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Charles Grodin was a curmudgeon with a gooey center
It’s fair to say Charles Grodin, star of stage, screen and radio, had a reputation for being difficult. At times he seemed to relish it.
A new documentary, Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause, contends that his disruptive behavior went all the way back to Hebrew school days. Young Chuck was reportedly ousted from the classroom for having the temerity to ask what the Hebrew words they were singing meant. Thankfully his grandfather was a Talmudic scholar — so an authority on arguments — and coached him for his bar mitzvah.
“But at the bar mitzvah something happened that might have had a lot to do with what triggered a show business career,” Grodin recalls in an archival interview: He got a round of applause.
It’s perhaps a canned bit of mythmaking, but it also flies in the face of his public persona.
Grodin often seemed to chase jeers, playing a string of eminently unlikeable leading men (Elaine May remembers people booing him in a Q&A for The Heartbreak Kid, a film that produced the headline “You’ll Hate Him, Love the Movie”). He later earned the enmity of late-night audiences for being a combative guest on Johnny Carson and David Letterman. He carefully honed the curmudgeon shtick, even as he made a socially conscious pivot to journalism on MSNBC and 60 Minutes 2.
But the documentary by longtime Grodin fan James L. Freedman, his third after one on Carl Laemmle and another on sportscaster Marty Glickman, makes a compelling case for the actor as a softie, who teared up between takes when he had to be cruel to his co-stars, and a crusader for criminal justice reform who spent nearly every weekend in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility meeting with women convicted under the draconian Rockefeller drug laws. (When the law was reformed, Governor George Pataki personally recognized Grodin’s work on the matter.)
This is a kind of unapologetic hagiography. The film begins with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy about “ripples of hope,” then announces that “Charles Sidney Grodin, inspiring, cajoling and annoying people every step of the way unleashed a tidal wave of hope.” But the proof Grodin’s mensch credentials emerges with the interviewees, many of whom are gets for anyone.
Elaine May sat for an interview (Freedman produced Cybill, with Cybill Shepherd, Grodin’s co-star in May’s Heartbreak Kid — interestingly Shepherd herself does not appear). Alan Arkin zoomed in and Robert De Niro — whose reputation as a difficult interview is not just an act — was happy to reminisce about Midnight Run. Steve Martin, Martin Short, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Marc Maron, Ellen Burstyn and Carol Burnett — over the phone — all sing the praises of the man who brought his lawyer on Letterman.
Letterman, sadly, is absent, perhaps keeping the bit of their troubled dynamic going.
Grodin was prickly. His Hebrew school challenge to authority didn’t end there. He would later ask Uta Hagen why so much of her instruction emphasized invisible luggage and, in his first role in a major film in Rosemary’s Baby, he questioned Roman Polanski’s direction. (Grodin was a director himself, and there’s an interesting section on his work for the 1969 Simon and Garfunkel TV special, which southern markets objected to because it showed school integration.)
The film, which goes to great lengths in voiceover to explain things the target audience likely already knows — Gene Wilder was a major movie star; Nichols and May were a legendary comedy duo; a telegram was “kinda like a hand-delivered text” — is at its best as a highlight reel.
Grodin’s all-too-composed or just-on-the-verge performances still impress, and learning how many moments he improvised (e.g. asking De Niro if he ever had sex with an animal) will give you a greater appreciation for his craft.
The film’s departure into Grodin’s social justice work, beginning in the 1990s, is moving, if overscored to make you weepy. (One of the talking heads on the subject of the unjust felony murder rule could have done better without the chyron “social activist / producer The Hangover movies.”)
His advocacy for the unhoused and the wrongfully convicted are an important part of Grodin’s legacy, but Freedman, who divides his film with uninspired title cards like “I’ll never forget that,” could better connect this impulse with that of Grodin as gadfly.
Given the film’s inclusion at Jewish film festivals, you’d think someone could make explicit that at Grodin’s core was a Jewish tendency to argue, refusing to remain silent when he felt something was wrong — be it a directing choice or a systemic miscarriage of justice disproportionately affecting people of color.
With this documentary Grodin, ever a kochleffel, possibly a tzadik, can be appreciated as a humanitarian, but it’s perhaps a better tribute to pop on Clifford, Real Life or even Beethoven. Wherever he is, he’ll surely hold for applause.
James L. Freedman’s Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause is playing at the New York Jewish Film Festival beginning Jan. 14. Tickets and more information can be found here.
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The White House cabinet is eating like your zayde
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is hawking a new diet: sauerkraut. Yes, lacto-fermented cabbage. And it’s catching on with Trump’s cabinet, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Vice President JD Vance, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are all heaping their plates with cabbage — apparently “drawn by the promise of slimmer waistlines and glowing skin.”
This claim may sound like it belongs in the marketing material for some sort of beauty product, or a scammy gas station supplement, rather than a jar of preserved vegetables. But RFK Jr. boasted that he lost 20 lbs in 30 days from eating mass amounts of the stuff. One might assume something like a tapeworm is responsible for such extreme weight loss — especially given Kennedy’s previous worm-related medical issues — but he asserts it’s all thanks to cabbage.
The diet, drawn up by one Dr. Sean O’Mara, an MD who advertises himself as an “executive biological consultant to high-performance leaders,” is apparently not just about sauerkraut; it includes other fermented vegetables, urges followers to also eat steak, snack on “old world cheese” and cut out alcohol and sugar.
Admittedly, this sounds like a fairly normal, low-carb diet. But sauerkraut is so core to the meal plan that members of the cabinet have taken to making their own, and carrying it around just to make sure they’re never without. Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, said on a podcast with Steven Miller’s wife, Katie, that she has had to refuse to stow a container of sauerkraut in her clutch when she and her husband go out for a nice evening. But, she said, he brings it anyway, presumably in his own bag. Or maybe tucked under his arm.
It’s hard to imagine anything more bubbie-coded than whipping out a jar of sauerkraut from a handbag while out at a nice dinner.
It’s not that Jews have some kind of patent on fermented vegetables; they exist in many cultures, like kimchi in Korea and miso in Japan. Sauerkraut specifically is common throughout European countries like Germany, Czechia and Russia.
But in the U.S., there’s a pretty strong association between Jews and pickles, whether they be sauerkraut or cucumbers, thanks to the deli culture imported with Jewish immigrants into the U.S. Jews created a pickle district on the Lower East Side, selling the preserved vegetables from pushcarts and spreading the food through the city. We’ve long been aware of the healthy gut biome effects of a lacto-fermented vegetable.
Ashkenazi food has long been made fun of for being gross — largely thanks to innovations like jarred gefilte fish, its beige-heavy color palette and, as the Wall Street Journal piece hinted at, the diet’s resulting gastrointestinal effects. Much of shtetl food culture was the result of hardship, and the need to preserve food through long winters, not an attempt for glowing skin and slim waistlines. The hardier the vegetable, the longer it lasted. Enter the cabbage. There are few foods less sexy than cabbage. (And I love cabbage.)
Which is why it’s so funny to see some of the most powerful men in the U.S. adopting the diet of a poor shtetl Jew — and doing so for aesthetic reasons.
There are a lot of weird diets and quasi-scientific buzzwords like “seed oils” and “clean protein” floating through the MAHA world that these American leaders often play to. But most of those, at least the ones promoted by men like Vance, have some cross-over focus on manliness and discipline — they’re about building muscle in some sort of primitive way. Think the carnivore diet or Kennedy’s obsession with beef tallow. Seeing these men turn to a diet I associate with my grandmother because they want to lose weight feels absurd, especially in the days of Ozempic for those with the funds to pay for it. Perhaps that does not have the right optics.
Of course, sauerkraut is nothing to be ashamed of. In recent years, Jews have been reclaiming pride in their food cultures; bespoke pickling classes have boomed. So the White House cabinet’s sauerkraut kick is really just them being really late to the shtetl chic trend. But you still should probably be ashamed of smuggling your own food into a nice restaurant, even if it’s sauerkraut.
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Chair of Britain’s largest arts center to step down amid antisemitism scrutiny
(JTA) — The chair of the United Kingdom’s largest arts institution will step down this fall following months of controversy over allegations of antisemitism and his social media activity related to Israel.
Misan Harriman, 48, the chair of the publicly funded Southbank Centre in central London that hosts millions of visitors per year, publicly stated earlier this week that he would not seek another term.
In a since-deleted social media post, Harriman stated on Monday that his departure had long been planned. “It’s semi-public knowledge that my term is coming to an end anyway,” he said, according to The Guardian. “I had decided way before this madness that I was going to do two terms.” He added, “I came on just after Covid, two terms, then handing the baton to whoever the next chairman will be. We will find out in due course, and of course, I am going to support that.”
The Southbank Centre said that it had been informed earlier in the year of Harriman’s decision.
In May, more than 64 MPs and peers wrote to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy asking the government to open an investigation into Harriman’s behavior, expressing concern that his public comments “have not been treated with sufficient scrutiny, particularly given their implications for public trust and community confidence,” in a publicly funded institution.
Nandy later confirmed that the Charity Commission and Arts Council England were examining complaints, alongside an internal review by the Southbank Centre.
Harriman, a photographer and self-described social activist, came to prominence in 2020, photographing a Black Lives Matter protest in London. He has overseen the Southbank Centre since 2021, but it’s only in recent months that he has faced increasing scrutiny over his public and social media comments, including referring to Israel as an “occupying power” and accusing the country of genocide.
In April, when two Jewish men were stabbed in the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green in London, Harriman posted on social media about an alleged third victim who was Muslim. He wrote, “Wait, so there was a 3rd victim on the SAME DAY who was Muslim?! And our press isn’t reporting it? Even the Met Police didn’t mention the Muslim victim in its X post?! What is going on @metpolice_uk ?”
The Muslim victim did in fact receive coverage, and the focus on the Jewish victims stemmed from the alleged attacker’s anti-Jewish animus.
Then, following Reform UK’s gains in the May 7 local elections, Harriman shared a post that critics said compared the party’s success to the events that led to the Holocaust.
The post prompted Reform MP Robert Jenrick to respond on X, “Comparing the millions who voted Reform on Thursday to the Nazis is disgusting.”
Harriman received support from many prominent activists and artists who signed a petition in May organized by The Good Law Project. The petition accused right-wing media of running a smear campaign against Harriman.
Those who signed included activist Greta Thunberg, actors Aimee Lou Wood, Mark Ruffalo, and Susan Sarandon, director Yorgos Lanthimos and journalist Mehdi Hassan.
Following Harriman’s announcement, the Campaign Against Antisemitism praised the decision, posting on X, “Mr Harriman’s decision to step down – supposedly always his intention – is welcome. This saga has exposed a rot in the arts world. We hope that his successor will be more worthy of the post.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Mamdani touts ‘Babies not Bombs’ messaging after flexing political muscle in the New York primaries
(New York Jewish Week) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrated the victories of the progressive candidates he endorsed in New York’s Democratic primaries describing their success as a “shift in the balance of power.”
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the morning after the primaries, Mamdani touted the triumphs as a shift in the balance of power between “working people” and “special interests.”
Mamdani-endorsed candidates Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez won Democratic nominations for Congress. During the press conference, the mayor repeatedly highlighted their calls to restrict U.S. military aid to Israel and redirect federal funding to domestic priorities.
Following Mamdani’s election night sweep in New York, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “America the Beautiful will NEVER be a Communist Country!!!”
The victories offered an early demonstration of Mamdani’s political influence beyond City Hall, as several Democratic Socialist candidates he backed, including Chevalier, defeated established Democratic incumbents in their districts.
“The working person is struggling in our city to afford basic needs,” Mamdani said, adding that Avila Chevalier’s oft-repeated slogan of investing in “Babies not Bombs,” is “the kind of conscience, the kind of clarity, the kind of conviction that has been missing in our politics for far too long.”
Mamdani responded to the president’s post on Wednesday, telling a reporter who asked whether his goal is to make America a “socialist” country that his “goal is to make America a place that every American can afford.”
When asked about federal policies that could be affected by Mamdani’s endorsed candidates, the mayor cited Valdez’s support for “foreign policy that understands human rights for all” and Lander’s commitment to co-sponsoring the Block the Bombs Act, which prohibits the sale of certain U.S.-made offensive weapons to Israel.
Mamdani also dismissed a question about whether he was concerned about how the victories would play out in November as Democrats try to win back the House.
“Every time the fight for working people takes a step forward, you will hear Republicans say that this is actually going to jeopardize the existence of that very fight,” he said.
When asked whether the election of Chevalier, who has faced scrutiny for past social media posts attacking Democrats and her appearance at an Oct. 8, 2023, pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square, could “complicate campaigns for Democrats as a whole,” Mamdani replied “No.”
“[Chevalier] often speaks about a politics of life. She speaks about ‘Babies not bombs,’” Mamdani continued. “What could be a better example of what the people of the district want to see versus what the people of the district have been forced to experience, which is tens of billions of dollars being spent at a national level to bomb children overseas, while children in our own districts are struggling.”
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