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From Mel Brooks to Elaine May to Ethan Coen: Producer Julian Schlossberg writes memoir about working with Jewish stars over 6 decades
(JTA) — On a couple of occasions in Julian Schlossberg’s early life, he found himself in parts of the United States where some people he talked to had never met a Jewish person. The first was a stint in the Army, the second was while selling movies to rural television stations.
But over the next six decades — once Schlossberg embarked on a long and successful career that included stops as a Hollywood studio executive with Paramount Pictures and later as a prolific distributor of movies and producer of off-Broadway and Broadway shows — he was rarely the only Jew in the room ever again.
Schlossberg tells those stories and many more in his new memoir “Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life” (Beaufort Books). He writes about how he went from a child in the Bronx to an influential show business figure who mingled and worked with countless movie stars, having enjoyed a long career that shows no signs of being over at age 81.
Schlossberg was born in 1941, and grew up in what he describes as a middle class family, in a Bronx neighborhood that at the time was heavily Jewish and Irish. His father Louis played semi-pro baseball, but as Schlossberg writes in the book, turned down the chance to play for a team in Kansas City in part because “there were almost no Jews in baseball.” Instead, Louis spent most of his professional life working in Manhattan’s Garment District.
The family lived near the Kingsbridge Armory, then likely the largest of its kind in the world, which hosted conventions, car shows and rodeos that came through the city at the time. Those rodeos, in fact, were Schlossberg’s introduction to showbiz.
“I would go as a kid and just revel in the fact that I was meeting these incredible stars,” he said.
Schlossberg with Jewish star Michael Douglas. (Courtesy of Julian Schlossberg)
Meeting stars would eventually become commonplace. Before and after his time in the Army in the early 1960s, Schlossberg worked as a cab driver, a busboy, a waiter, a counselor, a typist and more while taking college classes at night. He got a job at the ABC in 1964 and worked his way up the company’s ranks.
“I had decided, as a very young man, that since I didn’t have a law degree or a dental degree or a medical degree, I was going to learn every aspect of show business that I could,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was going to do, but I knew that knowledge was power, and that if I had knowledge, maybe I’d get some power.”
He would live out that goal, working in just about every area of entertainment, from radio to movie distribution to theater producing. (He goes back and forth on which one he likes best.)
In the 1970s, he hosted an AM radio show called “Movie Talk,” for which he interviewed hundreds of movie stars. WMCA station executives wanted Schlossberg to use a different stage name, to sound less Jewish.
“They didn’t want it to be ‘a Jewish name,’ and I said ‘Wait a second — if I’m going to be on the air in New York City, I can’t be a Jew?’ So they gave in, and I kept my name,” he said. “You kind of want to remember the times you did stand up, I guess. Not that it was a giant standing up, but I would have not done the show if they had asked me to change my name, because it made no sense to me.”
Speaking of Jews, Schlossberg has worked with a virtual who’s-who of famous Jewish entertainers over the years, from Neil Simon to Lillian Hellman to Sid Caesar to Mike Nichols to Peter Falk to Ethan Coen. And the ones he didn’t work with, he hung out with socially. Barbra Streisand invited him to a famous birthday party (that ended up taking place at Liza Minnelli’s house), and Mel Brooks has always greeted him as “Schloss Berg,” as if his name were two words.
Schlossberg with Barbra Streisand, right, and Merryn Jose. (Courtesy of Julian Schlossberg)
Schlossberg’s film production credits range from the 1994 British mystery “Widows’ Peak,” starring Natasha Richardson and Mia Farrow; to the 1980 “No Nukes” documentary that filmed an anti-nuclear weapons concert with the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne; to a revival of the long-buried version of Orson Welles’ “Othello.”
In 1995, Schlossberg worked with three prominent Jews on one off-Broadway production: a set of one-act plays performed together each night, called “Death Defying Acts,” written by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May. Schlossberg later produced the Broadway adaptation of Allen’s movie “Bullets Over Broadway,” while May, whom Schlossberg likens to a sister, contributed the forward to his book.
“Elaine is, as I’ve written, the smartest person I’ve ever met, and probably one of the most talented if not the most talented, because there is nothing that she cannot do,” Schlossberg said of the now 90-year-old Oscar, Tony and Grammy winner. “She’s a great actress, she’s a great writer, and she’s a great director. And she’s a hell of a friend.”
At one point in his career, as he details in one chapter, Schlossberg crossed paths with another Jewish producer: Harvey Weinstein. When Weinstein was young, the now-disgraced serial sexual harasser approached Schlossberg and asked him to teach him the movie business. The two men worked together for a time, although eventually they fell out.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought he would hit the heights that he hit, or the depths that he sunk to. Never,” Schlossberg said.
Another of Schlossberg’s mentoring experiences ended on a more positive note. Mark S. Golub, a rabbi, came to Schlossberg for advice in the late 1990s on learning the theater business. Golub, who died late last month at 77, went on to become a prolific Broadway producer and the founding president of the Jewish Broadcasting Service channel.
It was a fruitful partnership: Golub learned about the industry, and Schlossberg absorbed lessons about Judaism.
“It was a very interesting combination, of somebody who certainly knew a great deal about Judaism, and myself, who was learning a lot by that time about [Judaism],” Schlossberg said. “It was interesting to me to be partners with a rabbi.”
Schlossberg had several projects set to go at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but when the industry shut down, he wrote his memoir instead. Now he’s looking to rev up some of those projects. Next up on the docket is “Tales From the Guttenberg Bible,” an autobiographical, four-character play written by and starring the Jewish actor Steve Guttenberg. It is now set for its world premiere in April, at the George Street Playhouse in Rutherford, New Jersey.
“I think audiences will respond to it, because he’s so kind and personable and living… a nice Jewish boy,” Schlossberg said of Guttenberg.
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The post From Mel Brooks to Elaine May to Ethan Coen: Producer Julian Schlossberg writes memoir about working with Jewish stars over 6 decades appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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At the Vatican, two elderly men — one Jewish, one Catholic — exchange gifts and mutual admiration
On Wednesday, two senior citizens, Robert Zimmerman, 85, a Jew originally from Minnesota, and Robert Prevost, 71, a Catholic of Chicago, had a brief meeting at the younger man’s office in central Italy.
Sources on the scene report that Zimmerman was in town for business and Prevost, who goes professionally by Leo, had recently cited Zimmerman’s work in the preface to a book about nuclear disarmament.
Both men dressed in uniform, looking a bit Spy Vs. Spy, with Zimmerman in a black hoodie and Prevost in white with a small white skull cap. The confab was brief, a bulletin from Prevost’s workplace reported, consisting of “greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges.”
Prevost gifted Zimmerman with prayer beads, and Zimmerman presented Prevost with a copy of his memoir, published under his pen name, Bob Dylan.
While Zimmerman was raised in a Jewish home, he had, for a time in the late 1970s to early 1980s, converted to born-again Christianity, confounding many.
The post At the Vatican, two elderly men — one Jewish, one Catholic — exchange gifts and mutual admiration appeared first on The Forward.
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The Michigan Senate race showed the exact wrong ways to fight antisemitism
The campaign against Abdul El-Sayed was example after example of how not to fight antisemitism—a display of conflation, double standards, and bigotry that we need to learn from and reject if we hope to ensure Jewish safety and security in a pluralistic society.
El-Sayed won his election Tuesday with 52.5% of the vote. He won despite an ugly campaign that alleged that he was not only critical of Israel but antisemitic, and that he does not care about or consider Jewish safety, and in which he was repeatedly asked to prove his sincerity on Jewish safety while also being attacked for running for office while being Muslim.
El-Sayed is not above criticism and questions from Jews just because he is a Democrat and most Jews vote for Democrats. It is right and appropriate that Senate candidates have to answer questions about antisemitism. El-Sayed did campaign with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker in the primary, and Piker did liken Zionists to Nazis, and many Jews in Michigan and elsewhere are Zionists; it is appropriate for El-Sayed to be asked about that.
It is also fair for a candidate who is vocal in his criticism of Israel to be asked how he’ll work to ensure the safety of his Jewish constituents, since we know that there is at least a correlation between anger at Israel and violence directed toward Jews. After West Bloomfield, Michigan’s own Temple Israel was attacked, El-Sayed did say, “hurt people hurt people,” and though he was referring to a specific event—the perpetrator’s family was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Lebanon—it is understandable that he was called upon to explain his own remarks to upset Jewish families in his state, whom he is also charged with representing in Congress.
From this point, however, the campaign against El-Sayed developed in several ways.
For one thing, when critics make demands of politicians, they need to actually allow those politicians to meet them. Yet despite distancing himself from Hasan Piker (“a Twitch streamer,” as he repeated to reporters), speaking repeatedly about how and why he took the safety of Jewish Michiganders seriously, and apologizing at length for his “hurt people hurt people” comment, El-Sayed was treated in the media and by his political opponents (and by some Democrats) as suspect and insincere.
These same questions were not asked of his opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, whose student outreach team included someone who defended a Young Republicans group chat praising Hitler.
If El-Sayed had to speak repeatedly about Piker, why did Rogers not have to answer whether he accepted the view of the U.S. president—who like Piker, joined his preferred candidate on the campaign trail—that any Jew who voted for El-Sayed was crazy and should be ashamed of themselves? (This was not a one-off missive, but the latest in the long line of Trump comments insisting on American Jewish responsibility to be loyal to Israel by voting for him, Donald Trump.)
Why wasn’t Rogers grilled on what he made of comments by Ohio’s U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno implying that senators should have to believe in Jesus, a remark that if rendered policy would impact El-Sayed and also, say, every Jew in public office?
The discrepancy suggests that reporters, pundits, politicians, and Jewish leaders do not take antisemitism seriously from all corners, and in fact that they consider it worse and more suspect from a Muslim American who criticizes Israel than a Republican who doesn’t.
Worse, still, is that that Republicans trafficked in vile anti-Muslim hate throughout the campaign. Rozina Ali, author of Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America, wrote on X on Tuesday, “Islamophobia appears to be on the ballot in Michigan, in an unprecedented way.” These tropes weren’t new, Ali explained, but they were at a fever pitch this election, with El-Sayed dubbed a “jihadist leprechaun” by a sitting Senator. The vice president of the United States said El-Sayed has “zero attachment to this land.”
Too often, Jewish leaders and institutions met this rhetoric with silence, or even encouragement. As I argued last week, dual loyalty narratives against one population just make the voting public more comfortable with the trope being used against other groups, including Jews. Moreover: Silence is not going to build solidarity from non-Jews, and Jews — just 1.4% of voters in Michigan and two percent of this country — are not going to fight antisemitism on our own.
Finally and troublingly was the willingness of El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Haley Stevens, to claim that it was Jewish safety that motivated her public questioning of El-Sayed (notably over an ad that his campaign did not put out) and her eventual flip to campaigning and voting for Rogers. Stevens is a staunch supporter of Israel and was backed by AIPAC. However, she is not Jewish (though she said she is considering converting), and yet spoke repeatedly as if she had authority on what Jewish voters in Michigan wanted to hear from El-Sayed. But she was not an emissary from Jewish voters, who are not a monolith — and 60 percent of whom, per one exit poll, voted for El-Sayed.
What can we learn from this race? First, conflating criticism of Israel and calls for more challenging policies toward Israel with attitudes toward Jewish voters needs to stop, even or especially while understanding that anger toward the country can be channeled against the people here.
Candidates of both parties, regardless of their positions on Israel, need to be held accountable with demands for real answers on what they will do for the well-being of all of their constituents, including Jews, and including when those stumping for them challenge the idea of full Jewish participation in civic life.
Jewish voters need to reject the idea that Islamophobia and antisemitism are somehow at odds with each other, and that it costs us something to call out hatred of Muslim Americans when in fact, so often, we are on the same side of racist hatred. (On Tuesday night, X was filled with posts blaming Jews for El-Sayed’s victory and bemoaning what it meant for American culture.)
And reporters, pundits, politicians, Jewish leaders, and for that matter Jewish voters need to stop speaking about Jewish voters on antisemitism and Israel as though all of us understand the intersection of these issues in the same way or want to hear the same things about them from politicians.
Since Abdul El-Sayed will be in the Senate starting in January, we will soon have ample opportunity to put these lessons into practice.
The post The Michigan Senate race showed the exact wrong ways to fight antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump’s midterm defeat changes the equation for Netanyahu and Israel
The Republican rout in the U.S. midterm elections may have consequences far beyond America’s shores. The most immediate impact could be in Israel, where the struggle to translate Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral defeat into a change of government is entering its decisive stage.
In the week that has passed since the Israeli election, there was much anticipation that Trump might intervene to rescue his longtime ally. He endorsed Netanyahu, suggested that Israel’s security depended on his continued leadership, and hinted that renewed war with Iran depended on his victory (seeming to believe, perhaps falsely, that Israelis yearn for this). There was speculation that he might pressure opposition leaders into joining a unity government headed by Netanyahu, reversing the political meaning of Israel’s election.
Now the American electorate may have changed the equation.
The Democrats’ sweeping gains, which enabled them to seize decisive control of both houses of Congress, represent a substantial repudiation of Trump’s administration. The president retains enormous authority over foreign policy and national security – but in January he faces a hostile Congress, increased scrutiny of his decisions and a political environment even less hospitable to another Middle Eastern military adventure.
There is a counterintuitive possibility, of course: Trump might conclude that the period before the new Congress takes office offers a final opportunity to strike Iran. A weakened president is not necessarily a restrained president, and yet another unpopular war, especially one suspected of serving Netanyahu’s political interests, could deepen the backlash against Trump at home as Republicans are already looking fearfully at 2028.
It’s reasonable to think that many of them would not want to be associated with a strong-arming of Israel’s opposition in order to rescue Netanyahu, who is, fairly or unfairly, scarcely less toxic in the United States these days than Vladimir Putin.
The larger point: Trump’s political leverage has diminished. His presidency has an expiration date, and the American political system is already beginning to look beyond him. This will offer headwinds to those Israeli politicians who argue that a government that could serve for years should be cautious about treating the preferences of a politically weakened American president as decisive.
That is an especially potent thought on Wednesday, as Israeli President Isaac Herzog begins consultations with Israel’s newly elected parliamentary factions.
Israel’s election produced a clear numerical result: Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while parties opposed to his continued rule secured 67. The opposition has a parliamentary majority, although it is struggling to form a governing coalition.
Under Israel’s system, the president consults representatives of the elected parties, who recommend a candidate to form the government. Herzog must then decide which lawmaker has the best prospect of assembling one. The recommendations are politically important but not legally binding, and the president is not required to select whoever receives the most endorsements, though this is the tradition.
If former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot receives recommendations representing 67 seats, that would establish the breadth of parliamentary opposition to Netanyahu. Eisenkot would likely be tapped, and then he would face the central difficulty: what to do about Israel’s Arab parties.
Of the 67 seats held by Netanyahu’s opponents, 19 belong to Arab parties, whose electoral success reflected a remarkable increase in Arab turnout – which at around 85 percent exceeded that of Israel’s Jews. Several Jewish opposition leaders promised during the campaign not to rely on those parties to establish a government.
Eisenkot himself has said that he would demand any coalition partners agree that Hamas should be removed as a military and governing body in Gaza, which the Arab parties have not yet done. Polls show that a majority of opposition voters favor finding a way to form a government, even if it’s dependent on the Arab parties.
Indeed, many are arguing that this is a test of Israel’s democracy, and that for the opposition to stick to its refusal to rely on the Arab parties would strengthen enemies of Israel who argue that it is not a true democracy.
Here, too, the American midterms offer an intriguing counterpoint.
According to a voting breakdown in The New York Times, Republicans received 51 percent of the white vote, compared with 48 percent for Democrats. Would anyone seriously argue that the Democratic congressional victory is illegitimate because it depended partly on Black, Hispanic and Asian voters? Should Republicans retain the House speakership because they performed better among white Americans?
Of course not. Yet Israel faces an argument with a disturbingly similar implication.
If a parliamentary majority cannot govern because some of its members are considered unacceptable on ethnic or national grounds, the damage to Israel’s democratic reputation could be immense.
Under Israeli parliamentary rules, a government can win confidence through a majority of those participating in the vote. Abstentions or outside support from Arab lawmakers could therefore make a minority government possible.
With 48 seats for the non-Arab opposition parties, all Eisenkot would need would be the more moderate of the Arab parties, Ra’am, which has eight seats, to show support. The new coalition’s 56 seats could outvote Netanyahu’s 53 to win Knesset confirmation, even with the 11-seat Joint Arab List abstaining. That means Eisenkot does not necessarily require 61 affirmative votes to take office.
The obstacle is Avigdor Lieberman, head of the seven-seat Yisrael Beitenu party. A nationalist West Bank settler, he has fallen out with both Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox allies, and has been counted as part of the opposition. This week he reiterated his vow not to support a government dependent on Arab parties. But he also ruled out rejoining with Netanyahu, and described a repeat election as the worst option.
So while the outcome is clear now in the United States, in Israel the guessing game continues.
The post Trump’s midterm defeat changes the equation for Netanyahu and Israel appeared first on The Forward.
