gives a clothing allowance to soldiers each month and he covers the cost of shipping, delivery, taxes, and other fees for the garments.
“It’s about giving the wounded soldier a sense of self-esteem and self-worth through clothing,” Rubinstein said of Project Wardrobe. “Clothing is so much more than just what I wear. It can heal you. It can rehabilitate you and give you the strength to move forward.”
“To me Elie’s clothing is like a suit of armor,” added Rzyczycki. “It demonstrates power and showing that you can be confident and powerful in what you wear. And all of the clothing that Elie has, his designs, has always been focused on that. He is a really powerful beacon to demonstrate how clothing can provide power to women.”
Rzyczycki also talked to The Algemeiner about the decision to have STU host the fashion show and collaborate in efforts to support Israeli soldiers.
“It’s all about educating my students on the power that fashion can have … For me, as an educator I think it’s important for me to tell my students about doing things that are bigger than ourselves,” she explained. “I think it’s really important for my students to be able to understand some of the philanthropic efforts that go into fashion. And this event really embodies that – being able to give back and also do things that have a bigger purpose revolving around fashion.”
“Fashion can be a unifier for all religions, all different ways of life, to be able to provide education and camaraderie,” she added. “I think we’re teaching our students valuable lessons on the power that fashion can have in that language and delivering that to people.”
A day before the runway show, Tahari and Rubenstein hosted a fashion masterclass for STU students in the fashion merchandising and design program, where the designer discussed the fashion business but also the combination of faith and fashion.
See below photos from Tahari’s “Threads of Valor” fashion show.
Photo: Threads of Valor
Photo: Threads of Valor
Photo: Threads of Valor
Photo: Threads of Valor
Photo: Threads of Valor