Adam Garfinkle wrote a book called Jewcentricity bashing people for thinking that Jews are at the center of everything. My problem with the theme is that I was raised with just that attitude, as a Jew. We’re smarter, our ideas have changed the world, etc. Danielle Berrin is guilty of same, at Jewish Journal of LA:
During a week in which the so-called Jewish domination of the media was being bandied about thanks to Oliver Stone, I’m reminded of the following quip my editor Rob Eshman made three summers ago, the year “Mad Men” made its television debut:
“When they say Jews control Hollywood, I always think to myself: Thank God.”
He wrote that in a 2007 profile of “Mad Men” creator Matt Weiner, in which he touted the show as a shining example of why Jews should dominate Hollywood. It made sense, after all, he wrote, “it is Jews whose style and whose themes have dominated the entertainment media for much of the past century.” …
The great thing about Hollywood is that it’s a place where these opposing tensions can play out, where it’s hard to distinguish between the Jewish writer and his non-Jewish character. Which is not so much Jewish domination as it is Jewishly inspired…
[In Mad Men] Judaism’s moral precedent is there, even in a show that isn’t ostensibly Jewish.
