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Netflix’s ‘You People’ digs into Black-Jewish relations. It also plays a Kanye West song, twice.
(JTA) – The new Netflix comedy “You People,” about an uneasy union between a Jewish man and a Black woman in Los Angeles, was always aiming to provoke its audience.
“I feel like the movie has something to say,” producer Kevin Misher told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It allows different sides to evolve and understand everybody’s point of view on the world. … People grow to understand each other. And when they don’t understand each other, they understand that there are, in fact, differences.”
But when they shot the movie a year ago, director Kenya Barris (“Black-ish”) and his Jewish co-writer and star Jonah Hill couldn’t have predicted how it would land in the midst of several national stories about Black-Jewish relations, including prominent Black celebrities who have dabbled in antisemitism.
For example, the film’s use of a popular song that includes the N-word in its title at two different intervals — first as a joke about Hill’s character being unable to say the title, then at the end under a hora — takes on a heightened meaning today. Kanye West, who now goes by Ye and is one half of the talent behind the song, recently went on a months-long antisemitic tirade that included him expressing his admiration for Hitler.
Misher, who is Jewish, acknowledges that the track is “a difficult song to play in that moment.” Netflix’s original plans to feature the first scene involving the Ye song in the film’s teaser trailer were scrapped amid his onslaught of antisemitic comments.
But the filmmakers felt the scene needed to remain in the final cut of the film — even as they cut another scene in which their actors spoke Yiddish — because it underlined the uncomfortable racial tensions between Hill’s character, a Jew named Ezra, and co-star Eddie Murphy, who plays Akbar, the soon-to-be father-in-law Ezra is trying to win over.
“It was important, I think, for us to have that song remain, so that it portrayed the divide that they would have to cross,” Misher said. “It wasn’t about the artist of the song, it was about the words in the song.”
Misher also justified the song’s reprisal at the end of the film, noting that Ye himself doesn’t sing on the sample: “Jay-Z is singing at the end.”
“You People” was conceived as a mashup of “Meet The Parents” (which Misher also produced) and “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.” In a modern-day twist, the white liberal family, rather than expressing anxiety over the race of their child’s partner, fetishizes her family instead.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny play the Jewish parents. Although the relationship between Jews and whiteness has been a topic of serious academic debate for generations, and although Lauren London, who plays Hill’s Black love interest Amira, herself has an Ashkenazi Jewish father, the Jews in the movie are simply portrayed as white.
Barris’ team was unable to make him available for a JTA interview prior to the film’s release, and Hill has announced he will no longer do press for any of his films, citing his mental health. But Misher told JTA that he thought the film did an admirable job of portraying a specific “culturally Jewish” Los Angeles family. As a Jew himself, he said it was also important to him that the film’s depiction of Judaism be “authentic.”
To that end, he brought on the rabbi and cantor at his own synagogue, Kehillat Israel in Los Angeles, to play the rabbi and cantor at Ezra’s fictional synagogue in the movie. (Scenes depicting a Yom Kippur service were shot at the Skirball Cultural Center, an L.A. Jewish museum.) He also hired an on-set Jewish cultural consultant from Hebrew Helpers, a nationwide Jewish studies tutoring service.
There are other racially charged moments in the film that may sit uneasily with Jewish viewers. A tense dinner-table conversation with Amira’s family includes discussions of the Holocaust and slavery, including Akbar reminding Ezra’s family that some American Jews owned slaves. (The film’s premiere on Netflix on Friday coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day.)
Akbar is a follower of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whose antisemitism gets a small acknowledgement, although the wedding at the end of the film is jointly officiated by a cantor and an imam meant to represent the Nation of Islam. (Most Muslims do not consider the Nation of Islam to be part of the religion.)
Also at the film’s end, Louis-Dreyfus, playing Hill’s mother, apologizes to Amira and Akbar for her series of racist microaggressions “on behalf of all Jewish people.” This follows an apology from Akbar — but only for being mean to Ezra, not for committing his spiritual and political life to an antisemite.
Misher said that while Barris wanted to invoke tense political topics, the core of the film still aimed to be a character-based comedy. Detailed discussions of antisemitism, the filmmakers believed, would have distracted from that.
“If, suddenly, somebody starts standing up at a soapbox and waxing philosophic about the way the world is, I think that would have felt inauthentic to the journey of these specific characters,” he said.
At the end of the day, the makers of “You People” still believe their film has a message worth sharing.
“I feel like we got it right, in terms of how we represented the relationship between these two families,” Misher said.
As for the other conversations about racism and antisemitism these characters could have had, he said, they might come up if Netflix greenlights a sequel.
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The post Netflix’s ‘You People’ digs into Black-Jewish relations. It also plays a Kanye West song, twice. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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VIDEO: Memories of the Workmen’s Circle in Montreal
מער ווי הונדערט יאָר לאַנג האָט דער אַרבעטער־רינג געשפּילט אַ וויכטיקע ראָלע אין דעם ייִדישן לעבן פֿון מאָנטרעאָל. די אָרגאַניזאַציע איז געווען איינע פֿון די וויכטיקסטע וועלטלעכע ייִדישע כּוחות אין דער שטאָט און האָט אין משך פֿון לאַנגע יאָרן אַנטוויקלט אַ רײַך קולטור־ און געזעלשאַפֿטלעך לעבן.
אין דער רעקאָרדירונג וועט איר זיך באַקענען מיט שלום (סאָל) עדלשטיין, וואָס האָט אָנגעפֿירט דעם אַרבעטער־רינג אין מאָנטרעאָל אין אירע לעצטע יאָרן. מיטן שמועס פֿירט אָן אלי בענעדיקט פֿון דער ייִדיש־ליגע.
אין די ערשטע יאָרן פֿונעם 20סטן יאָרהונדערט זענען געווען אַ ריי אַרבעטער־רינג-„ברענטשעס“ איבער קאַנאַדע, וואָס האָבן געפֿירט אַ רײַכע קולטור־אַרבעט, אַרײַנגערעכנט שולן, טעאַטער־טרופּעס און כאָרן. במשך פֿון די יאָרן האָבן זיך די „ברענטשעס“ צו ביסלעך פֿאַרמאַכט, און די פֿאַרבליבענע אַקטיוויטעטן האָבן זיך צונויפֿגעקליבן אין איין הויז אין מאָנטרעאָל. אין דעם לעצטן יאָר האָט זיך אויך דאָס הויז פֿאַרמאַכט. אין דעם שמועס וועט שלום עדלשטיין דערציילן וועגן די „ברענטשעס“, וועגן דעם לעבן און די אויפֿטוען אין דעם הויז, און וועגן זײַנע אייגענע איבערלעבונגען דאָרט.
The post VIDEO: Memories of the Workmen’s Circle in Montreal appeared first on The Forward.
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Facebook suspends radio broadcaster’s account over video of Holocaust survivor
Facebook has abruptly banned a Jewish broadcasting executive in Minnesota after he posted a link to a video of a 104 year-old Holocaust survivor in Texas sharing his story, prompting the Minnesota Attorney General to intervene.
Joel Glaser, CEO of AMPERS, a group of community radio stations across Minnesota, received an email from Facebook last month informing him that his personal account had been suspended because it violated the platform’s “child sexual exploitation” policies.
Because Glaser also administers the account for an AMPERS radio series titled MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds, Facebook also took down that account, which has more than 10,000 followers.
The video produced by an NBC affiliate in Dallas and shared by an ABC affiliate in the Twin Cities, featured a talk by Walter Levy, a survivor who fled Germany in the late 1930s and still tells his story about how his family survived Kristallnacht and struggled with whether to flee to then-British mandated Palestine or America. His family eventually joined relatives in Arkansas.
“How it got flagged as being child sexual exploitation is absolutely beyond me,” said Glaser, who unsuccessfully appealed.. “It did not give me the opportunity to explain anything, ask any questions, provide any screenshots, do anything at all.”
Facebook has said the case has been “flagged for the team” and is “looking into this.”
Glaser initially speculated that an antisemite, Holocaust-denier, or a bot operating on their behalf had flagged his post. But then he started leaning toward the notion that it was probably just artificial intelligence run amok.
“I guess Meta’s AI isn’t smart enough to differentiate between child sexual exploitation and a legitimate news story,” he said.
Because Glaser also oversees AMPERS’ news coverage, losing access to Facebook has made his job more difficult.
“I’m being hindered from doing that,” Glaser said. “They need to fix it.”
Experts say Glaser’s experience is not unusual, underscoring a need for significant work on content moderation systems, as well as transparent correction mechanisms. Without seeing Meta’s internal enforcement signals, it’s impossible to know why the system acted to suspend Glaser’s accounts.
On the morning of June 25 Glaser received an email from Facebook saying that his personal account was being suspended and he had 180 days to appeal. While the platform attributed the suspension to a violation of child sexual exploitation standards, it did not specify what content of Glaser’s had violated those standards. The video of Levy just happened to be his most recent post.
Glaser appealed right away, taking the required nine photographs of his face to prove it was him. Facebook denied the appeal that afternoon and permanently banned him with no opportunity for additional appeals.
Glaser contacted Minnesota’s Attorney General, a standard recourse for Facebook subscribers in a number of states who have
unfairly had their accounts suspended. Brian Evans, press secretary for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, told Glaser that the office has interceded with Meta previously regarding their “heavy-handed approach to account deactivation.”
The Attorney General’s Consumer Action team will work to get Glaser’s two accounts reactivated, he wrote.
“The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has received numerous complaints from consumers about moderation decisions that appear to have been made in error by Facebook,” Evans said.
Minnesota State Rep. Ginny Klevorn, a Democrat who represents the suburbs northwest of Minneapolis, has also asked that the state party’s liaison to Meta look into the matter, noting that AMPERS is partially funded by the state of Minnesota.
“Why is a public service network that deals with factual historic events being banned?” she said. “I think they owe Joel some sort of explanation.”
The post Facebook suspends radio broadcaster’s account over video of Holocaust survivor appeared first on The Forward.
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Artists are boycotting a show about Israel. The run’s already sold out
In the third act of Jonathan Spector’s Birthright, the character Izzy delivers the closest thing the play has to a thesis.
“I can go up on the bimah at my parents’ shul and I can say I am married to a woman, I can say I don’t keep kosher, I can say I don’t believe in God,” the character, a former J Street employee played by Molly Bernard, says. “The one thing that would get me kicked off the bimah, kicked out of the shul, kicked out of my family is if I say I am an anti-Zionist.”
There is an unspoken flipside to this equation: Just as Jewish communal life has instituted litmus tests, the pro-Palestine movement also has its dogma.
Jewish organizations once accepted all comers — gay, bacon-eating, atheist — Spector told me in an interview the day the show, tracking six members of a Birthright group over 18 years, opened at MCC Theatre. Recently, though, when it comes to the Jewish state, “there’s been a similar kind of shift away from tolerance from people on both sides of that divide.”
As if one needed more proof of Spector’s assertion, the group Theater Workers for a Ceasefire announced on Tuesday a call to boycott the production for “normalization,” even though the show is, at press time, sold out.
In an open letter, the organization outlines its concerns. “Normalization includes any plays, festivals, and other kinds of cultural activities that are based on the false premise of symmetry between oppressors and oppressed or which assume colonizers and colonized are equally responsible for the ‘Israel/Palestine conflict.’”
Birthright, they argue, meets this definition in its third act, when Izzy and Chaya (Zoë Winters), a former Obama staffer, debate the Gaza War in the aftermath of Oct. 7. “Chaya and Izzy perpetuate the fallacy that genocide has two equally legitimate sides,” the Theater Workers wrote. “The play does not challenge Chaya’s beliefs — it privileges them.”
But does it? We learn Chaya resigns from her job at the domestic nonprofit she founded over a pressure campaign by her staffers, who share an offensive text she sent via Instagram. The text: “Maybe they should spend a week in Gaza, and then come back and tell us if the rapes are real or not.”
In an Instagram carousel, Artists For Ceasefire describes this as “a text accusing Palestinians of being rapists.” This is a distortion, but reveals a familiar taboo in certain pro-Palestinian activism: the acknowledgment that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad committed sexual violence.
“Birthright emphasizes Chaya’s victimhood, whereby her own personal and professional losses in the wake of October 7th are greater than that of any Palestinian,” the letter continues. “Izzy is depicted as immoral for caring more about Palestinian strangers than her friend.”
This smacks of a bad faith reading. Once again we are in the realm of depiction not equalling endorsement. Cherries are being picked. That the play doesn’t “challenge” every argument, or “encourag[es] audiences to empathize with” an Israeli character’s “subjectivity” is seen as morally deleterious, rather than what it is: a play, with characters, not a debate, op-ed or struggle session.
As Spector told me, “plays contain ideas, but plays are about people.”
We needn’t wonder what Theater Workers for a Ceasefire would recommend as counter-programming: on Instagram they argued for an example in Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, a non-Jewish playwright. That play is more polemic than drama and runs on an engine of Holocaust inversion, which makes sense when you look at their Instagram post.
“Conventional drama demands we present contrasting viewpoints in the name of conflict,” the group concedes, “But how we write the conflict is not an ideological [sic] benign matter.”
The overriding interest is not art, but ideology. Not the mirror up to life, but of the funhouse variety that warps reality to an endless, echo chamber tunnel.
Eli Gelb, an actor in the show, acknowledged the boycott in an Instagram story, wrote “I’ve been outspoken as an antizionist Jew and I remain so. I believe in the show and will be continuing to perform in the production.” Molly Bernard’s Instagram stories Wednesday are of devastation in Gaza.
The letter makes clear “this would not be a boycott of MCC, nor of Jonathan Spector, but of this specific cultural product.” How can you boycott a run that, at press time, has no seats left to buy? Yield your tickets while ye may, someone will gladly snap them up.
In the play, a character, whose identity I won’t reveal due to spoilers, discusses an episode recounted in the Talmud, where a Super Bowl-sized crowd witnesses one priest stab another for the privilege of cleaning up ashes from a ritual sacrifice.
Rabbi Tzadok says all present were responsible for creating the conditions for the attack. But then the father of the stabbed priest retrieves the knife from his son’s back, and tells the crowd that, as he is not yet dead, the knife is still ritually pure. The onlookers cheer.
In the show, the story is cryptic, but speaks to Israel, where the ideal of the state has given way — perhaps irreversibly — to a culture of violence.
“This is how far they had fallen in this period,” the character says, “how far they had strayed, that they valued the laws of ritual purity over human life.” It’s an argument that would seem to align with Artists for Ceasefire, for whom the suffering in Gaza supersedes any gestures at complexity.
In their demands for a purity test, they may have missed it.
The post Artists are boycotting a show about Israel. The run’s already sold out appeared first on The Forward.
