Jews in Moviemaking

Commentary by Dr. Gerhard Falk

The Most Jewish Industry in America

Enemies of the Jewish people are never tired to point out that the American movie industry has largely been in the hands of Jews. This is of course true and has been of great benefit to the American people. Included in those who made the movies great and became the heads of our major movie studios were Adolf Zukor, the founder of Paramount Studios, who celebrated his 100th birthday in 1973; Wilhelm Fuchs, known as William Fox, who founded 20th Century Fox, Louis B. Mayer and Samuel Goldwyn (Schmuel Goldficz), who together founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures, and Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures.

These men did not invent the movies. That distinction goes Thomas Edison, one of the most profound religious bigots who ever walked this earth. What was remarkable about the Jewish immigrants from Europe was that they organized and founded these movie studios and that it was their ability to recognize the new medium when it first came into use shortly after their arrival in this country. It was they who made the movies big business, not only because they were personally involved in studio production but also because they invented a means of distributing them.

For example, Zukor insisted that theater owners who wanted to show Paramount films had to take the his entire yearly production and change movies only once a week instead of daily, as had been done before. They also recognized the importance of combining in one company the three major aspects of the movie business. These were: making films in their own studios, distributing them through their own renting companies, and exhibiting them in heir own theaters.

The Jewish movie moguls also understood the need for making movies which were reflections of American culture. That is the reason why they invented the so-called Western, which always carried the message, then and now, that crime does not pay. In the early years such movies as Nobody Works like Father and Crooked Banker dealt with the exploitation of the poor by the rich.

These Jewish movie studio owners also invented talking movies, Technicolor and the musicals. From 1920 until 1960, a period of about 40 years, the movie industry was at its height. From romances to crime stories and the inevitable westerns, the Jewish movie bosses produced everything imaginable. Their imagination, however, never included Jewish themes, nor were they willing, during the Second World War, to so much as mention the persecution of their own families left behind in Eastern Europe. It is to the eternal shame of these powerful men that they sympathized with everyone from Native Americans to the aborigines of Australia but never their fellow Jews.

Lest it be thought that the studio bosses were the only Jews in the movie business, it should be recalled that there were and are innumerable Jewish producers and directors, many of whom changed their names in order to escape recognition as Jews. This was also true of the numerous Jewish movie actors. If you've ever seen a movie with Kirk Douglas, you would have really watched a performance by Issur Danielovitch Demsky. Winona Ryder was born Laura Horowitz, and the comedian Red Buttons was called Aaron Chwatt. Irwin Knieberg was for many years seen interviewing celebrities on TV every night. He called himself Alan King. There is even an Albert Einstein in the acting profession. He is known as Albert Brooks.  The so-called Bob Dylan was bar mitzvahed as Robert Zimmerman and Sylvia Sidney was Sophia Jasnow in her first incarnation. Betty Perske, the cousin of the former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, became Lauren Bacall.

From all of this we learn that we, the Jewish people, have every reason to be proud of all our contribution to this country. Just as we have contributed extraordinarily the field of medicine and to science and literature and to music we are in fact the originators of the movies and principal contributors to the great invention of Philo Farnsworth who, believe it or not, at age 14 invented television. Farnsworth, a Mormon boy from Idaho, was indeed a great genius even though his name is hardly known. His invention changed the world and the Jewish contribution to that development brought television into every home (RCA is a Jewish founded company).

Indeed, the United States has been good to us. In turn, we have contributed more than our share to the wealth of our country. As a consequence, the bigots and the haters should really never go to the movies or watch television. It is most likely they will watch a Jew or see the work of a Jewish producer. Of course, the bigots and the haters must also stay away from all doctors and all hospitals and all pharmacies. If they don’t do so they may be “infected” by such Jewish medicine as the Salk vaccine or Selman Waksman’s streptomycin. They even run the risk of being treated by a Jewish doctor (The bigots can’t even go to church. A Jew is depicted there).

Heads up, Jews. We are truly the chosen people. Or do you have some other explanation for our superiority in every area of human endeavor?

Shalom u’vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including Football & American Identity (2005) &  Youth Culture and the Generation Gap (2005) with Dr. Ursula A. Falk.

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