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Jewish fans slam the trailer for Netflix’s Leonard Bernstein biopic ‘Maestro,’ which shows Bradley Cooper with an elongated nose
(JTA) — Soon after Netflix dropped the first official trailer for its upcoming Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro” on Tuesday, one aspect of the film footage sparked a flurry of conversation online — and it wasn’t the preeminent Jewish conductor’s music, or star Bradley Cooper’s acting.
Instead, the prosthetic nose supposedly used by the Oscar-nominated Cooper, who is not Jewish — and co-wrote, directed and stars as Bernstein in the film — infuriated many Jews who argued that the appendage plays into stereotypes about Jewish facial features.
Joel Swanson, a Jewish history PhD student at the University of Chicago, shared side-by-side images of Cooper’s character and the composer, writing: “This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype.”
Left: Bradley Cooper with his prosthetic nose, playing Leonard Bernstein.
Right: The actual Leonard Bernstein.
This isn’t about making a non-Jewish actor look more like Leonard Bernstein; it’s about making a non-Jewish actor look more like a Jewish stereotype. https://t.co/WrYWuweosW pic.twitter.com/WxspPtHktj
— Joel S. (@jh_swanson) August 15, 2023
Some went so far as to call Cooper’s use of a prosthetic antisemitic.
just looked up a picture of the real leonard bernstein…. the big antisemitic prosthetic nose on bradley cooper was definitely not necessary…. pic.twitter.com/nrCgxi9jlL
— louisa (@stabfreeman) August 15, 2023
Daniel Sugarman, the director of public affairs for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, pointed out that Cooper had previously starred in “The Elephant Man” on Broadway, a play about a man with serious physical deformities. Cooper did not use prosthetics for that role.
As has been noted in a number of places, Bradley Cooper literally played *The Elephant Man* on stage without any prosthetics. The decision here to slap on a big nose to play a Jewish composer therefore seems…even more suspect. https://t.co/gUfrLEemKR
— Daniel Sugarman is on holiday (@Daniel_Sugarman) August 15, 2023
Bernstein’s three children released a statement in response to the backlash, writing: “In happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose. Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have been fine with it as well.”
The family of Leonard Bernstein have released a statement defending Bradley Cooper following online backlash about his appearance in ‘MAESTRO’.
“Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that. We’re also certain that our dad would have… pic.twitter.com/6DRlYsi20C
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) August 16, 2023
The controversy is the latest episode in a now years-long conversation about “Jewface,” a term used to describe non-Jewish actors playing Jewish characters on screen. Comedian Sarah Silverman popularized the term and has been a vocal critic of the trend, which angered some Jewish fans when Felicity Jones portrayed Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 2018 film “On the Basis of Sex” and when a planned Joan Rivers project that was set to star Kathryn Hahn was announced — before being scrapped.
“There’s this long tradition of non-Jews playing Jews, and not just playing people who happen to be Jewish, but people whose Jewishness is their whole being,” Silverman said on her podcast in 2021. She plays Bernstein’s sister in the film.
Silverman is not the only Jewish actor in “Maestro.” Miriam Shor, who has described herself as “half Jewish but not really religious,” plays actor Cynthia O’Neal. Alexa Swinton, who stars on HBO’s “And Just Like That…” — and who celebrated her bat mitzvah in Israel earlier this summer — plays Bernstein’s daughter Nina. And Jewish actor Gideon Glick, known for his work on Broadway and on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” plays musician Tommy Cothran.
Following the release of the “Maestro” trailer, some also resurfaced the backstory to the film itself, which Jewish actor Jake Gyllenhaal had wanted to star in.
In a 2021 interview with Deadline, Gyllenhaal highlighted Bernstein’s Jewishness as a key factor for his interest in the project, which Steven Spielberg, who was originally to direct, eventually handed over to Cooper.
“Sticking your neck out, hoping to get to tell the stories you love and that have been in your heart for a very long time is something to be proud of,” Gyllenhaal said. “And that story, that idea of playing one of the most preeminent Jewish artists in America and his struggle with his identity was in my heart for 20 some odd years, but sometimes those things don’t work out.”
One social media user wrote that Cooper “basically stole the rights for this film from a jewish man who had been passionately trying to make it for years.”
“Maestro” will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September, followed by a limited theatrical release on Nov. 22 before it lands on Netflix on Dec. 20.
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The post Jewish fans slam the trailer for Netflix’s Leonard Bernstein biopic ‘Maestro,’ which shows Bradley Cooper with an elongated nose appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land
This 1 V. postage revenue stamp from West Refaim was postmarked in Virikoso in South Giantsland 100 years ago. Problem is—none of these places ever existed. There is a second […]
The post Treasure Trove explores the curious case of a stamp from an imaginary land appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will contest arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s office said on Wednesday.
The office also said that US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated Netanyahu “on a series of measures he is promoting in the US Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would cooperate with it.”
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
The move comes after the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced on May 20 that he was seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes connected to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas and the Israeli military response in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
“Israel today submitted a notice to the International Criminal Court of its intention to appeal to the court, along with a demand to delay the execution of the arrest warrants,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Court spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah told journalists that if requests for an appeal were submitted it would be up to the judges to decide
The court’s rules allow for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that would pause or defer an investigation or a prosecution for a year, with the possibility of renewing that annually.
After a warrant is issued the country involved or a person named in an arrest warrant can also issue a challenge to the jurisdiction of the court or the admissibility of the case.
The post Israel Has Told ICC It Will Contest Arrest Warrants, Netanyahu Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage
Shomrim officers at the scene of a hate crime in London in which Jewish girls were struck with glass bottles. Photo: Shomrim Stamford Hill/Screenshot
A group of young Jewish girls were the victims of an “abhorrent hate crime” when a man hurled glass bottles at them from a balcony as they were walking through the Stamford Hill section of London on Monday evening.
One of the girls was struck in the head and rushed to the hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries, according to local law enforcement.
A spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the Woodberry Down Estate in the city’s borough of Hackney following reports of an assault on Monday evening at 7:44 pm local time.
“A group of schoolgirls had been walking through the estate when a bottle was thrown from the upper floor of a building,” the spokesperson said. “A 16-year-old girl was struck on the head and was taken to hospital. Her injuries have since been assessed as non-life changing.”
Police noted they were unable to locate the suspect and an investigation is ongoing before adding, “The incident is being treated as a potential antisemitic hate crime.”
Following the incident, Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and serves as a neighborhood watch group, reported that the girls were en route to a rehearsal for an upcoming event. The community, the group added, was “shocked” by the attack on “innocent young Jewish girls,” calling it an “abhorrent hate crime.”
14-year-old girl rushed to Hospital with head & facial injuries following an attack in #StamfordHill.
Young Jewish girls on their way to a rehearsal were pelted with glass bottles by a male on a balcony at Woodberry Down Estate N4.
This… pic.twitter.com/MzHPHusgyX
— Shomrim (London North & East) (@Shomrim) November 26, 2024
Since then, another Jewish girl, age 14, has reported being pelted with a hard object which caused her to be “knocked unconscious, and left feeling dizzy and with a bump on her head,” according to Shomrim.
Monday’s crime was one among many which have targeted London Jews in recent years, an issue The Algemeiner has reported on extensively.
Last December, an Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauled a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children was berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
Months prior, a perpetrator stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting “dirty Jew” before snatching her shopping bag and “spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing.” That incident followed a woman wielding a wooden stick approaching a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declaring “I am doing it because you are Jew,” while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her. The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a “serial racist” — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying liquid on the baby. That same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling “f—king Jew.”
According to an Algemeiner review of Metropolitan Police Service data, 2,383 antisemitic hate crimes occurred in London between October 2023 and October 2024, eclipsing the full-year totals of 550 in 2022 and 845 in 2021. The problem is so serious that city officials created a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle in a statement about the policy decision earlier this year. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities [Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London] means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan added that the route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities.”
However, it doesn’t solve the problem at hand — an explosion of antisemitism unlike anything seen in the Western world since World War II. Just this week, according to a story by GB News, an unknown group scattered leaflets across the streets of London which threatened that “every Zionist needs to leave Britain or be slaughtered.”
Responding to this latest incident, the director of the Jewish civil rights group StandWithUs UK Isaaz Zarfati told GB News that the comments should be taken “seriously.”
“We are witnessing a troubling trend of red lines being repeatedly crossed,” he said. “This is not just another wave that will pass if we remain passive. We must take those threats and statement seriously because they will one day turn into actions, and decisive steps are needed to combat this alarming phenomenon.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish Girls Attacked in London With Glass Bottles in Antisemitic Outrage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.