(PDF) (DOC) (JPG)May 29, 2014

(MAHWAH, NJ) – In a March 27 lecture that included a number of clip from several relevant movies, noted film historian Eric Goldman discussed “The Culture of Anti-Semitism in Cinema.”

Dr. Eric Goldman

Since the 1930s, as Goldman noted, the issue of anti-Semitism as a topic in the movies has been a sensitive one that has mirrored American attitudes towards Jews and bigotry in general. In light of the rise of Nazism, Hollywood’s largely Jewish moviemakers were careful not to represent the American Jewish experience for fear of alienating the greater majority. They were often uncomfortable with their prominence and mindful of the prevalence of anti-Jewish attitudes in the American population at large. Some participants and observers even took the position that raising the issue might cause greater harm than good. As Goldman demonstrated with clips from The House of Rothschild and Jew Suss, both from 1934, characters displaying prowess in banking and speaking with stylized accents could easily feed stereotypes.

What really changed Hollywood’s approach to anti-Semitism, in Goldman’s view, was the Holocaust. Significantly, two non-Jewish filmmakers Darryl F. Zanuck with Gentlemen’s Agreement and Edward Dmytryk with Crossfire, both of which premiered in 1947, confronted the issue head on with great success. Combined with the advances in civil rights that began with Brown v. Board of Education, movies continued to play a role in making manifestations of bigotry against Jews much less frequent, and Hollywood became increasingly comfortable depicting Jews as part of mainstream America.

Eric A. Goldman is founder and president of Ergo Media Inc., a New Jersey-based video publishing company specializing in Jewish and Israeli video. He is also film reviewer for New Jersey’s The Jewish Standard.
Dr. Goldman is an expert and lecturer on Yiddish, Israeli and Jewish film and a noted film educator. He was curator of film for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where he supervised the preservation of Yiddish films, and for many years he curated and moderated the film program at the Center for Jewish History and at Yeshiva University, both in New York City. Eric Goldman was also a member of the Educational Advisory Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington

Eric Goldman received a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University and was a fellow of the Max Weinreich Center for Eastern European Jewish Studies at Columbia University. He holds graduate degrees in Contemporary Jewish Studies and Theater Arts from Brandeis University and a B.A. from Temple University.

Dr. Goldman is adjunct professor of cinema at Yeshiva University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 2013, the University of Texas Press published his new book, The American Jewish Story through Cinema.

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