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In Max and Richard Fleischer, was father like son?
Spare a thought for Mr. Boop’s bald spot — or is it a yarmulke?
In Max Fleischer’s 1932 cartoon “Minnie the Moocher,” Betty Boop is shown at home, harangued by her heavily-accented immigrant parents. They want her to eat her hasenpfeffer. For a particular subset of cartoon neurotics, what exactly is going on with Betty’s dad’s pate is a point of obsession.
It’s not a kippah. A wisp of hair tells us it’s male pattern baldness, and, anyway, hasenpfeffer has rabbit, which is treyf. But if you watch enough Fleischer cartoons, you can be confident that the man’s lone follicle was meant to be challenged by landsmen.
The first cartoon the Betty Boop appears in — more properly a Boop prototype, a lounge-singing anthropomorphic dog — has similarly scrambled Yiddishkeit. And 1930’s “Dizzy Dishes” captures the shift of a psychopathic canine short order cook.
At one point, an animal with a hat and beard, and a distinctly Eastern European accent, pokes his head through the window. “I want ham,” he says, and his face is immediately smacked by a loin printed with the letters כּשר, or kosher. It makes no sense.
There’s no more logic when, in 1932’s “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You,” Koko the Clown, fleeing from the disembodied head of Louis Armstrong, sprouts a speedometer from his rear, first reading 70, then 90, 100, a question mark, an exclamation point and, finally, כּשר.
It’s an inside joke from one Majer (later Max) Fleischer, who was born to a tailor in Krakow, and came of age in Brownsville, Brooklyn, when it was the domain of poor Jewish factory workers. The question of Boop’s paternity — and whether it is any strict sense Jewish — may come to mind at Film Forum, where Fleischer père et fils, a retrospective of Max Fleischer’s cartoons and his son Richard’s live action work, is playing from May 8 to 28.
The elder Fleischer was a pioneer in animation. He patented the rotoscope, allowing artists to draw over filmed live action and create more realistic movement. He invented the bouncing ball used in sing-a-longs to indicate words. He pushed the boundaries of cartoons, bringing a manic, New York sensibility to the medium: Mickey Mouse drove a steamboat; Betty Boop went to hell.
It’s hard to explain the work of Fleischer and its sheer lunacy, but Jewish examples may suffice. Like a jumpscare, Semitic caricatures spring up from graveyards or along waterfalls with interjections like “ya needed ih” and “vat can we do?” Why? Why not?
At the same time Fleischer was capable of incredible, painterly refinement, as in his Superman cartoons. The curators at Film Forum have devoted programing to the Man of Steel, Betty Boop, Fleischer’s Popeye shorts, musical novelties and “head” cartoons, the kind favored by stoners in the 1960s and ‘70s.
They are all remarkably weird, but perhaps no less strange than the filmography of Max’s son Richard, who helmed the original Doctor Dolittle, Soylent Green and the 1959 adaptation of Meyer Levin’s novel Compulsion, a fictive account of the Leopold and Loeb case.
It’s difficult to say what Richard’s work has in common with his father’s, as so many of Richard’s projects have nothing in common with each other save his name in the credits.
What there is, from contained noirs like 1952’s The Narrow Margin to the spaghetti biblical epic Barabbas, is a brilliance for visuals and staging. (And a seeming affinity for lady pinnipeds.)
In the widescreen formats of VistaVision and CinemaScope, the younger Fleischer worked depth of field in ways that rivalled Orson Welles. (There may be no greater testament to Fleischer’s talent for wrangling tall personalities than Welles’ appearance in both Compulsion and 1960’s Crack in the Mirror.) He relished the chance to experiment with underwater cinematography in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He once insisted on delaying production to film during a solar eclipse.
On the rare occasion that he tried comedy — 1948’s So This is New York — Fleischer made early use of freeze frames and, in a sequence that prefigures Airplane!, provided genteel subtitles to rough-spoken New York cabbie.
Notable in Fleischer the younger’s oeuvre is its detached engagement with Jewish themes. In the novel of Compulsion, Levin pays lip service to Jewish self-hatred motivating the murder at the center of the story. But Fleischer never makes much of his killers’ or their victim’s Jewishness, caring more for their nihilistic thoughts on Nietzsche and the Welles character’s atheism. (The character was based on Leopold and Loeb’s real attorney, Clarence Darrow, and often gives voice to his verbatim quotes.)
Barrabas, a film in the mold of Ben-Hur, follows Anthony Quinn as the titular reprieved bandit, the one Jesus replaced on the cross. The contours of his story resemble the Talmudic account of Reish Lakeish, a brigand turned gladiator turned believer, but it is a remarkably goyische production that doesn’t even bother to have matzo for the Passover week of the Passion.
Fleischer’s Jewishness perhaps feels akin to that of one of his collaborators, Kirk Douglas. It was never denied, but seldom a feature. But just as Douglas had The Juggler, where he went from Holocaust survivor to halutz, Fleischer had The Jazz Singer.
That remake, from 1980 and starring Neil Diamond, is wisely excluded from the Film Forum’s particular lineup, sparing filmgoers the Jewish Elvis’ blackface, and perhaps affording Fleischer the grace owed him as a replacement director who stepped in mid-production and couldn’t save the picture.
Per Jason A. Ney’s biography Richard Fleischer: Journeyman, Fleischer described the performance of Laurence Olivier in that movie thusly: “This very gentile gentleman had done his damnedest to portray a very Jewish cantor by using every broad cliche in the book. Rolling eyes, grimacing, gesturing, it was a performance worthy of the Yiddish Art Theater at its worst.”
Fleischer, it must be concluded, knew from Jews, and so surmised Sir Laurence wasn’t up to leading Kol Nidrei — not that Diamond did much better.
The yikhes in the Fleischer family is strong, with father and son producing countless hours of too often undersung entertainment. Perhaps the greatest tribute to their overlap and influence will not be screening at Film Forum, but it’s worth recalling.
In a season two episode of the Rugrats, Chuckie swallows a watermelon seed. Through the magic of animation, the babies, drawing inspiration from a sci-fi film, imagine themselves shrunken down and entering his body to retrieve it before it grows.
It’s a parody of 1966’s Fantastic Voyage, directed by Richard Fleischer. It’s safe to say, without the contributions of both father and son, the episode couldn’t exist.
Film Forum’s series Fleischer père et fils begins May 8.
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Graham Platner drops out of Maine Senate race, citing push to ‘end the genocide’ in parting message
(JTA) — Maine Democrat Graham Platner announced Wednesday evening that he will drop out of the U.S. Senate race following new allegations that he had committed sexual assault.
“We believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me, and for that reason, we are suspending campaign operations,” he said.
Platner’s withdrawal came two days after Politico reported that a former girlfriend had accused him of entering her home uninvited about five years ago and forcing her to have sex with him.
“All we were asking for was healthcare, was to end the genocide, to use our taxpayer dollars at home to uplift our communities instead of waging war overseas,” Platner said in a Facebook address announcing his exit. He denied the allegations against him in the address, adding that a “corporate media system and the political establishment got to act as judge, jury and executioner.”
The allegations were the latest in a series of controversies that have hit Platner’s campaign, including his since-covered-up Nazi tattoo, unearthed Reddit posts and other reports about his behavior toward women.
Platner, who won his Democratic primary in June on an anti-Israel progressive platform, denied the fresh allegations, telling Politico that “any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically untrue.”
But the report prompted a rapid collapse in support for Platner among Democratic leaders, progressive allies and organizations that had backed his bid to beat GOP Sen. Susan Collins. It also sparked a scramble among Maine Democrats to find a different nominee ahead of the July 27 deadline for a replacement to appear on the ballot.
On Wednesday, the Maine Democratic Party announced that they had voted to hold a nominating convention to fill Platner’s vacancy.
“There is an unprecedented amount of energy and enthusiasm among Maine Democrats, driven in part by many of the dedicated volunteers and supporters who were inspired by Graham Platner’s campaign,” the party said in a statement. “We look forward to coming together and harnessing that energy around our new nominee as we work to defeat Susan Collins in November.”
The state Democratic Party leadership called on Platner to withdraw as the Democratic nominee on Monday, adding that the party needed to “refocus this campaign” on the fight against GOP Sen. Susan Collins. The seat is key to Democratic hopes of taking back the Senate.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, one of Platner’s most high-profile supporters, as well as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also called for Platner to step aside on Tuesday.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who initially backed Platner’s opponent before she dropped out, had said in a joint statement with New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee “will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.”
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Rahm Emanuel: Democrats who support Israel can still lead the party to the White House
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — Pausing as he looked out at the packed hall at Tel Aviv University, Rahm Emanuel offered his audience a warning about what he was about to say.
“Hold your applause, because you may not like this,” he said, before laying out his proposal for U.S. sanctions targeting Israelis who attack Palestinian civilians and property, Israeli officials who voice support for that violence, and companies and banks that support “illegal settlements.”
The crowd applauded anyway — three separate times.
Under a 2017 law, Israel bars foreign nationals who publicly call for boycotts of Israel or its settlements from entering the country. Emanuel issued his call for sanctions from a stage in Tel Aviv, a measure of how far Democratic politics on Israel have shifted since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
Widely viewed as a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, Emanuel, a former congressman, White House chief of staff, Chicago mayor and U.S. ambassador to Japan, and one of the most prominent Jewish figures in American politics, arrived in Israel on Sunday. His speech Wednesday afternoon, billed as “An Honest Conversation: The U.S.-Israel Relationship, Where It Stands Today and The Road Ahead,” was the keynote of the visit, and was meant to signal the need for a “fundamentally new and different approach” to the U.S.-Israel alliance, as he put it.
Whether Emanuel’s critique will land with the Israeli establishment, or with the ruling coalition, remains to be seen. Emanuel made a point of avoiding Israel’s elected officials during his visit, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he did not want to interfere with elections set for the fall. He did meet with President Isaac Herzog, who is appointed by the government, as well as visit hospitals in Tel Aviv and Nablus that partner with each other.
But it was clear that it was resonating with attendees. Moti Porath told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he believed Emanuel correctly diagnosed the ailment at the heart of the Israeli government, a leader who has become an outcast abroad but remains too skilled a politician to easily dislodge.
Porath, who splits his time between Newton, Massachusetts, and Tel Aviv, and who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the same time as Netanyahu, said he recognizes the prime minister as a singularly talented political operator. “He’s a fantastic politician,” Porath said. “Maybe he’s a manipulator.”
To the attendees who spoke with JTA, Emanuel’s message was not anti-Israel but pro-Israel, in Porath’s telling, what a good friend is obligated to do when the other is acting out of line. Emanuel put it similarly from the stage, “True friends tell each other the truth.”
Porath said he hopes the United States and Israel can once again find “a common political vision,” but that doing so will require tough love from America’s next president.
The event was hosted by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of the United States and moderated by its founding director, Yoav Fromer, alongside Yael Sternhell, the professor who heads the university’s American studies program. Organizers solicited questions from students in advance and said more than 100 were submitted.
But with a university audience likely to skew liberal, attendee Yoam Barash said the program would have benefited from a right-wing voice to push back on Emanuel’s comments, since most Israeli voters lean right. A February poll by the Midgam Institute for Israel’s Channel 12 news found 68% of veteran voters and 75% of those voting for the first time identify as right-wing. “Why didn’t they bring somebody from the right?” Barash asked.
Barash is the uncle of Daniel Barash, a managing director at the public affairs firm SKDK who helped organize the event He attended with Hannah Winkler, a friend from his army days and now a doctor in the Tel Aviv area. She said she pins her hope not on the U.S.-Israel alliance but on a left-wing victory in the upcoming elections. “Without that, I have no hope,” she said.
Told that some attendees had wanted a more politically diverse lineup, Fromer defended the format. “This is academia,” he said. “The goals here are very different than they would be on a political panel.”
At the same time, Fromer echoed the attendees’ view that Emanuel’s message was that of a friend rather than an adversary. “To say to someone, look, I’m trying to save you, if you don’t change your behavior, you’re going to self-destruct — that’s someone who cares,” he said.
The stakes, in his telling, are high for Israel and for the university. “Israelis have become pariahs. We used to be admired, the most admired,” he said, echoing Emanuel’s own warning from the stage that Israel’s leadership has turned it into a “territorial pariah.”
The damage is not merely reputational, he argued. “It’s not just feeling bad. It has practical implications,” he said, speculating about investment and capital that will stop flowing, students and tourists who will stop coming, Israelis who will lose their jobs.
During the anti-Israel protests that swept U.S. campuses in 2023 and 2024, ties with Israeli universities, including Tel Aviv University, were frequent targets of divestment demands. Emanuel himself warned in his speech that Israel’s scientists face exclusion from international research networks and that its artists and academics are being shut out of exhibits and conferences.
Inside the hall, at least, the message was received. “Most of the people in this room are quite sympathetic to what you have to say,” Barash told Emanuel on stage. “That is not the case across Israel.”
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Synagogue targeted by picketers inspires Ann Arbor ordinance to protect houses of worship
Ann Arbor, Michigan has become the latest city to pass legislation aimed at protecting houses of worship from protests, echoing similar policies passed by New York and proposed by California earlier this year.
But while New York and California introduced such legislation in response to occasional anti-Israel protests outside synagogues, Ann Arbor has been home to the persistent and brazen protest of a Holocaust denier who shows up to picket the same congregation every week on Shabbat.
While synagogue leaders are moved by the city council’s gesture, they don’t expect the protests to end anytime soon.
“The significance of the resolution is that a city council in a highly progressive city had the bravery to call out the antisemitism of Jew haters,” said Rabbi Nadav Caine, the spiritual leader of Ann Arbor’s Beth Israel Congregation. And that’s no small thing.
For the past 23 years, a small group of protesters have gathered outside Beth Israel on Shabbat carrying signs with hateful slogans like “Jewish Power Corrupts,” “No More Holocaust Movies” and “Antisemitism is earned, never given.”
Partly in response to those decades of hateful demonstrations, the Ann Arbor City Council on Monday unanimously passed a resolution directing the city manager to develop a plan for protecting houses of worship during protests, which can include protest-free buffer zones.
Jerry Sorokin, executive director of Beth Israel, expressed gratitude for the city council’s sentiment — though he also believes the measures “won’t make any real difference.”
The protesters carry “incredibly offensive” signs, Sorokin said. But they also stay off synagogue property and don’t interfere with congregants trying to enter, he said, making it unlikely that a security perimeter would affect their demonstrations.
“They’ve found out exactly what the limits of their legal rights are in terms of what they can say, where they can say it, and how they can interact with the public, and they push it right to the limit without going over,” Sorokin said.
A court agreed. In 2019, a congregant and local Holocaust survivor lost a lawsuit against the Beth Israel protesters and the city of Ann Arbor, with a court concluding that the protesters were engaging in protected speech.
Buffer zones across the country
The measure in Ann Arbor reflects a broader national debate about balancing protesters’ free speech rights with worshippers’ ability to safely access religious services, as New York and California have also moved to enact buffer zones outside houses of worship.
In May, demonstrators outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan chanted “We don’t want no Zionists here” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” outside an event promoting real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank. New York lawmakers approved a 50-foot security buffer around houses of worship proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani allowed a bill that requires the New York City Police to develop a plan for managing protests at houses of worship.
In Los Angeles, protesters targeting Wilshire Boulevard Temple for hosting speakers affiliated with the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems prompted California lawmakers to introduce a buffer-zone bill that would make it a crime to approach a person within 100 feet of a synagogue in order to hand out a leaflet, hold a sign, or “engage in oral protest.” First-time offenders would face up to six months in jail.
At the federal level, U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York introduced the SACRED Act, which would make it a federal crime to intimidate, obstruct or harass people within 100 feet of a house of worship.
But those proposals all face the same constitutional constraint: They can regulate how protests are conducted, but not the viewpoints being expressed. There’s no legal remedy to the offensive messages painted on placards and yelled at passing drivers, Sorokin said.
“I think what the city council did is laudable, and it is reassuring to us that they’re showing support for freedom of worship and for access to synagogues, churches, and mosques,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s going to change what goes on outside our building every Saturday.”
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