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Judd Apatow on why Mel Brooks’ influence ‘will last as long as our jokes’
“May you live to 120” is a common Jewish blessing. This is the ideal age, the precedent set by Moses. A corresponding curse — some say it’s Chinese, but it feels palpably Yiddish — is “may you live in interesting times.”
At 99, Mel Brooks is still short of Mosaic longevity, but has undeniably lived, like his 2,000-year-old man, through interesting times. Often, he was the one who kept things interesting.
Into the whirl of the Brooksissance — an epoch witnessing a streaming sequel to History of the World Part I, the forthcoming Spaceballs II and a just-announced series Very Young Frankenstein — comes Mel Brooks: The 99-Year-Old Man! a two-part HBO documentary co-directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio. It is a deft portrait of the entertainer that earns its prodigious length. (Unlike a Brooks sequel, you won’t have to wait decades for the second installment — you can stream both starting Jan. 22.)
Structured around recent interviews with the comedian, and surfacing a wealth of rarely seen archival footage, the documentary distinguishes itself from previous efforts, like a 2013 American Masters episode, by going deep on Mel the man.
“Slowly he opened up and was willing to have that deep a conversation,” Apatow told me in an interview.
Apatow and Bonfiglio’s film addresses Brooks’ first marriage, his imposter syndrome and how his insomnia and chronic lateness on Your Show of Shows may have stemmed from PTSD from World War II, where he dug through German soil with a bayonet hunting for unexploded ordnance.
The film even explores a now quaint-seeming controversy over the Inquisition musical number from History of the World Part I (the St. Louis Jewish Light slammed him for indulging in “the kind of humor which would have received a standing ovation from an audience of stormtroopers and concentration camp commanders.”)
The documentary features interviews from across the world of comedy — perhaps the last occasion you’ll see Dave Chappelle and Jerry Seinfeld sharing a bill — including the bittersweet, invaluable insights of the late Rob Reiner.
“Fear is the main motivator for what he does,” noted Reiner, who also recounted Brooks’ heartbreak when Rob’s father, Carl, died. “The fear of not being funny, the fear of not being liked, whatever the fear is.. and because of that he becomes a lovable person.”
I spoke with Apatow and Bonfiglio about how one interviews a living legend, how Brooks’ example teaches us how to take on tyrants, and the surprising environmental message the auteur smuggled into Spaceballs. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Mel Brooks has been interviewed a lot, as we can see in the film — Judd, you even interviewed him for the Atlantic a couple years ago — but he told you that he doesn’t think people know the real him. How did you go about trying to get past the persona?
Judd Apatow: He’s been a private man throughout his life. When he’s been public, he likes to tell the old stories, and anecdotes. It’s funny because an old friend of Mel’s said to me, “You know, all his stories are bullshit. They’re all bullshit. They’re all made up.” And so in one of the interviews I said, “Mel, are any of these stories true?” And he goes “No!” So we’ll never know for some of it — the legends of Sid Caesar holding writers out the window — ‘cause he’s one of the great raconteurs. But I thought it would be really great to approach this as a person who does what he does, who has a life that is in some ways similar to his and to say, “What happened and how did you do it? How did it feel — what lessons can I learn from you?” And slowly he opened up and was willing to have that deep a conversation.
One of the great pleasures of this is the archive — him with Sid Caesar and the writers, outtakes of the Ballantine’s beer ad, behind-the-scenes footage — Michael, what was it like diving through that material. Was there anything that stands out as great or rare?
Michael Bonfiglio: It was so much fun. Mel has so many great stories, and when you go back through all the talk shows and stuff you notice he tends to tell the same one in different venues. Which we had a bit of fun with in the edit as well. We were always kind of looking for things where we said, “Oh, I haven’t heard him say that before, or talk about that in that way.” Some of those came from interviews we found on European television that we got from archives that probably have not been seen since they were on television and, sometimes he would be in a slightly different mode, maybe because it was a different audience.
There’s an interview where he’s talking about Spaceballs, and how air was the commodity in Spaceballs because the world was run by people who didn’t care about the environment. And it was like, “Oh, that’s not really something I got out of Spaceballs, but was clearly on Mel’s mind.” It was interesting to see how in Silent Movie how to him that was a commentary on media consolidation. Those ideas are there and I think those can be the comedic engine, as he would say, behind some of these films.
Apatow: Silent Movie was The Studio of its time.
Brooks wrote in his memoir “for the most part to characterize my humor as being purely Jewish humor is not accurate. It’s really New York humor.” What do you make of that assessment and how, to you, does the work seems Jewish?
Apatow: I’ve never known what defines Jewish humor enough to break it down. What is the difference between Jewish humor and the stuff Mark Twain was doing? Obviously you can say there’s humor that comes out of suffering. Joyous, brash humor that you tell because circumstances are so difficult. I’ve never been good at intellectualizing comedy. I always feel like comedy dies on the operating table. Mel, I think, is very proud of the fact that it works for everybody, so I’m sure for him he’s not trying to be specific in that way — but he may be doing it anyway. I don’t think of myself as someone working from a Jewish perspective, but clearly I am, whether I know it or like it or not!
I think it’s maybe reflexive for him. Even if he says it’s New York humor, growing up in Williamsburg everybody was Jewish!
Apatow: That’s his New York!
There’s a whole section about Brooks taking on Hitler. Judd, recently, very publicly, you suggested we’re living in a dictatorship. What can we learn from his example of making fun of autocrats?
Apatow: I think he fought in World War II and fought against authoritarianism and he felt it was important to speak truth to power. That’s why they attacked the Jimmy Kimmels and Stephen Colberts of the world. And I think we should all be inspired by his willingness to speak up. There are bad things happening right now. It shouldn’t be that shocking to say we’re living in a dictatorship. We don’t have a legislature that does anything. I think everybody should speak up, and everyone should be allowed to make fun of it ‘cause that’s why we’re in this country: for our freedom of speech.
On the question of legacy — he did so much. We didn’t even get into the short film The Critic, the first time the Academy recognized him. What do you think his legacy will be?
Bonfiglio: Laughter. Big, big laughter and I think that’s really what’s more important to him than all the awards and all of that, because I think that his work is gonna live on. It has. Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are over 50 years old now and they’re still hilarious. The comedy and the joy will live on.
Apatow: In addition to being as funny as anyone who’s ever been on Earth, he also gave a lot of people opportunities through his writing and directing. He introduced the world to people like Marty Feldman and Gene Wilder and Madeline Kahn and Teri Garr and on and on and on. There’s a real butterfly effect to all the people that went into comedy because they loved him, and so I think his influence will last as long as our jokes.
The post Judd Apatow on why Mel Brooks’ influence ‘will last as long as our jokes’ appeared first on The Forward.
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This national park would honor a Jewish philanthropist — if Republicans get back on board
The political climate is hardly favorable for a new national park centered on racial justice.
President Donald Trump this week called for sweeping budget cuts to the National Park Service and, in January, for the removal of slavery-related exhibits he said portray American history in a “woke manner.”
Yet a campaign to establish a national historic park honoring Julius Rosenwald — the Jewish philanthropist who funded schools for rural Black communities during the Jim Crow era — is pressing ahead.
Dorothy Canter, who launched the campaign in 2018, sees an opening for the park to finally become a reality. In February, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced legislation to create the Rosenwald National Historic Park, backed by seven Democratic co-sponsors.
But advancing the bill out of committee — much less to President Trump’s desk — will require Republican support. At a time when even the mildest celebration of diversity can be deemed an excess of the “woke” left, Canter is betting that Rosenwald’s story will be the exception.
“The environment is not the best, obviously, but this is a story that should appeal to anyone,” Canter told the Forward. “This is a positive story. Nobody can say it’s DEI.”
Rosenwald’s Legacy
Rosenwald was born in Springfield, Illinois, the son of German-Jewish immigrants. At 16, he dropped out of high school to pursue the family clothing business.
In 1895, he invested $37,500 in Sears, Roebuck & Company — a decision that would ultimately make him one of the wealthiest men in the United States in the early 20th century.
But guided by the Jewish value of tzedakah, he gave much of that fortune away. In 1911, he met Booker T. Washington, the formerly enslaved founder of the Tuskegee Institute, a training center for African American teachers. Washington urged Rosenwald to invest in Black education in the South.
Rosenwald would go on to help fund nearly 5,000 schools for Black students across 15 states. By 1928, one in three Black students in the rural South attended a Rosenwald school. Alumni of Rosenwald schools would include congressman John Lewis, poet Maya Angelou and civil rights activist Medgar Evers.
Canter, a retired biophysicist and national parks enthusiast, first learned about Rosenwald as an adult through a documentary — and was struck that this story of Black-Jewish cooperation was not more widely known.
“I knew that there was not one national park unit among the more than 400 that commemorated the life and legacy of a Jewish American, or told the story of Rosenwald schools,” Canter said. “And I can tell you that today, almost 11 years later, that is still the case.”
There are national historic sites and monuments honoring Jewish Americans, including the Rosenwald family home and the David Berger National Memorial. But a national historic park — a designation that often spans multiple sites and has greater cultural cache — has yet to honor a Jewish American.
Part of Rosenwald’s relative obscurity, Canter said, stems from his own philosophy. Rosenwald embraced a “give while you live” approach and did not believe in permanent endowments, requiring that the Rosenwald Fund spend all of its money within 25 years of his death.
That approach has yielded severe financial challenges decades later. Today, only about 10% of the more than 5,000 Rosenwald school structures remain, according to Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Trust placed Rosenwald schools on its 2002 list of America’s 11 most endangered historic places, warning of an “urgent crisis of erasure, abandonment and deterioration.”
Many of the schools were built in rural areas that have since been abandoned, Leggs said, adding that the buildings were made of wood that has slowly decayed. The loss is personal for him: Upon researching the history for his job, Leggs discovered that both of his parents attended Rosenwald schools in Kentucky.
“It was a transcendent moment for me,” he said, “because I remember being at a school building that was literally vanishing history.”
The surviving schools have mixed ownership, Leggs said. Some act as local community centers, while others operate as commercial or office spaces, such as the Caldwell Rosenwald School in Huntersville, North Carolina — today, home to Burgess Supply, a carpet store.
A bipartisan issue?
In the final days of his first presidency, Trump gave a significant boost to the campaign for a Rosenwald national park.
He signed the Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Schools Act into law, directing the Department of Interior to conduct a study assessing the feasibility of establishing the park. Eight Republicans had cosponsored the bill, and it passed with broad bipartisan support.
The study “resulted in positive findings,” concluding that the San Domingo School in Sharptown, Maryland, met all the criteria for a national park and recommending that Congress create a grant program to support the preservation of additional Rosenwald schools.
But Republican backing for a national park honoring Rosenwald’s legacy now appears to have waned.
The Forward called and emailed the three Republicans who cosponsored the 2020 bill and are still in office. None responded to the Forward’s question about their position on Durbin’s bill to establish the Rosenwald park.
A White House spokesperson directed the Forward to the national historic site at the Rosenwald family home but declined to say whether Trump was supportive of the national park commemorating Rosenwald schools.
Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, went so far as to send a letter to President Joe Biden in 2024 expressing his support for “the expedited designation of a Julius Rosenwald And Rosenwald Schools National Park.”
His office did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
Nor did the office of Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina who previously advertised his support for the restoration of Rosenwald schools in his state. “Booker T. Washington helped build thousands of schools for Black children, advancing impactful educational opportunities throughout the South,” he tweeted in February 2024. “With the restoration of Rosenwald School, his legacy lives on in South Carolina. #BlackHistoryMonth”
‘A story for our time’
Durbin’s bill arrives just as the agency that would create a park faces drastic proposed cuts: Trump this week proposed funding for the already understaffed National Park Service be reduced by $736 million, or 25% of its budget.
Meanwhile, the president has sought to recast historical narratives at existing parks. In January, Trump ordered the National Park Service dismantle an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington. Earlier this month, the Trump administration directed the removal of a pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City.
Yet Rosenwald’s story doesn’t fit neatly into the culture-war themes that Trump has singled out. Rosenwald himself was a political conservative, a laissez-faire businessman and steadfast Republican who believed in fostering economic self-sufficiency through education.
Dennis Ross, a former Republican congressman from Florida who retired from office in 2019 and has supported the Rosenwald park campaign, told the Forward he sees Rosenwald’s story as one conservatives should embrace.
“I’ve heard the argument that this is a way of trying to backdoor DEI. I totally disagree and take issue with that. This is showing what American history is all about,” Ross said. “If you were to dwell on the oppression of slavery, then maybe that argument might work. But I think the important thing is to look at the transition, the evolution from slavery to success.”
Canter is also optimistic, and said she plans to meet with a Republican senator — she declined to provide a name — whose staff has expressed interest in the park. As to whether Trump would sign the bill: She hopes the campaign will have the opportunity to put it on his desk.
“People with different backgrounds and cultures were able to come together, work together, find common ground and move this country forward,” Canter said. “So if that isn’t a story for our time, I don’t know what is.”
The post This national park would honor a Jewish philanthropist — if Republicans get back on board appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Says Gas Prices May Remain High Through November Midterm Election
U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters while Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on, as they attend a meeting with oil industry executives, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 9, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the price of oil and gasoline may remain high through November’s midterm elections, a rare acknowledgement of the potential political fallout from his decision to attack Iran six weeks ago.
“It could be, or the same, or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same,” Trump, who is in Miami for the weekend, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” when asked whether the cost of oil and gas would be lower by the fall.
The average price for regular gas at US service stations has exceeded $4 per gallon for most of April, according to data from GasBuddy. Trump’s comments on Sunday came after weeks of asserting that the spike in prices is a short-term phenomenon, though his top advisers are cognizant of the war’s economic impacts, officials have said.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump announced on social media that the US Navy would blockade the Strait of Hormuz and intercept any ship that paid a crossing fee to Iran, after marathon talks between the US and Iran in Pakistan over the weekend did not yield a peace deal.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Any US blockade is likely to add more uncertainty to the eventual resolution of the conflict, which is currently subject to a tenuous two-week ceasefire. The new tactic is in response to Iran’s own closure of the strait’s critical shipping lanes, which has caused global oil prices to skyrocket about 50%.
UNPOPULAR WAR HITS TRUMP’S APPROVAL
The war began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran. The scope quickly expanded as Iran and its allies attacked nearby countries, while Israel targeted Hezbollah with massive strikes in Lebanon.
The war has buffeted global financial markets and caused thousands of civilian deaths, mostly in Iran and Lebanon.
Trump’s political standing at home has suffered, with polls showing the war is unpopular among most Americans, who are frustrated by rising gasoline prices.
The president’s approval rating has hit the lowest levels of his second term in office, raising concern among Republicans that his party is poised to lose control of Congress in the midterm elections. A Democratic majority in either chamber could launch investigations into the Trump administration while blocking much of his legislative agenda.
US Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, questioned the strategy behind Trump’s planned blockade.
“I don’t understand how blockading the strait is going to somehow push the Iranians into opening it,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
In a separate appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Warner said the blockade would not undermine Iranian control of the waterway.
“The Iranians have hundreds of speedboats where they can still mine the strait or put bombs against tankers in closing the strait,” he said. “How is that going to ever bring down gas prices?”
Although Trump has repeatedly said that the war would be over soon, Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday that achieving US aims in Iran “could take a long time.”
“It’s going to be a long-term project,” said Johnson, who was not asked about Trump’s proposed blockade. “I never thought this would be easy.”
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Israel’s Ben-Gvir Visits Flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir walks inside the Knesset, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Sunday, saying he was seeking greater access for Jewish worshipers and drawing condemnation from Jordan and the Palestinians.
The compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City is one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East. Known to Jews as Temple Mount, it is the most sacred site in Judaism and is Islam’s third-holiest site.
Under a delicate, decades-old arrangement with Muslim authorities, it is administered by a Jordanian religious foundation and Jews can visit but may not pray there.
Suggestions that Israel would alter the rules have sparked outrage among Muslims and ignited violence in the past.
“Today, I feel like the owner here,” National Security Minister Ben-Gvir said in a video filmed at the site and distributed by his office. “There is still more to do, more to improve. I keep pushing the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) to do more and more — we must keep rising higher and higher.”
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said it considered Ben-Gvir’s visit to be a violation of the status quo agreement at the site and “a desecration of its sanctity, a condemnable escalation and an unacceptable provocation.”
The office of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said such actions could further destabilize the region.
Ben-Gvir’s spokesman said the minister was seeking greater access and prayer permits for Jewish visitors. He also said that Ben-Gvir had prayed at the site.
There was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Previous such visits and statements by Ben-Gvir have prompted Netanyahu announcements saying that there is no change in Israel’s policy of keeping the status quo.
Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites, including Al-Aqsa had been largely closed to the public during the Iran war. There was no immediate sign of unrest on Sunday after Ben-Gvir’s visit.