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‘Life is Beautiful’ hit US theaters 25 years ago. The film’s Holocaust humor raised issues that linger today.
(JTA) — Ferne Pearlstein re-watched “Life is Beautiful,” Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning Holocaust film, around 2015. She was working on her documentary “The Last Laugh,” which focused on the possibilities — and limits — of Holocaust humor.
Pearlstein was struck not by how subversive Benigni’s film felt, but how tame it seemed. In the 2000s, she argued in a recent interview, Holocaust humor had become so much more ubiquitous, if not always accepted. Joan Rivers had made a joke about Nazi gas chambers on national TV. The blockbuster “The Hangover” — directed and produced by Jewish filmmaker Todd Phillips — casually tossed in a Holocaust joke. The topic has been a longstanding part of Sarah Silverman’s standup routine.
But when “Life is Beautiful” hit U.S. theaters 25 years ago last month, it rocked Hollywood and beyond by attempting to infuse humor into the setting of a concentration camp.
“I, too, remember watching it when it came out, and being amazed that anybody would have taken the time to have represented part of our story that way,” said Rich Brownstein, the author of a book about hundreds of Holocaust-themed films.
Benigni, by then a well-known Italian comedian, starred in the movie as Guido Orefice, a charming Italian-Jewish drifter who repeatedly uses his wit to get out of bad situations. In the opening days of World War II, he courts a non-Jewish woman who was set to marry a local Fascist commander, eventually marrying her and having a son.
By 1944, once the Nazis occupy Italy, Guido and his young son are taken away to an unnamed concentration camp. For the rest of the film, set in the camp, Guido attempts to shield the truth of their predicament from his son — by pretending their entire imprisonment is a game. Guido suffers under the torture of forced labor, but he finds the strength after a day’s work to keep the charade up for his son, to keep him from drifting into despair.
The film — all in Italian — was a surprise hit, and its awards season campaign was nearly as memorable as the film itself. Throughout the campaign, Benigni charmed American audiences with wild interviews and awards acceptance speeches in which he climbed upon theater seats and spoke in broken but enthusiastic English. At the Oscars in 1999, his movie won three awards, including for best foreign language film and best actor.
“This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English,” Benigni said from the Oscar stage after winning best actor, in his second speech of the night. “I am not able to express all my gratitude, because now, my body is in tumult because it is a colossal moment of joy so everything is really in a way that I cannot express. I would like to be Jupiter! And kidnap everybody and lie down in the firmament making love to everybody, because I don’t know how to express.”
Audiences loved the film too, as it became the highest-grossing foreign language film in U.S. history at the time (although “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” surpassed it two years later).
Some critics loved “Life is Beautiful,” seeing the film as funny, inspirational and original.
“The film finds the right notes to negotiate its delicate subject matter. And Benigni isn’t really making comedy out of the Holocaust, anyway,” Roger Ebert wrote. “He is showing how Guido uses the only gift at his command to protect his son. If he had a gun, he would shoot at the Fascists. If he had an army, he would destroy them. He is a clown, and comedy is his weapon.”
The film was an enormous critical success, winning three Oscars, including best actor. (Steve Starr/Corbis via Getty Images)
But many others, from Jewish comedians to academics, were not as kind. Israeli author Kobi Niv wrote an entire book, in 2000, called “Life is Beautiful, But Not for Jews: Another View of the Film by Benigni,” which was critical of the film.
“Oh, Benigni was clearly setting himself up for trouble and he knew it,” Columbia University film professor Annette Insdorf, also an author of a book on the Holocaust in cinema, said at the time.
Many of the comedians Pearlstein interviewed for her film — who included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Gilbert Gottfried and Judy Gold — took issue with the fantastical feel of Benigni’s movie. Guido’s son is able to avoid the Nazis by hiding in the camp’s bunker, something that would not have been possible, Pearlstein noted.
But she added that the bold choice to set much of the film in a camp was a larger trigger point.
“It is sort of verboten to a lot of people to have the camps a part of it, the gas chambers,” she said. “As soon as you evoke those images, it becomes verboten for people, even if the joke was not about the victims.”
Brooks might have been expected to be a fan of “Life is Beautiful,” as someone who had shocked audiences in the late 1960s with “The Producers” — which featured a Broadway musical starring Adolf Hitler as a major plot point. He also mined the Spanish Inquisition for laughs in “History of the World, Part I.” But he hated “Life is Beautiful,” calling it “a crazy film that even attempted to find comedy in a concentration camp.”
“It showed the barracks in which Jews were kept like cattle, and it made jokes about it,” the World War II veteran told German newspaper Der Spiegel in 2006. “The philosophy of the film is: people can get over anything. No, they can’t. They can’t get over a concentration camp.”
Brooks also took issue with the fact that Benigni was not Jewish. “Tell me, Roberto, are you nuts?” he said in the Spiegel interview. “You didn’t lose any relatives in the Holocaust, you’re not even Jewish. You really don’t understand what it’s all about.”
Benigni’s Catholic father reportedly spent two years as a prisoner in the Bergen-Belsen camp, however, and the filmmaker used his recollections of that time in crafting the story. He also consulted with Italian Jewish groups and used Italian Auschwitz survivor Rubino Romeo Salmonì’s memoir “In the End, I Beat Hitler” as further inspiration. Salmonì often used black humor in describing his Holocaust experiences.
Benigni said Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator,” one of the earliest satires of Hitler, was another influence.
“This is an homage to the master, because I love this movie, and, of course, making a movie — a comedy about [a] concentration camp, I watched this movie a lot of time,” Benigni said at the time.
Pearlstein said that “intent” and “execution” of Holocaust humor are also hugely important. Brooks, she said, “makes a complete distinction between humor about the Nazis versus humor in the camps.” Brownstein agrees.
“There are great Holocaust films made by gentiles, including ‘Cabaret,’ ‘Inglourious Basterds,’ ‘Au revoir les enfants’… and there are horrible Holocaust films made by Jews, including ‘Jojo Rabbit,’” he said. “To make a film of any kind, successfully, you have to have your kishkes in it.”
“Jojo Rabbit,” Taika Waititi’s comedy-drama about a Nazi-era German boy who learns lessons about hate as he becomes disillusioned with the Hitler Youth he once admired, faced a similar gantlet of criticism when it debuted in 2019. Some found the main Jewish character to be hollow, or Waititi’s performance as Hitler — as imagined by the child protagonist — as too light. But the film also won Waititi — a New Zealander who is Māori and Jewish — critical acclaim, and he has since become one of Hollywood’s most in-demand directors.
Pearlstein thinks Holocaust humor will never fully disappear, even in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, which was among the worst attacks against Jews since World War II.
“There might be a dip for a little time. Think about 9/11 — here was a dip, and then people need it; it’s a survival mechanism,” she said. “And that is why you always hear about Jewish people and using humor, because they have used it to survive through the worst of times.”
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Oklahoma Legislator Introduces Bill to Adopt IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
The Tulsa, Oklahoma skyline. Photo: Photomakers/Wikimedia.
Oklahoma State Rep. John Waldron, a Democrat elected in Tulsa, has introduced legislation that would use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to guide state employees in assessing bigotry against Jews.
Rising antisemitism on college campuses motivated Waldron to draft a bill to aid schools in identifying hate speech. He said he hoped to “give higher education tools for defining what political speech, and therefore protected under the First Amendment, and hate speech that tends toward violence, and should be dealt with according to administrative procedure is,” according to KTUL ABC 8 in Tulsa.
The legislation, House Bill 2243, was introduced last week and says that “state officials and institutions have a responsibility to protect citizens from acts of hate and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus, including antisemitism, and must be given the tools to do so; valid monitoring, informed analysis and investigation, and effective policymaking all require uniform definitions.”
Joe Roberts, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa, released a statement advocating for the legislation.
“For Jewish Oklahomans, HB 2243 is more than policy — it is a statement that Oklahoma stands firmly with the Jewish community against rising hate,” Roberts said. “By adopting the IHRA definition, Oklahoma is taking a crucial step in ensuring that our community is protected, our voices are heard, and our concerns are taken seriously. The IHRA definition is the gold standard in identifying and addressing antisemitism, and its adoption here will help build a safer and more inclusive Oklahoma for all.”
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Dozens of US states have also formally adopted it through law or executive action.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
The Oklahoma legislation describes the IHRA definition as “an essential definitional tool used to determine contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and includes useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel acts that can cross the line into antisemitism.” The bill also notes its usage “by various agencies of the federal government and by over 30 governments around the world.”
Opponents of state legislation to codify into law the IHRA definition often claim that such moves threaten free speech, particularly criticism of Israel. However, the text of Waldron’s bill explicitly counters that objection, stating, “Nothing in this section shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or the Oklahoma Constitution.”
The Oklahoma state legislature has scheduled the bill for its first reading on Feb. 3.
Other states where representatives have worked recently to introduce or pass similar laws utilizing the IHRA definition include New York, Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and South Dakota, among others. According to the Combat Antisemitism Movement, as of Nov. 1, 2024, 1,262 entities worldwide have adopted the definition, including 45 countries, 37 US state governments, and 96 city and county governments.
In a Wednesday guest column in The Oklahoman, Roberts further advocated for the bill and defended the IHRA definition from its detractors’ conventional argument.
“Critics of the IHRA definition have raised concerns about free speech, arguing that defining antisemitism in law could suppress legitimate criticism of Israel. This is simply not true,” Roberts wrote. “The IHRA definition explicitly states that criticism of Israel, similar to that leveled against any other country, is not antisemitic. What the definition does do is distinguish between legitimate discourse and hateful rhetoric — such as denying Israel’s right to exist, holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions, or using classic antisemitic tropes to demonize the Jewish state.”
Roberts wrote that Waldron’s legislation “does not criminalize speech, it simply provides guidance for recognizing when antisemitism is at play.” He concluded his column warning that “antisemitism is not just a Jewish issue; it is a threat to the fabric of our society. It is an attack on the values that bind us together as Oklahomans and as Americans. If we are serious about protecting our way of life, we must act now. Pass HB 2243.”
According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 8,800 Jews lived in Oklahoma in 2024, making up 0.22 percent of the state’s population.
Oklahoma Gov. J. Kevin Stitt has urged more Jews to move to Oklahoma and called for his fellow Christians to learn from Jewish traditions. “The Jewish community is welcome in Oklahoma,” he told the New York Post last year. “When you think about the values of who we are as Oklahomans it matches with the Jewish community, family-focused, very faith-focused, entrepreneurial, hard-working.”
Stitt, a self-described “Old Testament-loving Christian,” added, “Christians — we don’t do a good job of bringing the family together and really setting aside electronics and, and really focusing on the Sabbath. You know, one day a week, and I just think that’s something that we can learn a lot from the Jewish community.”
The post Oklahoma Legislator Introduces Bill to Adopt IHRA Definition of Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former NFL Players Take Solidarity Trip to Israel, Advocate for Release of Hamas Hostages
Tony Richardson, far left, and Nick Lowery, far right, posing for a photo with Israeli President Isaac Herzog during their recent trip to Israel. Photo: The Office of the President of Israel
NFL legends Nick Lowery and Tony Richardson, who are former Kansas City Chiefs teammates and members of the team’s Hall of Fame, took a tour of southern Israel recently to see areas and meet families impacted by the deadly Hamas terrorist attack that took place on Oct. 7, 2023.
Lowery, one of the NFL’s greatest placekickers, and Richardson, a former NFL star fullback, toured Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the Nahal Oz base of the Israel Defense Forces, as well as the site of the Nova music festival massacre. They met with families of those kidnapped during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in an effort to help advocate for the release of the hostages. Their five-day visit to Israel that started on Dec. 29 was sponsored by Project Max and the nonprofit organization Athletes for Israel, which aims to bring well-known sports figures to the Jewish state.
The goal of Project Max is to fight racism, antisemitism, and intolerance through sports. Lowery is part of the #SportSpeaksUp campaign that is led by Project Max CEO Eric Rubin.
During their time in Israel, Lowery and Richardson spoke with Yoni and Amit Levy, father and brother of Naama Levy, who has been held hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip for over 450 days. Naama, 20, is one of five young women kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas-led terrorists from the IDF base in Nahal Oz near the Israel-Gaza border. She was filmed being dragged into a jeep by terrorists, with her hands tied behind her back, during her abduction. Her ankles were cut, her face was bleeding, and her sweatpants were blood-stained.
“As a father, nothing to be proud more than to have a daughter like Naama,” Yoni told the NFL legends in a video that was shared on social media. “She’s quite shy, but very, very strong inside. It gives us a lot of hope that she is surviving.” Amit, 22, further told Lowery and Richardson: “I think it’s so important what you are doing because it’s been so long, it’s easy for people to move on. It’s not just a poster. [She’s] my sister and she has dreams.”
In response, the athletes expressed hope that Naama will return home soon. They also said they will do what they can to speak up in support of the hostages. “One of our goals is to help her dream and give voice to it,” said Lowery, 68. “The connection with Naama as a triathlete, to work through pain, to work through challenge … I hope that the athletes that are watching this … if Naama can’t speak up for herself, we must speak for her and the others. She will be back. We love this place. We love the people.”
Lowery and Richardson also visited the soccer field in the Druze-majority town of Majdal Shams in northern Israel, where 12 Druze children and teenagers were killed, and at least 42 were injured, by a Hezbollah rocket on July 27, 2024. During the stop they met with 13-year-old Jwan Ibraheem, who survived the rocket explosion and is having a difficult time moving on with his life after blaming himself for not being able to save his best friend who was killed by the Hezbollah rocket.
The former NFL teammates also toured Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, and met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana, and IDF soldiers. “We will be a voice to those who don’t have one,” they told Herzog. They also took a tour of religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall, and Lowery was re-baptized at the Sea of Galilee. They also stopped by the StandWithUs center in Jerusalem, where they learned more about the history of Israel and antisemitism.
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‘Jews Need to Be United’: Artist Elizabeth Sutton Promotes Jewish Values With New Dinnerware Collection
Elizabeth Sutton. Photo: Provided
Jewish artist, designer, and entrepreneur Elizabeth Sutton recently released a new dinnerware collection that she told The Algemeiner is inspired by Jewish values and her dedication to having resilience and faith in the face of adversity.
A sixth generation New Yorker and single mother of two children, Sutton, 35, is a self-taught artist and avid supporter of Israel. Her past projects include fine art paintings, tiles — such as five award-winning tile collections for Tilebar — wallpaper, fashion accessories, rugs, and office chairs. Her designs can be found in hotels and resorts around the world, as well as Whole Foods, restaurants, residential spaces, Benjamin Moore, Bloomingdale’s, and Capital One Banks. The artist — whose past clients include Paris Hilton, Kourtney Kardashian, Andrea Bocelli, and Pitbull — was recognized as a rising and ambitious entrepreneur in 2021 as part of Forbes magazine’s “The Next 1000” list, and she owns a fine art gallery in Chelsea, New York.
It has been a dream of hers to create a dinnerware collection since she got divorced in 2017, Sutton told The Algemeiner. However, those plans were derailed when six months post-divorce, her best friend and art assistant was killed in a car accident, in Sutton’s car, after leaving her birthday party. Sutton said the car accident “completely shifted my life, and this dream fell by the wayside” – until now.
Sutton launched her melamine dinnerware collection in December, and it features plates, bowls, placemats, and linen napkins in 10 artistic styles. The designs incorporate many elements for which Sutton is famous in her artwork, including floral patterns, colorful and vibrant butterflies, and rainbows. She told The Algemeiner that she believes rainbows represent beauty after a storm and are a metaphor for resilience and tenacity in overcoming challenges, especially the recent global increase in antisemitic incidents. Sutton has personally experienced antisemitism in the past 15 months — since the Hamas attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — for being a proud Jewish Zionist, including the loss of many business partnerships and contracts.
“What I’ve learned time and time again is another value within Judaism — hishtadlut (putting in effort) and emunah (faith),” she added. “We have our obligation to put our best effort, but at the end of the day, God is in control. My reaction to all my lost contracts was to bring my dinnerware collection to life. Everything happens in the time that God decides, not in the time that we decide. My dinnerware collection truly is a representation of Jewish values — resilience, faith, family, and gratitude.”
“Another lesson I’ve learned since 10/7 is that as a community, Jews need to be united,” Sutton explained. “Considering all the lost business, I truly believe that we need to create a self-sustaining Jewish ecosystem within business, keeping parnasah (livelihood) within the tribe, so to speak. Upon bringing this collection to life, it was of utmost importance to me that all facets attached to the creation of this collection were Jewish — every single vendor and contractor, from my factory liaison, to my digital marketing team [and] 3PL (third-party logistics).”
Sutton’s Jewish faith is a big part of her life. She told The Algemeiner that she leans on God quite a lot and trusts him to help her get through tough times in her personal life and career. She now has the mindset that “challenges are opportunities,” she said. “I’m almost grateful for the antisemitism I’ve experienced because it has taught me valuable lessons, which is that we need to be united as a [Jewish] community [and] support one another.”
Elizabeth Sutton and her new dinnerware collection. Photo: Provided
Elizabeth Sutton Home. Photo: Provided
Sutton is not the only well-known name in her family. Her grandmother, Honey Rackman, was a founder of the Agunah International organization, and the artist’s great-grandfather was Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, a pioneer and leading figure in the Modern Orthodox movement in the US. He held many distinguished positions throughout his life, such as being president of the New York Board of Rabbis and the Rabbinical Council of America, and president and chancellor of Bar Ilan University. One of his biggest accomplishments was founding a religious divorce court in the late 1990s that granted annulments to agunot, which is the Hebrew term for Jewish women trapped in marriages to husbands who refuse to grant them religious divorces.
Sutton credits her grandmother for fostering a strong sense of Jewish culture and values in her life starting from an early age.
“As a child, I sat around my grandmother’s Shabbat and holiday tables every week, accompanied by my great-grandfather, where I was instilled with Jewish values — family, philanthropy, and the concept of hachnasat orchim (welcoming guests),” Sutton told The Algemeiner. “These memories are precisely what fostered in me a love for entertaining — cooking, tablescaping, and hosting my loved ones around the table … Nothing would thrill me more than to see Jewish families around the world celebrating moments and creating memories with their loved ones — whether Shabbat meals, holidays, or just a regular Tuesday — enjoying my recipes on my dishes.”
Sutton’s dinnerware collection is now available for purchase at local home decor stores and on the website for Elizabeth Sutton Home, after having a soft-launch at Bloomingdale’s in May 2023.
“It’s not just dinnerware; it embodies my values of family, love, and resilience,” she said. “My passion for cooking and hosting has culminated in a collection that transforms tables into a work of art.”
The post ‘Jews Need to Be United’: Artist Elizabeth Sutton Promotes Jewish Values With New Dinnerware Collection first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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