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As landmark Saul Bellow documentary premieres, a look back at his life through the JTA archive
(JTA) — Given his place in the international literary canon, it’s hard to believe that there has never been a widely-released documentary made about the Jewish Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow.
That’s about to change, as PBS debuts “American Masters: The Adventures of Saul Bellow” on Monday night.
The documentary, which was filmed by Israeli director Asaf Galay between 2016 and 2019 and features what is being touted as the last interview Philip Roth gave before his death in 2018, digs deep into Bellow’s personal life and inspirations. Many know about his successful novels and memorable (usually Jewish) characters, but as the film shows, Bellow had a turbulent personal life that involved five marriages. Several of his closest friends and family members felt betrayed or offended by how Bellow wrote unflattering characters closely based on them. His moderate conservative political leanings put him at odds with the ethos of the 1960s, and some saw his framing of occasional Black characters as racist.
But the film also devotes time to explaining — through interviews with scholars, other novelists and members of the Bellow clan — how Bellow’s deep-rooted sense of “otherness” as the son of Jewish immigrants influenced his work, and how he, in turn, influenced many Jewish American writers who followed him. Roth, for instance, says on camera that Bellow inspired him to create fuller Jewish characters in his own work.
To mark the milestone film, we looked back through all of the Saul Bellow content in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s archive. What emerged was a portrait of a leading Jewish intellectual of his time who was deeply invested in the Soviet Jewry movement and Israel, and who was beloved by the American Jewish community — despite his complicated relationship to his Jewishness and his bristling at being called a “Jewish writer.”
The Soviet Jewry movement
Bellow was born in 1915 in Canada to parents with Lithuanian ancestry who first immigrated from St. Petersburg, Russia. In the 1920s, when Bellow was 9, the family moved to Chicago. By the 1950s, the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union — who were forbidden from openly practicing their religion and from emigrating — had become a rallying cry for American Jews. As a 1958 JTA report shows, Bellow was passionate about the issue; in January of that year, he signed a letter to The New York Times about “the purge of Yiddish writers, the refusal of the current Soviet regime to permit a renaissance of Jewish culture and the existence of a quota system on Jews in education, professional and civil service fields.” Other signatories included fellow Jewish writers Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin and Lionel Trilling.
Saul Bellow, Anita Goshkin (his first wife) and their son Gregory Bellow, circa 1940. Bellow’s turbulent personal life involved five marriages. (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
He signed another letter to the Times on the topic in 1965, and in 1969 he circulated an appeal for cultural freedom for Jews to the Soviet Writers Union, getting other prominent writers such as Noam Chomsky and Nat Hentoff to sign. By 1970, the issue had become widely publicized, and Bellow stayed involved, signing onto a petition with several other thought leaders that asked: “Has the government of the Soviet Union no concern for human rights or for the decent opinion of mankind?”
Israel
Like many American Jews, Bellow had complicated feelings on Israel. “If you want everyone to love you, don’t discuss Israeli politics,” he once wrote.
In the 1970s, JTA reports show that he followed Israeli diplomacy closely and was a strong supporter of the Jewish state in the face of international criticism. In 1974, at a PEN press conference, he called for a boycott of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural heritage arm that has historically been very critical of Israeli policy.
In 1984, Bellow met with then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was in the United States on an official state visit.
But Bellow wasn’t a blanket supporter of Israel — in 1979, he signed a letter protesting West Bank settlement expansion that was read at a rally of 30,000 people in Tel Aviv. In 1987, while in Haifa for a conference on his work, Bellow criticized the Israeli government for the way it handled the Jonathan Pollard spy case, bringing up an issue that still reverberates in Israel-Diaspora conversation — and in U.S. politics.
“I think the American Jews are very sensitive to the question of dual allegiance, and it is probably wrong of Israel to press this question because it is one which is very often used by antisemites,” Bellow said.
Nobel Prize
After garnering multiple National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976. JTA’s report on the award noted that Bellow’s most recent book at the time, published right around the time of the Nobel announcements, was a memoir about his 1975 stay in Jerusalem, titled “To Jerusalem and Back.” The report added: “Two of his books, ‘Herzog,’ published in 1964 and ‘Mr. Sammler’s Planet,’ which won him the National Book Award in 1971, have been translated into Hebrew and were enthusiastically received by Israeli critics and public.”
(Bellow wasn’t the only Jew to win a Nobel that year: Milton Friedman won the economics prize, Baruch Blumberg shared the medicine prize and Burton Richter shared the physics prize.)
Bellow, center, with his fifth wife Janis Freedman-Bellow and longtime friend Allan Bloom, who is the subject of Bellow’s last novel, “Ravelstein.” (Courtesy of the Bellow family)
A “Jewish writer”?
The Anti-Defamation League also gave Bellow an award in 1976. According to a JTA report, Seymour Graubard, honorary national chairman of the ADL at the time, said that Bellow “has correctly rejected all efforts to pigeonhole him as a ‘Jewish writer.’ Rather, he has simply found in the Jewish experience those common strains of humanity that are part of all of us — and therein lies his greatness as an American writer.”
Debate over whether or not Bellow should be labeled a “Jewish writer,” and what that meant, dogged him for much of his career. After his death in 2005, at 89, a New York Jewish Week obituary focused on Bellow as “a literary giant who did not want to be bound by the tag of Jewish writer.”
“Mr. Bellow bridled at being considered a Jewish writer, though his early novels, most notably 1944’s ‘The Victim,’ dealt with anti-Semitism and featured characters who spoke Yiddish and Russian,” Steve Lipman wrote.
Bellow’s biographer James Atlas added in the obituary: “He always said he was a writer first, an American second and Jewish third. But all three were elements of his genius. His greatest contribution was that he was able to write fiction that had tremendous philosophical depth.”
In a JTA essay at the time of Bellow’s death, academic and fiction writer John J. Clayton argued: “No good writer wants to be pigeonholed or limited in scope. But he is deeply a Jewish writer — not just a Jew by birth.
“Jewish culture, Jewish sensibility, a Jewish sense of holiness in the everyday, permeate his work.”
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Nominee for Wisconsin governor appeared with podcast host who defended ‘Camp Auschwitz’ t-shirt
Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin’s Republican nominee for governor, is facing heat for appearing on a podcast hosted by an online personality with a history of antisemitic remarks and jokes about Adolf Hitler.
“The Quartering” podcast host Jeremy Hambly has said Adolf Hitler had “actually done some good things,” joked with guests about the Holocaust by calling it the “Hall of Cost” and saying it cost “around 6 million bucks,” and defended a “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt worn during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as “dark humor.” In 2023, The Quartering was sponsored by Antelope Hill Publishing, a white nationalist publisher that marked Hitler’s birthday each year by offering discounts on books written by and about the Nazi leader.
Tiffany discussed his gubernatorial bid on a December episode of the podcast, as reported by the Milwaukee Courier — news that emerged after Tiffany had criticized a leading Democratic candidate for appearing with popular progressive streamer Hasan Piker, who has been embraced by Democratic Party candidates even as he has championed terrorist groups as righteous fighters against Israel — leading to accusations he trafficks in antisemitism. In a recent speech to college students, Piker blasted Democrats who “fund ICE” and “fund Israel.”
On the podcast, Tiffany, who is running unopposed on the Republican side to replace Gov. Tony Evers, a two-term Democrat who announced his retirement, also accepted Hambly’s offer to volunteer for his campaign.
In the interview with Tiffany, Hambly said he “will do everything” he can to elect the Republican as governor and offered to help the Tiffany campaign alongside Scott Presler, a prominent “Stop the Steal” activist who has been affiliated with the anti-Islamic group ACT for America.
“I can bring Scott Presler out. We can doorknock for you,” Hambly said. When Hambly asked how supporters could get involved, Tiffany directed listeners to his campaign website to sign up as volunteers.
The resurfaced interview comes as Tiffany has sought to make antisemitism an issue in the governor’s race by criticizing Democratic state Rep. Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist whose campaign has gained momentum in the competitive Aug. 11 Democratic primary, for appearing on a livestream hosted by Piker.
“Remember what [Hong] said the day after we had all these socialists win recent elections?” Tiffany said on The Jay Weber Show last week. “Wisconsin, you’re next.” He later warned that voters “need to wake up” before Hong, whom he said was “going to hang around with an antisemite,” is elected governor.
The Tiffany campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the candidate’s podcast appearance.
Hong defended her appearance on Piker’s show, saying, “Just because I am on a platform certainly does not mean that I endorse everything that has been said by either the hosts or other people who have gone on.”
Wisconsin Republicans have been accused by Democrats of trying to boost Hong in the primary because they believe she would be easier to beat than her rivals in the general election. Recent polls show Hong with a slight lead.
Emily Stuckey, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, told the Forward in a statement that “Tiffany is cozying up to antisemitic extremists who have praised Hitler and encouraging them to volunteer with his campaign — it’s clear he is far too extreme to represent Wisconsin.”
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Trump rejects Mamdani vow to arrest Netanyahu in NYC
(JTA) — Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he’s still thinking about whether he should arrest Benjamin Netanyahu the next time the Israeli prime minister is in New York City. Not gonna happen, President Donald Trump stepped in on Monday to say.
“Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump’s post came days after Mamdani said that he is in “active conversation” with the city’s Law Department about detaining a foreign leader like Netanyahu, who faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged actions related to Israel’s war with Hamas. Netanyahu often attends the United Nations General Assembly in Manhattan in September and is planning to do so this year.
“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani reiterated, in an interview with the New York Times, referring to the court’s seat in the Netherlands.
He also hedged on his earlier pledge, seeming ready to defer to the city’s lawyers. (The legal consensus has been that a warrant by a court not recognized by the United States is unenforceable. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he is seeking the dismantlement of the ICC.)
“I’ve also said that I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city,” Mamdani told the Times. The interviewer, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, prompted him to elaborate. “Meaning that whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do, but we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani said.
Trump jumped to the defense of Netanyahu, who is up for reelection later this year.
Netanyahu, he said, is busy fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that the “only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented SPIRAL OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION, something that should have been dealt with years ago, by previous Presidents!”
Trump’s comments come after months of speculation over how an attempted arrest of Netanyahu could pit New York City law enforcement against the United States. Mamdani told reporters after a private meeting with the president last year that the two men did not discuss his vow to arrest Netanyahu. Mamdani has said he would also push for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, were he to enter New York City.
Some Mamdani Democratic allies were also pouring cold water on the prospect of an arrest.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, who is often aligned with Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian politics, said on the Fox News Channel on Sunday that, in his view, Netanyahu “can come to the U.N. Assembly.”
“The ICC and ICJ have a legal process. That case will go forward,” Khanna said, adding that he’s focused on cutting military aid and stopping weapons sales to Israel. “But, you know, I’m not for creating a spectacle. The U.N. is a place that people can come to.”
Dan Shapiro, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under Barack Obama, speculated that Mamdani’s plan could backfire, since an attempt to arrest Netanyahu would “give him a political boost at home” as Netanyahu fights for reelection. “That would be an own goal,” Shapiro wrote on X.
Republican New York City Council member Inna Vernikov, who is Jewish and has been a staunch Mamdani critic, wrote to Rubio requesting that the State Department issue Mamdani a “stern warning.” She also asked that the department issue an opinion on whether arresting Netanyahu would “violate U.S. law resulting in a prosecution and/or criminal action taken by the federal government against Mayor Mamdani.”
A New York City mayor has previously booted an international leader from a U.N.-related event. In 1995, Rudy Giuliani had Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, ejected from a U.N. concert at Lincoln Center, drawing criticism from then-President Bill Clinton’s administration.
Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on Saturday that Netanyahu will be attending the U.N. General Assembly in September. “And if anyone should be arrested, it is @NYCMayor Zohran Mamdani,” he said.
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Where does Andy Burnham, the new British prime minister, stand on Israel and antisemitism?
(JTA) — Andy Burnham officially became Britain’s new Labour prime minister on Monday, replacing Keir Starmer who resigned following the party’s disastrous showing in local elections in May.
Starmer left behind a mixed record on antisemitism. He purged the party of its image as hostile to Jews under former party leader Jeremy Corbyn. But at the same time, attacks against Jews in Britain have risen in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack on Israel, and uncertainty is at a high.
Starmer’s successor has spent much of his political career over the past decade cultivating close ties with Britain’s Jewish community. As the former mayor of Greater Manchester, home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish populations, Burnham frequently spoke out against antisemitism, attended Holocaust commemorations and worked closely with Jewish communal organizations.
Yet in the lead-up to his installation as prime minister, Burnham also signaled a shift in Labour’s mainstream position on Israel and Gaza, including support for greater pressure on Israel.
Burnham’s comments about Labour’s leadership contest prompted a sharp rebuke from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, which expressed “significant concerns” over his framing of Gaza and Israel’s war with Hamas. The umbrella groups also said they welcomed his commitment to tackling antisemitism.
Here is a look at some of Burnham’s views on the subjects and how they might impact his party’s policies going forward.
Early support for Israel and a two-state solution
During Labour’s 2015 leadership contest, Burnham said at a Jewish community debate that his first foreign trip, should he win the Labour leadership, would be to Israel. He opposed a boycott of Israel, asking, “What message would it send?” while stating that he supported a negotiated two-state solution.
In a questionnaire sent to him that year by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, he also stated that he supported “two states living side by side in peace, and recognized by all of their neighbors.” However, he added that he supported “an end to occupation and illegal settlement building by the Israelis, and an end to the rocket and terror attacks by the terrorist group Hamas.”
He also made it clear at the time that he did not support West Bank settlements, telling the PSC, “Labour recognizes that the settlements and their continued expansion remain key obstacles to resolving the conflict, as [then party leader] Ed Miliband has said, they are both illegal and immoral.”
Labour’s antisemitism crisis
Burnham was vocal about tackling antisemitism when the Labour Party became embroiled in allegations of antisemitism under Corbyn’s leadership between 2015 and 2020,.
Corbyn had in 2012 mural defended a mural depicting hook-nosed Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of exploited workers. (He later said he regretted the defense.) He called representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah “friends.”
Burnham told the Board of Deputies in 2019 that Labour had failed to deal with antisemitism complaints “firmly, quickly and decisively” and warned that the party had lost the confidence of many Jewish voters.
“It is inconceivable to me that a party which has prided itself on its record on racism could have become embroiled in an antisemitism crisis,” he said.
In 2020, the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission found Labour had committed unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination related to antisemitism.
Oct. 7 and rising antisemitism
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, Burnham issued a statement with his deputy mayor saying, “We condemn without reservation the appalling attacks in Israel by Hamas. Nothing justifies the taking of innocent lives in such a barbaric and indiscriminate manner.”
He also stated that “Israel had a right to defend itself, and protect its citizens, in line with international law”
He told the Jewish community that he had spoken with Greater Manchester’s chief constable, who assured him there would be an increased police presence alongside Jewish community organizations. Burnham said local leaders were “determined that all our communities in Greater Manchester will be kept safe” and that “we will never tolerate any form of hatred on our streets.”
Manchester synagogue terror attack
Barely two years later on Yom Kippur 2025, Manchester became the target of a major terror attack, outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation. Two people were killed amid a police response.
“Manchester stands together and we will not allow division in our communities,” Burnham said, visiting the synagogue soon after what he described as an attack on the entire city.
Golders Green ambulance attack
Burnham spoke out in April when four Hatzola volunteer ambulances were set ablaze in London’s heavily Orthodox Golders Green neighborhood. “This is another terrible incident that will concern Jewish communities in London and in Greater Manchester who have faced appalling antisemitic attacks in recent months,” he said.
Recent comments on Gaza
Burnham has been critical of Israel’s military campaign in the aftermath of Oct. 7. He doubled down in a leadership campaign video released last week and took his own party to task.
He condemned Hamas and once again rejected antisemitism, but he argued Britain should “do more to put pressure on the Israeli government,” including considering further restrictions on arms exports and action against illegal West Bank settlements.
“I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that,” he said. The party was “too slow to call for a ceasefire.”
He called images from Gaza “a scar on our collective conscience.”
His comments reflect a parliamentary push across the board that Britain should do more to take action against Israel, including supporting a ban on all Israeli goods coming from the West Bank — something that Ireland and other European countries have been pushing for.
In his video, Burnham stopped short of describing Israel’s actions as genocide, saying that such a determination should be made by international courts.
Jewish communal reaction
The video drew a swift response from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council. Burnham had seen “first hand the links between hatred of Israel, antisemitic extremism and deadly violence against British Jews,” the groups said.
They urged Burnham and other political leaders to “show the utmost care in their rhetoric” at a time when antisemitism in Britain had become “more normalized, more extreme and more violent.”
British Jews will watch closely how Burnham balances his longstanding engagement with the Jewish community and his increasingly critical stance toward the Israeli government.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive Gideon Falter read aloud an open letter to Burnham on Monday calling on him to take a stand against the rise in antisemitism in the country. “Your legacy will not be remembered solely in terms of tax rates and hospital waiting times,” Falter said. “It will be whether Jews were murdered or thrived in Andy Burnham’s Britain.”
Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg congratulated Burnham on X, and welcomed the new prime minister’s “early commitment to tackling antisemitism,” and that the Board “will work with his administration towards the U.K. playing its strongest role in global peace and security.”
Ephraim Mirvis, the country’s chief rabbi, posted a photo on X of himself and Burnham and offered a blessing. “He assumes the immense responsibility of leadership at a time of great challenge, both at home and abroad,” Mirvis said. “May he be blessed with the wisdom, strength and good judgment to keep our country safe and may his service bring prosperity and harmony for all.”
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