Last night on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl interviewed Steven Spielberg and his mother Leah Adler about anti-Semitism he experienced as a boy in Phoenix:
Leah Adler: We lived in an all non-Jewish neighborhood. These people used to chant, “The Spielberg’s are dirty Jews.” And one night, Steve climbed out of his bedroom window and peanut buttered their windows, which I thought was marvelous.
Lesley Stahl: Do you remember what you did?
Steven Spielberg: I took Skippy peanut butter and smeared it all over their windows….
Lesley Stahl: But, you came under some serious anti-Semitic attacks. How did you react? How did you deal with it?
Steven Spielberg: I denied it for a long time….
Lesley Stahl: Denied what? That–
Steven Spielberg: My Judaism.
Lesley Stahl: –you were Jewish? Oh.
Steven Spielberg: Uh-huh (affirm).
Lesley Stahl: Were you ashamed?
Steven Spielberg: Uh-huh (affirm). I often told people my last name was German, not Jewish. I’m sure my grandparents are rolling over in their graves right now, hearing me say that. But I think that– you know, that I was in denial for a long time.
Lesley Stahl: So when people say that a lot of your movies are about outsiders, that’s what you must’ve felt.
Steven Spielberg: Oh, yeah. I was an outsider for all– most of my formative years.
I confess I’m confused by this narration. Were these indeed “serious anti-Semitic attacks”? Were the police ever involved? The evidence in this exchange involves social anti-Semitism of a sort that apparently did not leave the Spielbergs fearful for their lives. And yes, clearly Spielberg was an outsider and felt himself to be one, and his self-abnegation is of a classic variety. But isn’t there another way to tell the story: that this belief gave him motivation and power– just as anti-Irish prejudice built Tammany Hall. Spielberg went into an industry where he was not an outsider, as Lesley Stahl, who is Jewish, went into one where she also was not an outsider. So: I want the whole American Jewish story, not just the outsider one.
I think you are being a bit too harsh. Sure, Hollywood isn’t exactly a longdrawn pogrom for a Jewish guy. Neither was then, neither is now.
But we’re still talking about the 1950s here. Jim Crow was in full effect, America was the indisputable world leader. There were quotas on Jews in all if not most positions of power. America hadn’t even lifted a finger to save any Jews during the Holocaust(often with Jewish advisors close to FDR, who were so paralyzed on this topic and other Jewish issues that you’d be forgiven that they were afraid of their own shadows. They whispered in the ear of FDR and actively advised against saving any Jew, pleading with him to ‘ignore the Jews’, for fear of being accused of dual loyalty).
There was simply no way for young Steven to know that things would change for the better, and everything he knew by childhood had proved that it had gone the other way.
The shock of genocide was a dark, looming cloud over his entire childhood, and the refusal of American might to help but a single Jew was probably an even greater scar. It was for my parents as they were growing up.
Finally, he didn’t grow up in Brooklyn, New York or any other typically Jewish place during those times. He was isolated. I still think he was brave.
But, after he got to Hollywood, the outsider status was probably more a cultural than a physical one. It was at that time, that things slowly started to change and the civil rights movement truly got under way.
But by that time he was already long since an adult and his formative years past him.
what are you talking about? did you watch the interview, or were you simply content to conduct your crystal ball psychoanalysis? do yourself a favor before you comment and watch the interview: there isn’t any question that his relationship with his parents was by far the greatest influence on spielberg’s development, not any anti-semitic ‘attack’. and frankly, if that was his most traumatic experience (which he deftly repelled with a jar of peanut butter), he had a pretty carefree childhood by the sounds of it. i can remember the teasing bordering on torture that children who were different back in the 60s-70s took in my white bread community, and not one incident that i recall had anything to do with jewishness, but instead involved race or handicap or manliness/implied sexual preference or apparent social status, or simply a vague notion of relative ‘popularity’ that put some kids perpetually at that butt end of some running joke. yes, poor ‘steven’, who only through sheer force of will was able to overcome the ubiquitous institutional, no, make that genetically programmed racism of america to go on to become a billionaire. against all odds. (did i mention against all odds?) if it sounds like a movie script, well there’s a reason for that.
He hasn’t spoken about this before until his old age so he can’t exactly be acused of trying to make a movie script out of it.
I don’t share your cynicism nor your repelling vitriol for Spielberg.
repelling vitriol
oh you slay me! thank g-d you’re here to defend ‘steven’, the poor man. why he’s probably holed up right now at the desert inn in las vegas, surrounded by half-empty jars of peanut butter, standing naked staring at the TV screen, the fear is so debilitating. what is mindboggling is that anyone could possibly think that there are profound lessons to be drawn from the infomercial produced by stahl and company, and frankly the only thing repellent about this whole conversation is your portrayal of some middleclass kid from 1950s AZ as a victim of the nazi genocide, fighting off the local ‘germans’ with sandwich spread. (btw, i admire spielberg as a movie maker. even if his stuff can be hamhandedly cartoonish, he’s clearly a talented director.) go read your roth (‘nemesis’). he did a nice little treatment of jewish guilt over ‘missing’ the war, which is what spielberg more likely suffers from than fear of the ‘next’ american pogram.
I mentioned your vitriol. I might now add lunacy to the list.
“He hasn’t spoken about this before until his old age so he can’t exactly be acused of trying to make a movie script out of it.”
Well, not only that, but it’s pretty clear that the only reason that the incident came out in the story was because Spielberg’s mother brought it up…
your portrayal of some middleclass kid from 1950s AZ as a victim of the nazi genocide
I mentioned your vitriol. I might now add lunacy to the list.
uh, you didn’t say that
The shock of genocide was a dark, looming cloud over his entire childhood, and the refusal of American might to help but a single Jew was probably an even greater scar.
thanks for your time. it’s been a pleasure.
Krauss,
I don’t know where your information came from but it’s not accurate.
You need to read Robert Rosen’s book -Saving the Jews”–that fultronix has linked to below. Rosen did a great investigative piece of work in that book.
BTW…. most of the stuff you hear isn’t true or incomplete. Jewish leaders werent ‘afraid’ of being accused of dual loyalty—–there were some Jews who lobbied for bombing the camps for instance without any knowledge of our military capabilities (that it couldn’t be done at that time) –there were other smarter Jews who were against any effort like that simply because it wouldn’t have worked—would have killed the Jews in the camps along with nazis even if we could have carried it off and then there was no way to get whatever Jews did escape any bombed camps out of Germany after that.
Then there was the St. Louis which was a entirely diferent story then how it is told. It was FDR who arranged for the St Louis Jews to go to Belgim and some other countries and be taken in, countries that weren’t nazi occupied at the time..later they were, but about 3/4 of the Jews on the St Louis survived.
Read the book.
“….America hadn’t even lifted a finger to save any Jews during the Holocaust”
Really… I am sure that my father, my uncle and the various fathers in the neighborhood I grew up in in NJ during the ’50s would be thrilled to hear that, all having fought in that horrible war with many having returned with various disabilities of body and mind. I grew up with a hodge podge of elite wasp NYC bankers, and Italian, Polish and Irish 2nd/3rd generation immigrants. Most talk about jews I ever heard in that area was about the horrible crimes that had been committed to them in WW2. The few prejudicial comments I heard about jews were tame and no different in kind as those spoken of other groups.
I realize, Krauss that your comment is probably mostly directed at the government but must we go over all this again with such an ignorant comment as yours? Both “American and “Hostage have taken this apart in these forums much better than I can. It seems to me that a vast expenditure of blood and resources was expended to cross many miles of two oceans to help liberate an awful lot of people (not just including jews by the way) on multiple continents. Frankly I am getting sick of hearing about the plight of only one group of people almost every time WW2 is mentioned.
And I don’t buy your —
“They whispered in the ear of FDR and actively advised against saving any Jew, pleading with him to ‘ignore the Jews’, for fear of being accused of dual loyalty).”
Lenni Brenner, Tom Segev, Ralph Shoenman and others have shown how the Zionists here and in England often subverted attempts at immigration reform policies even before the war, the Evian Conference of ’38 being one such case as has been covered already at this forum.
From “The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis”. By William D. Rubinstein :
“Contrary to the popular image, Rubinstein says, Western refugee policy was, all things considered, both “remarkably generous” and notably “successful.” By Rubinstein’s accounting, 72 percent of Germany’s half-million Jews successfully emigrated during the years leading up to World War II, including 83 percent of German Jewish children and youth. (Other historians have cited lower figures.) There would have been 100 percent emigration, he says, had it not been for the unexpected outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. The United States was particularly helpful, taking in 161,000 German Jews, 35 percent of all its immigrants between 1933 and 1942. Most of these refugees arrived after Kristallnacht, a nationwide pogrom in Germany in November 1938; over the next two years, Rubinstein says, more than half of all immigrants to the U.S. (52 percent) were Jews fleeing the Reich. Britain, on the whole, had a similarly creditable record. ”
link to leaderu.com
“Based on vigorous research, this narrative and interpretive history places FDR’s actions in the context of the time period in which they occurred — an era characterized by The Great Depression, widespread American isolationism, strict immigration legislation, and extensive anti-Semitism. Rosen reveals that, seen in this light, FDR’s achievements in battling Nazism and saving Jews were very nearly monumental. “Roosevelt did not abandon the Jews of Europe,” he writes. “On the contrary, he led the worldwide coalition against Nazism in a war that took fifty million lives.”
SAVING THE JEWS offers extensive evidence of FDR’s close ties to Jewish leaders, and his appointment of many Jews to high-level positions, including the Supreme Court. Rosen outlines the numerous attempts FDR made to allow Jewish refugees to enter the United States — and explains why, at weaker periods of his presidency, FDR simply didn’t have the political capital to wage these battles. He also offers a full picture of the overwhelming mood in the country — the strong desire to remain neutral regarding European affairs and the distrust of anything that smacked of internationalism. And he points to divisions in the American Jewish community, which had not reached a consensus as to the best policy for freeing their European counterparts from Nazi persecution. Rosen takes on each of the chief accusations frequently leveled at Roosevelt with regard to his handling of the Holocaust, and demonstrates why these charges are unfair and unfounded”.
link to savingthejews.com
Krauss…”America hadn’t even lifted a finger to save any Jews during the Holocaust(often with Jewish advisors close to FDR, who were so paralyzed on this topic and other Jewish issues that you’d be forgiven that they were afraid of their own shadows. They whispered in the ear of FDR and actively advised against saving any Jew, pleading with him to ‘ignore the Jews’, for fear of being accused of dual loyalty).”
Perhaps you could be more specific? Other than defeating the nazis…at a rather significant cost of American lives…what do you think FDR could have done?
Like, I don’t know, maybe he and his administration could have allowed Jews who fled Europe on ships to American shores into the country, instead of sending them coldheartedly back and to a certain death for the absolute majortity of them?
Shocking attack, I know. How dare I criticize FDR?
Krauss,
You are likely talking about the MS St. Louis which was turned back in 1939?
link to en.wikipedia.org
In 1939, the US was not at war with Europe yet.
To this day, refugees continue to be turned away from North American and European borders, only to be sent back to uncertain, and sometimes deadly futures.
As an aside, German and Austrian Jews attempting to get into Switzerland were also turned away. A little talked about history is that the large Swiss Jewish community, just like FDR, did nothing to help their cause and supported severe limits to the number of Jewish refugees allowed into Switzerland. (Refugees were given housing, often in private homes with families during the war years.)
This is a pattern of human nature. Is the US or Europe opening it’s borders to the Congolese refugees?
Ellen, as I’ve written down below: two wrongs do not make one right.
You can easily criticize coldheartedness from Western governments today, without for that matter neglecting the role they had in passively allowing the Holocaust to take more Jews because of their cowardly refusal to help or even in some cases acknowledge what was happening.
The same was true in large sections of American Jewish life, by the way. The coverage of the New York Times was absolutely shameful during that era.
I don’t think it is impossible to see why the neoconservative movement rose as a response to the total and stony silence of the liberal Jewish establishment so far into the war.
yes, krauss, the allies attempts at saving jews were woefully inadequate. but that’s not your original charge. you said “America hadn’t even lifted a finger to save any Jews during the Holocaust”, which simply isn’t true. (and i don’t have the time or inclination to conduct the survey myself, but maybe you could point me to your comments about FDR’s failure to ‘lift a finger’ to save the roma, or homosexuals, or poland, or . . . . .) perhaps a bit of field research is in order to see if your opinion is widely shared. if you live in the states, veteran’s day is coming up, so why don’t you head on down to the local VFW where you could ask the question, “why didn’t americans lift a finger to save jewish lives during WWII?”, and report your findings to us. just remember to bring a jar of butter with you.
The narrative and meme that “America hadn’t even lifted a finger to save any Jews during the Holocaust” and that the world turned away is important to keep alive and nurture. It is, after all, the justification for the forced exile of Palestinians to make room for a Jewish state.
And yes, exclusion of Roma, political prisoners, noisy Priests,Homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, is critical. Just does not fit in!
That is why the Krauss’ of the world would never ever go THERE in memory let alone visit a local VFW to ask them why they “did not lift a finger. “
Revisionist nonsense.
He had to deal with a US population that did not want any part of a European war. He allowed Pearl Harbor to happen to ensure we entered the war. And I have no doubt that (Pearl Harbor) troubled him until the day he died.
What would have been the result of our NOT entering the war (and winning it), Krauss? How many European Jews would have survived then?
It seems to me some people look for the worst in others…however much evidence there is to the contrary.
“What would have been the result of our NOT entering the war (and winning it),”
Uh, we (if by “we” you mean “the US”) did not win the war against Hitler. The USSR won that war; we assisted them. The US won the war against the Japanese.
Woody you make a very good point. I would agree the Soviet Union won the war in Europe with the US and British provided some very helpful assistance. Just looking at the casualty numbers gives a good idea of who did more of the fighting. And on that score I’ve often wondered how many Soviet Red Army casualties were Muslim, given the number of Soviet republics that had Muslim populations. And where you to combine this number with Muslin casualties in the British and French armies, I wouldn’t be surprised if more Muslims died fighting Hitler than Americans.
Tobias, That is a very interesting point. I would say it’s almost a certainty. First, of the 400 American KIAs in WWII, more than 1/2 died in the Pacific fighting the Japanese, and some % of the Americans died fighting the Italians. In fact, I’d say even if you only counted the Muslims fighting in the Red Army, there were more killed fighting Hitler than Americans killed fighting Hitler.
“And where you to combine this number with Muslin casualties in the British and French armies, I wouldn’t be surprised if more Muslims died fighting Hitler than Americans.”
About a third of the ww2 Indian Army were Muslims. The Army numbered about 2.5 million men by 1945, but, of course, a large number of them were fighting the Japanese. I do not know what proportion of the British African forces were Muslims, though I would imagine a high proportion from Nigeria in particular.
Free French forces included about 65% colonials, and a lot of those were North African and African Muslims. (Though the French Moroccans have been accussed of war crimes.)
And there was the long-forgotten Libyan Brigade who supported the British in the North African campaigns. (Admittedly, they were more interested in fighting the Italians.)
And that’s just for starters.
My father, a hard line Anglican, did most of his war service in India. He told me how he had come to accept Muslims as fellow worshippers of the same God and (in another context) that Jewish theology was to be respected. I hope I’ve taken both these points to heart.
“Like, I don’t know, maybe he and his administration could have allowed Jews who fled Europe on ships to American shores into the country, instead of sending them coldheartedly back and to a certain death for the absolute majortity of them?”
You don’t want to go there, Krauss. The path will lead back, on that particular subject, in certain aspects, to the Zionists. And they were, for the most part, Jews. No getting away from that, Krauss.
“what do you think FDR could have done?”
Don, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you understand this issue at all. See, it’s not a matter of what FDR could have, it’s all about what FDR didn’t do. And there’s no escaping that indictment.
As usual, you are correct, Mooser. That miserable man (FDR) was not perfect.
“That miserable man (FDR) was not perfect”
And I still get mad about it when I remember that FDR ran his campaign on the “FDR=Perfection” platform. And he smoked cigarettes, too!
Children have always called each other names when feuding with their playmates. When they include anti-Semitic words, they are borrowing from the vocabulary of their parents.
What is with Stahl and 60 minutes timing with this story?
Leslie Stahl who received inside phone calls about the F.B.I’s raid of Aipac’s offices during the investigation of Aipac’s two top officials illegally accessing U.S. classified intelligence and passing it on to Israeli officials and then Stahl blew this story open. Some F.B.I. investigators believe that Stahl’s story interfered in their investigation.
Stahl did one program on 60 minutes about Israeli archeological digs on Palestinian lands that I would bet raised monies for these illegal digs
“What is with Stahl and 60 minutes timing with this story?”
“Lincoln” is to be released in a few weeks. The kind of people that Dreamworks and Fox need to show up watch 60 Minutes.
I thought it was an interesting and revealing interview. The point isn’t whether the Anti-Semitism was “serious” as measured by “police involvement,” but that for a sensitive kid growing up without Jewish friends, it served to isolate him, had an important effect on his character, which became fodder for his work in film. He generally has approached his topics from the standpoint of universal rather than ethno-centric values. Isolated kid, absent father, became ET. When he did Schindler’s List, his character analysis is as deep or deeper into the non-Jewish characters – Schindler himself and the young Nazi officer running their camp, as compared to the Jewish characters, who were in survival mode. The scene where Schindler hoses down the delayed trains to provide relief for the Jews huddled inside on a hot day, while the Nazi officers laugh at him, like so many amused pigs, telling him he is the cruelest of them all, because he gives them hope, Schindler grinning at their “humor,” or the infectiousness of their laughter, while continuing to deliver the relief, was absolutely brilliant. The banality of cruelty, how the harm of racism and prejudice can be so dramatically magnified by institutionalizing them, while people remain people, enjoying a good laugh, in the midst of participating in horror.
The 60 Minutes interview was also about redemption. His father having been remote and unavailable to the youth, Spielberg explores that theme through many pictures, but then reconciles with his father as an adult, at the encouragement of his wife, and this leads to further character development and a change in the fodder for his movies. This is good stuff. Spielberg is a brilliantly successful Jewish American, a valued asset for our country, and the details of his story make for good and informative reporting.
Perhaps, someday, Spielberg will dramatize for the American public some story out of the Middle East that will help America come to realize its responsibility to its values there.
Beautifully written, David.
I will see it comes to Mr. Speilberg’s attention. Of course, Phil could get it there faster, but I will (as they told TE Lawrence) “do for you what I can”.
Thanks, guys. I saw Steven Spielberg once, on the USC campus near Tommy Trojan, on a game day when my daughter was an undergraduate there, prior to everyone walking over to the Coliseum. It is beyond flattering to think he might read my blog post.
I might see him at the next Wailing Wallers show. I’ve heard Spielberg loves that Reggae-Klezmer mashup genre (It’s called “Kleggae”) The “Klezmer Rougues” will open.
Very well said.
Who are “these people” who chanted? Other children? As we all are too aware children can often be unkind to one another. Today we call it “bullying”. It happens when a dominant group faces a weaker one. Such actions can make you despair of human nature. It’s happened to Italians, the Irish, and black folk, terribly so. I’ll bet it happens today in Israel with Jewish Israeli children taunting non-Jews.
Sure, but two wrongs does not make one right. Your comment seeks to legitimize oppression of Jews because there are Jews who oppress non-Jews in Israel.
It also makes a connection between all Jews, collective guilt.
Attitudes like that perpetuate conflict, instead of resolving them.
After all, an eye for eye makes the entire world blind.
I think what he’s trying to say is it’s probably intolerance, not antisemitism. I’m not American but i was bullied at school because I was tall, while others have been bullied for other reasons, like physical appearance or race or sexual orientation, and they are even now.
“It also makes a connection between all Jews, collective guilt.”
It’s not the non Jews that make connections between Jews. Hating Italians is racism, hating black people is racism, hating Dominicans is racism, hating Jews is antisemitism. Do you get my point?
Many Jews believe they are targeted for being Jews. What about being targeted for being different? My protestant neighbor also had a rough childhood, do you think it is because he was a protestant, or because we were all Orthodox Christians? Hell, we didn’t even know what protestant was!
> “two wrongs does not make one right.”
I see. And a stitch in time saves nine. But still, is Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians– like Nazis mistreated Jews– kosher? Or haram?
What?
Oh, I forgot. The characterizations by Goebbels of “the eternal Jew” were malicious lies; the hasbarist depictions of “the infernal Arab” are gospel. That is, while Germans and others were wrong to mistreat Jews, Arabs bring misery on themselves and so deserve to suffer.
Poor little Steven, facing an army of kids hurling WORDS at him. Must have been hell on earth in his comfy middle-class ‘hood. I mean, he had only peanut butter to protect him!
Plus it was probably “smooth.”
So, did the victims retaliate by enacting their final “jelly” solution? Did they force him to eat marshmallow Fluff?
In other neighborhoods, they killed you for whistling…especially if you were a minority and the intended listener a white woman. In still other places, if you “egged” the house of a bully you’d get the snot beat out of you in retaliation. But poor put-upon Steven suffered what post-pb attack: an hour less of piano lessons weekly?
I didn’t see the interview, and LOVE Spielberg’s movies, but honestly: he sounds like the stereotypical whiney Jewish kid at summer camp:
“Why mother, those antisemitic BEASTS insisted I make my OWN bed! Can you believe it? I shall never recover. Ever. I just know it.”
Also, did Leslie “balance” the show with interviews of Steven’s tormenters? Did she put the antisemites’ acts in “context”? Did she ask Steven why she should listen to his whines when other kids in his era suffered, too, their moms allegedly wearing combat boots. In short, did she act like an Israel-Firster?
When will Stahl interview Palestinian kids about THEIR traumas at the hands of Jews?
Coming next: “Baba” Walters interviewing Lindsay Lohan.
True.
Sad, but true.
By what markers was Spielberg identified as a Jew? The name is German and not particularly Jewish (there are 7 Spielberg or Spielberger in the Frankfurt phone book with first names Fritz, Klaus etc.).
He went to Hebrew school, people back in those days knew who was who. Everyone was going to church and if you were in a middle class neighbourhood and didn’t go, people knew why. America was a lot more homogenous back in the 50s, so non-whites and/or non-Christians were a lot easier spotted and noticed.
Krauss, do you have living memory of life in the 1950′s. We’re you even around ?
Or are you repeating stuff ?
Ellen, never, ever doubt the power and omniscience of the +15! You’ll be sorry if you do. Besides, how can Krauss be in two places at once, when he’s not anywhere at all?
Krauss – okay, I see.
By the way, there are 17 Krauss and 20 Krauß in the Frankfurt telephone directory. Have you got relatives here :-)?
this is funny. i grew up in california and i was around in the 50′s. this is the total opposite of my experience.
this is funny. i grew up in california and i was around in the 50′s. this is the total opposite of my experience.
it’s inconsistent with my experience as well, annie, although i just missed being ‘around in the 50′s.’ i can only think of two circumstances/events in my entire childhood/adolescence that made me the least aware of religious identity: 1. my father’s business partner was jewish, so i was aware that his family didn’t celebrate christmas; 2. when i played basketball in the church league as a teenager, where teams were formed based on what church one’s family attended (by that time i wasn’t attending church at all really, but spending an hour or so in the horse barn across the street with my brothers pretending we were at church.) as i said before, not once from infancy through my high school graduation did i hear anyone call anyone else a derogatory name referring to one’s jewish heritage, although ‘f*ggot’ was thrown around pretty illiberally.
not once from infancy through my high school graduation did i hear anyone call anyone else a derogatory name referring to one’s jewish heritage
me neither. the only awareness i had of being able to identify a persons religion was because some of my neighbor friends went to the catholic school (they wore uniforms). there were lots of jewish kids in my town and in my classroom but i didn’t know they were jewish. we had jewish teachers too, nobody said anything about it. why would they? i didn’t learn to identify a person as jewish (in any way thru names or otherwise) until i was an adult. that was when i learned many of my friends were jewish. i’m sure my experience was shared by many children growing up all across america in the 50′s. we had better more important things to talk about. and as we grew up there was the civil rights movement and the war. we didn’t talk about jews. ever. zilch, nada.
Sure, Annie, but you’re talking about California. This is Arizona in the 1950s.
By the way, ever heard of the draconian Arizona immigration law?
California has always been a different, more tolerant and urban place than Arizona. True back then, true today.
Sure, Annie, but you’re talking about California. This is Arizona in the 1950s.
of course krauss, i couldn’t agree with you more. but my comment was prompted by what i interpreted as your critique of america (“everyone was…america was”)during that era. i think it is safe to assume there was an undercurrent, a leaning towards a more tolerant world in pockets of america that became manifest during the 60′s.
also, as it pertains to spielberg, as reflected in this passage from a book about him, link to mondoweiss.net , his mother was a bit of a rebel.
so what’s represented here is an idea of american neighborhoods as ethnic, “Jewish neighborhood” vs “Gentile, U.S.A” as if these were the sole options available in america during the 50′s and that was not the case. there were places where people lived side by side and did more than tolerate each other, they actually enjoyed each others company and lived in harmony as neighbors. i doubt that was only in certain areas of california.
@ Annie
We should keep in mind that the suburbs were a post-WWII phenomena in America. Ethnic neighborhoods were probably still more the norm than melting-pop suburbs during the 50s. Through the 50s, 60s and 70s, American suburbs and sprawl grew like weeds. A profound social transformation of the country was the result and an important chapter in American history was written.
During that period, I lived in 7 communities in the East, Midwest and California. Each one could be a different case study in community and ethnicity. Some were like yours, some were like Spielbergs. You would probably have to put all our experiences together to come up with an accurate portrayal of America during that era. Herbert Gans, the sociologist, did great work during that period documenting urban and suburban communities and the changes they underwent.
A very interesting topic, one I studied at college, but I’m afraid it would take us quite off-topic to delve too deep.
His mother, Leah, an adventurous type, did not want to live in a Jewish neighborhood and always plopped the family down right in the middle of Gentile, U.S.A. Today, his mother regrets this rejection of her roots. “I was raised in an Orthodox home, but I chose to rear my children in non-Jewish neighborhoods. That was my one really big mistake.
annie, again with the salient points. (although with regard to ms. spielberg’s commentary, how she concluded that her decision was a ‘really big mistake’ is a bit of a mystery. for all she knows her decision was an integral part of what made her son what he is today.)
my polish grandfather brought his family to cleveland between the wars, and set up their home in an english-speaking neighborhood when there were predominantly polish neighborhoods where they could have lived in cleveland at that time. his intent was to americanize his family as quickly as possible. the plan worked (although my grandfather never spoke more than broken english himself until the day he died), but there were consequences: fights, slurs, rocks thrown, and other juvenile mayhem. things did improve so that by the time my youngest uncle graduated from highschool in 1970, ‘polack’ was simply treated as good natured ribbing and not the prelude to a fist fight.
Bruce,
I think it would be helpful if Steven Spielberg described in detail the alleged antisemitic incidents that occurred and provided the names of the people who were responsible for them. It would be interesting to get their side of the story.
“California has always been a different, more tolerant and urban place than Arizona. True back then, true today.”
Northern California, maybe, but Los Angeles and Orange County in the fifties were very different from what they are now.
Spielberg also has stories of his high school days in Saratoga, outside San Jose. I don’t know what to make of them. He must have faced some bullying and some anti-Semitism, but possibly in remembering the past Steven and his mother may have turned a lot of non-ethnic bullying into anti-Semitism. It may also have been easier for him to explain teasing and fights to his parents by seeing them as motivated by ethnic prejudice.
I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have been the only Jewish kid in school either in Scottsdale or in Saratoga. Perhaps he was singled out for other reasons, not related to his religion. Perhaps there was enmity between kids or their families. Maybe visits by Orthodox relatives made him appear more Jewish than other Jewish children. As I said, there was probably something there, but not necessarily exactly what he remembers. Pretty clearly, he related incidents of bullying in school to his Jewishness, when that may not have been the case.
More here:
‘”And to this day I haven’t gotten over it, nor have I forgiven any of them,” he told an interviewer years later. And he still doesn’t suffer anti-Semites gladly. Recently, he purchased a car for a friend from a Santa Monica, California, dealer. The salesman boasted after the sale, “I just got a Jew to pay full price for a car!” Somehow this comment got back to Spielberg, and he cancelled the order. The horrified owner of the dealership apologized profusely, but Spielberg refused to reinstate the order.’
A lot of people wouldn’t be so quick to assume that such a rumor was true.
@ seanmcbride
Right, you go to work on that. Good job for you.
Why would it be helpful or even interesting?
Except in explaining Steven Spielberg, who cares?
Michael Smith,
You seem obsessed with asserting that Spielberg’s experiences were no antisemitism. You have no evidence that they were anything other than what he and his mother is saying, yet you seem to want to find a reason, any reason, to rationize the idea that he was attributing to antisemitism something that you seem hellbent on asserting was not antisemitism.
Why?
“A lot of people wouldn’t be so quick to assume that such a rumor was true.”
It apparently wasn’t a rumor. Why do you think he should have simply let an act of antisemitism slide?
Steven Spielberg made a serious charge against his neighbors. They should have an opportunity to respond. Or do you automatically assume that all charges are true?
I don’t know about you, but I can easily remember the names of all of my neighbors from the age 7 or so to the present. I would definitely remember the specific and concrete details of any incidents of persecution that occurred. So let’s hear the whole story.
Right, you go to work on that. Good job for you.
Why would it be helpful or even interesting?
Except in explaining Steven Spielberg, who cares?
so, if ‘who cares?’, what are you doing here? to save us from ourselves? i care because 1. it’s the topic of conversation; 2. spielberg is an interesting and influential figure; 3. the portrayal, explicit or otherwise, of historical events in popular culture is extremely influential in how the general public perceives that history, more so than the most accurate, insightful formal history text.
“By what markers was Spielberg identified as a Jew?”
Oh please, Klaus, you know it would be obvious where he was polled.
BTW, Klaus, do you happen to know of a fellow by the name of “Joachim Martillo”? You two should really get in touch, if you don’t already correspond.
“The name is German and not particularly Jewish (there are 7 Spielberg or Spielberger in the Frankfurt phone book with first names Fritz, Klaus etc.)”
By your logic, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was Jewish and Theodor Lessing or Fritz Haber were not. Why do you think the Nazis stamped the passports of Germans of Jewish heritage with a big J, and added the middle names Israel/Sarah? Because they couldn’t tell by name (or looks) whether a German was of Jewish or Aryan heritage.
“Lessing” is now frequently considered to be a Jewish surname. Here is why:
“The ideas of the German Enlightenment, such as religious tolerance and the unbiased search for truth, were manifest in the writings of German writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781). His play Nathan the Wise symbolized the ethical equality of the three great religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Of the representatives of the three religions only Nathan, the Jew, modeled on Lessing’s friend, Moses Mendelssohn, lives up to the ideal of full humanity. The ultimate outcome of the play, the three protagonists’ discovery that they are blood relatives, underlines the Enlightenment theme of the connectedness of all mankind. The manner in which Mendelssohn’s Haskala coincided with the German Enlightenment is symbolized by the frequency with which German Jews named their children after Lessing. ”
link to acjna.org
And consider this:
“Alfred Rosenberg … was the Nazi’s chief theoretician on race. His ancestry is unknown; different sources cite German, Estonian, Latvian, Russian, and Jewish in various combinations…In Estonia and Russia, Rosenberg was not considered a Jewish name, but in Germany it was. His name was the main source of allegations that he was a Jew, although some people said he looked Jewish. To counter the allegations and to establish himself as an Aryan, he denied all his reported ancestry and claimed to be Icelandic – purely Nordic. … One of his duties was overseeing the identification of [Soviet] Jews for shipment to death camps. He was directed to use a complex procedure, including detailed examination of suspected people’s family trees. But he reportedly ordered that people named Rosenberg not be subject to the examination. Simply on the basis of having that name, he had them classified as Jews and sent to their deaths”
from: George Victor. Hitler. The Pathology of Evil (2000), p. 146
I agree with Don’s comment above. I just finished re-reading “The Abandonment of the Jews” by David Wyman (1984). No doubt there were anti-semites with FDR’s government, and no doubt Congress could have opened the doors to more Jewish immigrants prior to the outbreak of the war in September 1939. But the fact is, those measures would not have saved but a small fraction of the six million. Read “The Myth of Rescue” by William Ruberstien (1997) and “Saving the Jews: FDR and the Holocaust” by Frank Cohen (2006) .
America did not “abandon” the Jews because we did not abandon Europe. Certainly we could have. Instead we sent an army of 2 million across the Atlantic to crush the Nazi power. (I refuse to accept the warmed-over, pseudo-Marist view that this was done solely to save the British empire or establish an American neo-empire.)
I believe a key tool of the Zionist propaganda here in the U.S. is to assert that failure to support Israel is tantamount to a new “abandonment.”
Well, I think you are correct, Binyamin. I reacted quickly and strongly to Klaus…my bad Italian temper. But I have vivid memories of my mother speaking about Roosevelt as though he was a saint…and he had to deal with a world falling apart…and an American population opposed to war. Would it make sense for African Americans to criticize him for not addressing lynching (and he did not address it…he needed the southern Democrats).
I think it could be argued that Roosevelt saved the west from itself…from self-destruction…could more have been done for the Jews of Europe? Probably…but I would guess far less than it is now easy to suppose.
Bomb the camps? And the rail lines leading to them? What if we had? The Germans had already demonstrated they could kill astounding numbers of people simply by shooting them. Maybe a lot more could have been done; I honestly don’t know.
But it is not as though the Germans were military pushovers…not like Roosevelt was playing chess. There was no guarantee we would win…like Woody corrected me below…it was the Soviets who defeated the Germans…at a horrendous cost in lives.
“I confess I’m confused by this narration.”
Of course you are! When it comes to narration, Spielberg is an expert. His narratives do exactly what he wants them to.
“Spielberg is an expert. His narratives do exactly what he wants them to.”
—————————
Mooser – as always you have hit the nail on the head.
By changing the Talmudic saying “Who saves one life of Israel(!) saves the world entire” to “Who saves one life saves the world entire” (Schindler’s List), Spielberg turned the ethno-centric Talmud into a universalistic one – socially acceptable to his Christian-American audience.
By changing the Talmudic saying “Who saves one life of Israel(!) saves the world entire” to “Who saves one life saves the world entire” (Schindler’s List), Spielberg turned the ethno-centric Talmud into a universalistic one – socially acceptable to his Christian-American audience.
We’ve been through this nonsense before. To recap: The source of the dictum is a Mishnah in Sanhedrin. The printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud include the word “Israel”, whereas the printed editions of the Palestinian Talmud do not. The word “Israel” does not apear in two of the most important extant manuscripts of the Mishnah (Ms. Parma and Ms. Kaufman). Furthermore, the context of the Mishnah – references to Cain and Adam, that an entire world may descend from a single individual, that no human being (Heb. “adam”) may say “my father is greater than yours”, that human beings (“adam”) were all cast with the same die (that of Adam) yet are all different from one another – clearly refers to all human beings, and not just Jews.
Modern, scholarly editions of the Mishnah, accept the reading without the word “Israel” as authoritative, and scholarly articles (by E.E. Urbach, for example) have been written on how and why the additional word may have been interpolated.
Of course the Talmud is ethnocentric, but that is not to say that it does not include universalistic currents, elements or messages (clearly the case in this particular source), or that Judaism remained fundamentally unchanged from from Sanhedrin to Spielberg. Spielberg cited the dictum as it is commonly cited and as he and/or his screenwriters knew it. To attribute some sort of deceptive intention to the line in the film is completely ludicrous, no matter where you may have read it.
“To attribute some sort of deceptive intention to the line in the film is completely ludicrous, no matter where you may have read it.”
——————————-
Shmuel –
You know that I got the interpretation from Peter Novick. You told me at the time I should look for a differnt teacher of Judaism. – Anyway.
I still think there is something deceptive about Spielberg and that line.
It’s the promotional motto of the movie. It’s on the cover of the DVDs of that film. And it says explicitly that it is from the Talmud. I think every Jew – at least in the old days – understood the saying as referring to Israel, his people. Spielberg makes it sound – and that’s probably his intention – as if the Talmud were a precursor of the humanism of the age of enlightenment (“all men are created equal”).
I think there is a difference between your sophisticated understanding and the common Jewish people’s understanding. You are of course a brilliant theological bodyguard (if I may say so) of Spielberg and his movie-motto.
I talked to an unsophisticated Jewish Israeli woman about the saying and she nodded and agreed that she would understand the saying also to apply to Israel, her people.
“I think there is a difference between your sophisticated understanding and the common Jewish people’s understanding.”
Yeah, you shoulda asked me! I am about the most common Jew you’ll ever see, and no better (if even that) than I should be.
Hey Klaus, what’s the German for “Go boil your head”?
Oh, this is a complete load of crap. Speilberg is the most powerful person in Hollywood and has been among the top 10 for decades. If he had any interest in abusing his craft to include deception messages, like you suggest, he could do so in a dozen movies a year. The fact is that in 30 or so features only 2 – Schindler’s List and Munich – have had anything to do with Judaism or Israel at all. This is the same number of pictures that he’s done dealing with the history of slavery in America, the same number of pictures he’s done about bringing dinosaurs back to life and a hell of a lot fewer than he’s done about aliens from outer space or the Second World War. He’s an American, suburban, Cold-War kid done good, who happens to be Jewish. Attaching suspicion on him and accusing him of including sneaky references to the Talmud in a film about a hero of the Holocaust is pretty much horseshit, in my opinion.
Impeccable Talmudic reasoning, Klaus. Let me just put it in the right lingo:
Rav Steven says in the name of the Talmud: One who saves a single life, it is as if he saved an entire world.
Rav Klaus says: Hey, that’s a sanitised version. What the Talmud really says is ‘one who saves a single JEWISH life. Rav Steven is therefore a sneak, who just wants to make the Talmud appear socially acceptable to Christians.
Shmuel says: Rav Steven’s reading is in fact the correct one, and the way in which the saying is commonly cited.
Rav Klaus says: There is no contradiction. Shmuel was referring to sophisticated Jews like himself, and I was referring to unsophisticated Jews like an Israeli woman I met. Rav Steven is unsophisticated and therefore would have been familiar with the ethnocentric version and so must have changed it on purpose (var lect: unsophisticated bastard that he is). Hence Rav Steven is still a sneak. Ka mashma lan.
“Oh, this is a complete load of crap.” – what I said about Spielberg.
———————————————————————–
Okay Woody -
If you say so and Shmuel does I must relent.
Spielberg’s intention must have been just the other way round: By using the Talmudic saying (without “of Israel”) as the promotional motto of the film he wanted to educate his fellow Jews about their universalist Talmudic tradition (the one Shmuel pointed out). – But as it happens, the film was addressed to a Christian-American audience. Therefore the hero of the film saving Jews was not a Jew. Something many Jews didn’t like – according to Peter Novick.
“Impeccable Talmudic reasoning, Klaus”
———————————————————-
Shmuel -
Thanks Shmuel, at least you don’t tell me “go boil your head” (Mooser).
I wrote my comment to Woody before I read yours.
I based my interpretation on Peter Novick. – But let’s get back to the difference between sophisticated and unsophisticated Jews and their understanding of their religion.
I talked to the lady at a party in Frankfurt and asked her about the two versions of the Talmudic saying, with and without “of Israel”. Her reaction was that she believed the “of Israel” version to be the right one.
In Christianity there has also always been a ‘Volksglaube’ (faith of the common people) often much to the chagrain of the Christian theologians.
- My assuption that Spielberg was deliberately misleading his Christian-American audience about the Talmud may be unjust. It’s also possible that – as an American Jew – he wanted to give Judaism a more American spin.
The Talmud as a sort of Bill of Rights.
WT: …the same number of pictures he’s done about bringing dinosaurs back to life …
Woody, now you raise the matter are you sure that Jurassic Park isn’t a coded commentary on Zionism? An ageing man dreams of recreating the ancient past but sadly behind the fences things start going terribly wrong…
Looked at in this new light, Jeff Goldblum becomes a Professor Ellis-like figure, the prophet whose overly complicated theories no one listened to.
“Attaching suspicion on him [Spielberg] and accusing him of including sneaky references to the Talmud in a film about a hero of the Holocaust …”
——————————————————————————————-
Woody -
The episode with the Talmud saying is the climax of the movie.
The war is over. – Schindler’s top accountant, Isaac Stern, hands a golden ring to Schindler as a fare well and thank you guesture. – Schindler looks inside it, there is something ingraved. – Stern says to him: “It’s from the Talmud and it says ‘Who saves one life saves the world entire.’” ….
Schindler’s workers have left the factory and sit on an open field, not knowing where to go. – A Russian solder on horesback arrives, they talk to him. He tells them: “You can’t go West and you can’t go East, people hate you there.” – CUT – Next picture is in Israel with people laying stones on Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem.
‘Schindler’s List’ is a Zionist propaganda movie par excellence.
I watched the movie when it came out. And I watched it again on DVD
after I had read ‘The Holoaust in American Life’ by Peter Novick.
@Shmuel- just out of my curiosity, where I could find an edition of Palestinian Talmud??! I know about Talmud Bavli and Talmud Erushalmi, and never heard about the Palestinian Talmud.
I know about Talmud Bavli and Talmud Erushalmi, and never heard about the Palestinian Talmud.
Where do you think the Yerushalmi was redacted, in the State of Israel? It was redacted in Palestine (mostly in Galilee and in the coastal towns), by Palestinian rabbis, who spoke Palestinian Aramaic. Modern scholars (Jewish and non-Jewish), writing in German, English and other languages, have thus logically called it the Palestinian Talmud.
Does this long-standing and historically-accurate name make you uncomfortable?
@dimadok
link to en.wikipedia.org
It’s also possible that – as an American Jew – he wanted to give Judaism a more American spin.
Or perhaps, as an American Jew (or Jewish American, if you prefer), his Judaism is American.
Impeccable Talmudic reasoning, Klaus.
If time were limitless, it might be interesting to read Peter Novick and than compare what specific passages draw his attention and why. There is something limited and obsessional about his usage.
I am aware of your warning but as a study of the dynamics of the Holocaust in the Jewish American mind it may be interesting. Personally I liked Schindler’s List a lot. For two reasons, the few people that in fact helped have been ignored till very recently even inside Germany, and of course I always understood it as a gesture of reconciliation, I also understand that there is a Jewish minority that responded to it critically exactly for that reason.
As an aside: As a teacher over here Klaus struggled deeply with his pupils, if I remember correctly he had a partner who had the same problems. Imagine all these second-chance high school kids after work in his evening classes with all the left ideas in their heads, if my recollection is correct. I wonder what they would tell us about him as a teacher. ;)
Palestinian Aramaic- perhaps there was a Palestinian Temple or Palestinian Sanhedrin or Palestinian towns of Zippori? Cut the crap, please.
Palestinian Aramaic- perhaps there was a Palestinian Temple or Palestinian Sanhedrin or Palestinian towns of Zippori? Cut the crap, please.
Oh those dastardly anti-Semitic Semitic philologists. Didn’t they know there was no such thing as Palestine when they decided to call Palestinian Aramaic Palestinian Aramaic? Or that some time in the future, someone calling himself an “Israeli” might take offence?
link to multitree.org
Remind me to send you an 18th century recipe for “Palestine soup”.
@Shmuel- what a joke you are:
Palestine Soup.
“Soup made of Jerusalem artichokes. This is a good example of blunder begetting blunder. Jerusalem artichoke is a corruption of the Italian Girasole articiocco—i.e. the “sunflower artichoke.” From girasole we make Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem artichokes we make Palestine soup”.
link to bartleby.com
No, Klaus, Spielberg’s intention was to tell a story, not to make this or that theological argument. And the film wasn’t intended for a “Christian-American” audience. Spielberg figured it wouldn’t find much of an audience at all, but was surprised that it received the (well-earned) response that it did.
From girasole we make Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem artichokes we make Palestine soup.
Once again you somehow manage to miss the point. The name Jerusalem artichoke is a corruption of “girasole”, but the name “Palestine soup” was given, because Jerusalem happens to be in Palestine. No blunder about it.
By the way, have you found any scholarly articles on “Israeli” Middle Aramaic yet?
>> @Shmuel- what a joke you are:
>> Palestine Soup.
@dimadok- what a joke you are. “Jewish State” democracy: An oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist contradiction in terms that owes its existence to Jewish terrorism, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes and lands, and a 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder.
Yessir, you’re funny like a clown… :o)
@dimadok,
How about a Palestinian Targum? (As distinct from the Jerusalem one.)
Page 443, or just put the word Palestinian in the Search Inside window.
link to books.google.com
How about a Palestinian Targum?
Simply shocking. What’s more, this scandalous (not to mention crappy and jokey) nomenclature, continues even in our own century, perpetuated by such notorious anti-Zionist institutions as Bar Ilan University:
@Shmuel and MRW:
You are trying to pull in then argument about Palestine connection with Jewish tradition in order to get some reasoning for arguing that Palestine is the Jewish place to be and not Israel. However, it goes against the factual sources that acclaim Jewish culture being preserved both in Palestine and anywhere else, regardless of the geographical locations of Jewish communities. Israel as a Jewish nation state accomplishes the goal of self-identification for Jews, which allows bringing back the traditions and books within the right geography, culture and society. Palestine was a name for the area and not for a state, same is Rashi commentary to Talmud cannot and is not considered to be French Talmud Commentary, same goes for the Palestinian Talmud.
Shmuel says: Rav Steven’s reading is in fact the correct one, and the way in which the saying is commonly cited.
Correction: Rav Shmuel says…
Rebetze Danaa says: humility-shmulimity, naaa…
QED
Correction: Rav Shmuel says
Full marks for paying attention ;-)
Shmuel, in the Talmud (first generation amora), is referred to simply as Shmuel, no titles or honorifics, just Shmuel. I figure if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.
Rebetze Danaa says
You just lost your marks ;-(
A rebbetzin (Yiddish; Hebrew, “rabbanit”) is the wife of a rabbi. A woman rabbi is addressed as rav or (and I hate this one) rabbah.
You are trying to pull in then argument about Palestine connection with Jewish tradition in order to get some reasoning for arguing that Palestine is the Jewish place to be and not Israel.
No, I’ve just been using accepted scholarly terminology (and having some fun with you over the soup course). Believe it or not, they really are called Palestinian Talmud, Palestinian Targum and Palestinian Aramaic – because, for millennia, that was the undisputed designation of the area in which they were redacted, written and spoken. No big deal. Really. Nor did my great-grandfather, Shmuel Palestine, have any particular problem with his name – even after 1948. He was actually quite proud of it, and considered it thoroughly Jewish.
I haven’t heard Rashi’s commentary referred to as French commentary (he is generally included in the category of the sages of Ashkenaz, roughly Germany/France), but the French Tosafists are indeed referred to as such.
The adjective Palestinian obviously bugs you, or you wouldn’t have jumped at my original comment about the Palestinian Talmud, or called simple, known and obvious facts “crap” or me a “joke” for noting them. History is not always easy to swallow.
“Israel as a Jewish nation state accomplishes the goal of self-identification for Jews,…”
I’m glad I came back and read this thread again. You know, by the way, dimadok, that entire comment reeks of what is called “flopsweat”.
Palestine was a name for the area and not for a state
did you just make that statement in support of your (ever evolving) argument? the geographic area has been known as ‘palestine’ (not appalachia or pomerania) since long before the invention of the modern nation state, not that the modern state has much to do with the biblical ‘deed’ creating israel. even so, there was something like a palestinian state, as administered by turkey, etc. starting about 100 years before the ‘state of israel’ was formed. i’ll give you one thing dimeadozen, you don’t seem to have to expend much effort making multiple, contradictory points in support of your position, what might be called the ‘lawyer’s’ approach.
You are trying to pull in then argument about Palestine connection with Jewish tradition in order to get some reasoning for arguing that Palestine is the Jewish place to be and not Israel.
and what pray tell is wikipedia’s excuse? the same thing? they even put the name in bolded font. eee gads it’s a conspiracy!
Rabaa Danaa – that has a nice ring to it….
Definitely a good day for catchy instructions – snaring both the lazy and the attentive plus the one who pretends to be the other.
“Spielberg’s intention … not … theological argument … film wasn’t intended for a ‘Christian-American’ audience.” – Woody
——————————————————–
1.
He and his staff in fact made a theological statement about Talmudic Judaism by chosing the saying for the climatic scene of the movie and chosing it to be the promotional motto. – Now we laymen know what Talmudic Judism is all about: “men are created equal”, there is no such thing as a ‘chosen people’.
2.
A movie that wants to sell has to address a larger audience, and this audience happens to be Christian in America. (That’s why he chose a ‘righteous’ gentile and not a Jew as the hero who saved Jews.)
Klaus:
1) No, he and his staff made a storytelling choice. I have no doubt that Spielberg was making a statement about universal values, because that is the kind of person he seems to be. For your point to have any credence whatsoever, you have to demonstrate that Spielberg is 1) aware of the differences you’re discusing, 2) cares one whit about it 3) wasn’t what actually happened and 4) chose that “version” for a theological or deceptive purpose. You haven’t done that, so your speculations are irreelvant or worse. The fact that you have a bug up your ass about the subject does not mean that Spielberg was making a theological statement; it just means you have a bug up your ass about the subject.
2) Klaus, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This was not a movie that he “wanted to sell.” In fact, Spielberg didn’t expect that it would find an audience at all and was surprised it became a hit. Further, most of it’s grosses were outside America (it was 70-30 foreign). And the antagonist was non-Jewish because in real life Oskar Schindler was non-Jewish and because Spielberg knows how to spot a great story, and Schindler’s was a great story and a great cinematic story.
Woody -
Spielberg himself – the American Jew he is – probably believes in the saying “who saves one life …” the version he quoted it in the film.
I don’t want to contest that. – But Novick, from whom I got the matter, also wondered why nearly no one contested Spielberg’s version of this quote from the Talmud. Novick just mentions someone as saying ironically, the movie’s motto was: “slightly wrong”. – Well, if it’s only “slightly wrong” it’s indeed a bug up my ass.
“Mooser – as always you have hit the nail on the head.”
You’ve never seen my home repairs, have you Klaus?
If I really felt threatened by someone I wouldn’t do something so bold and provocative as peanut butter their windows.
He had no fear of getting caught? He had no concern about what kind of retaliation he might expect if he was? At the very least it shows poor judgement.
Spielberg is a good story teller but this goes beyond the bounds of credulity. Spielberg’s entire story is suspect.
“If I really felt threatened by someone I wouldn’t do something so bold and provocative as peanut butter their windows.”
What if the choice was either commit minor vandalism with the extra-chunky or succumb to a life of anti-Semitic persecution?
“What if the choice was either commit minor vandalism with the extra-chunky or succumb to a life of anti-Semitic persecution?”
It makes for a nice story that Spielberg peanut buttered some bully’s window and the bully stopped bullying him.
So apparently the bully was so intimidated by the act of peanut buttering windows in the middle of the night that he never bothered Spielberg again. It hardly seems that the “bully” was much of a threat to begin with.
It is also plausible that young Steven was the bully and his mother makes excuses for his behavior.
“So apparently the bully was so intimidated by the act of peanut buttering windows in the middle of the night that he never bothered Spielberg again”
Frankly, what I object to in all things of this type, peanut-butterings, eggings, TP’ing, is the waste of food or resources. That just never sits right with me.
I was actually surprised by the anti-social reaction of his mother. I would have a very sore bottom for a while. (Actually, this particular feat was impossible without dare-devil tip-toing on 8 inch wide ledge high above street level, so I extrapolate from what happened when my mother returned home from work and was surprised to see green dust in every single room in the apartment which lead to rather inhumane interrogation and the admission that it was an attempt to produce gun powder for a model rocket …)
“I was actually surprised by the anti-social reaction of his mother.”
I’m not. Turning the other cheek and that is for suckers. If someone messes with my family and my son fights back, he’ll get nothing but praise and pride from me.
I just read the transcript and didn’t actually see the interview but it seems like Spielberg is talking about the typical outsider feelings most kids encounter growing up, and his mother is the one who changes the subject to “serious anti-semitism”, aka slurs. Given her own contribution to his childhood feelings of abandonment I find her mention of this 50 years later rather curious. As if she is deflecting her own guilt.
“I’m not. Turning the other cheek and that is for suckers. If someone messes with my family and my son fights back, he’ll get nothing but praise and pride from me.”…Woody
Ignoring them works even better. I use to get some ribbing, limp insults, about being a Southerner when I spent time in NY. My usual reply was…..”Is that so?, well there you go”. Which led to one guy telling me what he couldnt’ stand about Southerners was they didn’t give shit about what anyone else thought. Which was mostly true. LOL
Sometimes ignoring them works, sometimes it takes a pop in the chops. And getting good natured ribbing about being from the South isn’t in the same league as what we’re talking about here. When people in New York beat you up because you sound like you come from Atlanta, then we’ll talk.
… isn’t in the same league as what we’re talking about here. When people in New York beat you up because you sound like you come from Atlanta, then we’ll talk.
Woody, I missed the part about Spielberg getting beaten up. Mainly because there is no mention of it happening. Spielberg was on the receiving end of some name calling, full stop. Nothing else is mentioned about the incident except for young Steven’s retaliation by peanut butter. It seems a much more important issue to Steven’s mother than it does to him.
“Woody, I missed the part about Spielberg getting beaten up. Mainly because there is no mention of it happening. Spielberg was on the receiving end of some name calling, full stop.”
Spielberg has mentioned in other stories that he got beat up a few times for being Jewish when he was growing up. It’s not like this is some big secret. He’s been open about this for a long time.
That bothers me, too. I mean did Steven just lob a gloop at one window? Or wait until no one was home and smear ALL windows? If anyone was home, why did no one see him… not even neighbors? Plus why not splat the house with gifelte fish?
I dunno. Sounds meek to me. Especially when there was no retaliation.
Most bullies retaliate. If the bully had an idea Steven did it, why wouldn’t MORE ass-whuppin’ occur? And if the bully was clueless about who’d Skippy’d his house, why would he stop picking on his usual victim?
Anyone know any other bully in history who was stopped by peanut butter?
Finally, if Steven really wanted to stand up for himself, he should have faced his bully at school, in front of witnesses, hurling matzos shuriken like a demented ninja.
I like your theories how to stand up to the bullies. When I was in the first grade I had experience that I remember till today. I was a small kid, but one boy was much smaller yet, and he was a terrible pest. When I was in the second grade, the school switched to ball pens, but in the first we had inkwells, and pens with steel nibs, this stuff is great for mischief. I also had a wooden box for pens, nibs and pencils. Once when Mareczek bumped into me for purpose I got angry and I hit him on the head with the pen box with full force. Mareczek dropped to the floor, sat and started to cry so bitterly, so sadly that it shocked me.
I was thinking that Mareczek is crying not out of pain but because I hate him. And I did not verbalize it, but I was an oppressor, stupid oppressor, the second smallest boy hitting the smallest boy.
5-6 years later there was an anti-Semitic campaign. That was “real stuff”. Sometimes I think that American Jews dredge their memories for slights to feel more connected to ancient traditions.
The story doesn’t hold up.
Did the victims parents call the police? Did they call the Spielbergs?
More likely
Young Steven pulled a prank that an enabling Mother rationalized as some retaliating against anti-Semitism.
Oh cry me a river Spielberg. Peanut butter, is for rich kids, you want to making bulling children stop, do what I did to make WASPy, Canadians stop with their snide Camel Jockey remarks (although they don’t make glass coke bottles anymore, although cut a tin can in halve will work) brake said bottle and shove it in their faces and see how a bully wither away.
I’m not advocating violence but you can take only so much.
I once got in a terrible fight with an adolescent friend over the words “Jew-Canoe”.
He ended up at the emergency ward, but was not injured, thank God, except I broke his glasses. Lots of trouble for me, which I richly deserved.
Now mark the way fate instructs an ungulate: It wasn’t very much later my Dad brought home, for reasons I am still unable to fathom, a tremendous used Cadillac he bought. I mean, it was a Brougham Fleetwood Coupe-de-frigate. And then not, I believe six months after that, he dropped dead! We didn’t need a limo for his funeral, at any rate. There we were, paddlin’ Madeline home. Mom dumped it as soon after that as she could and got, I believe, a Saturn.
And I was sorry I had that fight. That was one expensive lesson.
Dune Coon seems to be a favorite word of the US Marines for the Iraqis .
And modern day Jews moan about antisemitism. FFS.
Thirty years from now think of all the Palestinian moguls, writers, tech giants, and filmmakers on 60 Minutes talking about what the Israeli settlers said–and–did to them.
Anti-Irish sentiment in this country was far, far, far worse than anti-semitism ever was. Started in the middle of the 1800s (result of the Potato Famine), if you want to spend a day in front of a library’s NYT microfilm to see it. Read the op-eds and editorials. Classified ads said “Irish need not apply.” The only job an Irish woman could get was as a maid or secretary until Kennedy won.
That’s why Kennedy’s ascension to the Presidency was so remarkable. He had to make speeches about Catholicism the way Obama had to make a speech about race.
The difference between the Irish and someone like Spielberg is that the Irish laughed it off, and . . . changed the way Americans speak in retaliation: How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads, one of the best books ever for people who like words.
Irish often did work slaves were not permitted to do: drain swamps, mine, etc. The idea was that the Irish were indentured servants…. and so could be “rented” as expendable, temporary workers… in ways slaves-as-property weren’t.
Plus there were fights between Irish gangs and freed blacks over the shittiest, most dangerous jobs.
Even when quotas were enforced against Jews in America, the percentages allowed in schools, trades, etc. far exceeded their proportion of the population. Not saying it was fun-and-games, just that “gentlemen’s agreements” weren’t Nuremberg Laws. There’s a difference between getting called names or being snubbed socially and being beaten or shot.
There’s a difference between getting called names or being snubbed socially and being beaten or shot.
Which is what happened out of our eye and reported history in Ireland/Northern Ireland for over a couple of centuries. The shooting, beating, and snubbing. Of course, that was while the British Empire was in its zenith, and anything the British aristocracy thought, the landed gentry, here, thought they should adopt as well, although it was token by comparison. Their Nuremberg Laws were the Penal Laws, and even up until the end of the 20th C, their Peace Wall (Green Line) had checkpoint gates.
But Ireland is a tiny country, and nobody pays it much attention.
Whatever Spielberg experienced growing up in Phoenix, AZ, the situation in Hollywood for Jews was very different.
Check out Neal Gabler’s 1989 book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Gabler documents the fact that the movie moguls in Hollywood (Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, the Warner brothers, Harry Cohen, etc.) were Jews. Gabler takes an affectionate look at the business leaders who survived in a very tough business. The book covers early Hollywood: the 1920′s, 1930′s, and 1940′s, which was, of course, long before Spielberg’s arrival.
The last time I checked, Gabler was a talking head on television, a token liberal on the Fox network.
… and in Australia Jewish kids called Italian immigrants dirty wogs … Italian kids called English immigrants dirty poms … they all called the natives dirty lazy blacks ….
I think it’s bad someone yelled racist comments at their windows.
Do you think smearing someone with racist statements is worse or less worse than smearing their windows with peanut butter?
worse.
“Do you think smearing someone with racist statements is worse or less worse than smearing their windows with peanut butter?”
W Jones, if you cognated (and don’t give me none of your cognitive diffidence!) the place held by peanut butter in Jewish theology and culture, the answer to that question becomes plain in a jif. Or, new extra creamy jif!
which is?
link to myjewishlearning.com
?
Exactly, W.Jones! As the great Rabbi Jonathan (they used to call him “Johnny Rebbe”) put it: “If one eats it, does it not stick to the roofs of both Gentile and Jewish mouth alike?”
“Do you think smearing someone with racist statements is worse or less worse than smearing their windows with peanut butter?”
It depends on whether someone in the house had a peanut allergy
Don’t you just love it when these fat-cats play the victim card? No doubt if he was Black, Hispanic or Native American, he would have had a much easier time of it. Particularly in Hollywood, that place where ethnic diversity so clearly manifests itself in the power structure.
How was he playing the victim card? It wasn’t him that brought it up. If you watch the interview it’s clear that his mother was proud of him standing up for himself and was bragging on him and that Spielberg, himself, was uncomfortable discussing it.
WOODY TANAKA- “How was he playing the victim card?”
He appears to be going along with it, comfortable with the narrative of victimhood and how “some serious anti-Semitic attacks” influenced him. Chomsky also suffered episodes of anti-Semitism in his youth which he downplays and puts in perspective, always emphasizing his current privileged status. Of course, Chomsky also minimizes the extreme reaction of the Zionists to his criticism of Israel, including death threats when he gave talks. What Spielberg experienced pales in comparison to what Chomsky, Israel Shahak, and Norman Finkelstein had to endure at the hands of the Zionists. Yet, the never ending tale of Jewish victimhood and persecution continues, Stephen Spielberg at least tacitly complicit in the telling of the tale.
“He appears to be going along with it, comfortable with the narrative of victimhood and how “some serious anti-Semitic attacks” influenced him. ”
Oh, baloney. He’s explaining the things from his formative years which influenced his work, specifically being an outsider and having issues with his relationship to his father. His experiences with antisemism is simply one of the things from which he based his self-conception as an outsider. He’s talking about himself and what happened to him and what affect it had on him and his career.
There’s no place in the discussion for the stuff you say about Chomsky, Shahak and Finkelstein, unless you think that the only valid point of view anyone can have about his own past is in relationship with the treatment everyone who shares that ethnic or religious background has experienced. He has as much right as anyone to his own personal experiences and the effect they had on him and he doesn’t waive that right simply because you think you’ve discerned some Zionist plot regarding persecution of Jews.
WOODY TANAKA- “There’s no place in the discussion for the stuff you say about Chomsky, Shahak and Finkelstein….”
Funny, I think that putting Spielberg’s experience in perspective is highly relevant to Hollywood’s ongoing retelling of the Holocaust/anti-Semitism tale, a highly consistent and much emphasized narrative. Hollywood, along with the rest of the mass entertainment media, are the creators and disseminators of the cultural mythology which profoundly influences the way people evaluate news and events. Hollywood’s ongoing strong emphasis on the Holocaust is in many ways similar to a cinematic ‘birthright tour.’
Perceived anti-Semitism is the mother’s milk of Zionism, and Hollywood is doing its bit to ensure sympathy for Israel and US support for Israel, something which I suspect that Lesley Stahl and Stephen Spielberg approve of. I don’t consider the Stahl/Spielberg emphasis on incidents of anti-Semitism to be quite as innocent as you apparently do. These two pros know how to create a narrative to support unstated biases.
@ Keith
Yet, the never ending tale of Jewish victimhood and persecution continues, Stephen Spielberg at least tacitly complicit in the telling of the tale.
Never miss an opportunity do you Keith? Mooser must be slipping. He use to catch these.
You are rather good at playing the victimhood card yourself Keith. Boo-hoo, poor Keith. Bruce is picking on him again.
117 comments and still going on Spielberg & peanut butter. Easy to see what entertains this crowd. My comment should be good for another hundred to the thread.
” I think that putting Spielberg’s experience in perspective is highly relevant to Hollywood’s ongoing retelling of the Holocaust/anti-Semitism tale,”
Well, you’ve the right to be wrong. Because you’re not putting it into perspective, you’re trying to build a false narrative around it.
“Hollywood’s ongoing strong emphasis on the Holocaust is in many ways similar to a cinematic ‘birthright tour.’”
Only if that’s what you bring to the table. The Holocaust was a seminal event in human hsitory and the 20th century. Would you expect cinema to ignore it simply because zionists attempt to incorporate that event into their position in a way you find offensive?
“Perceived anti-Semitism is the mother’s milk of Zionism”
So what? Spielberg and his mother are talking about actual anti-Semitism.
“and Hollywood is doing its bit to ensure sympathy for Israel and US support for Israel, something which I suspect that Lesley Stahl and Stephen Spielberg approve of. ”
Whether they do or not is besides the question. One would have to be a nut to say, “in this story about of what influenced Spielberg and his career, we’re going to put in this tale regarding antisemitic incidents in 1960s Pheonix so as to ENSURE American support for Israel.” That’s nutty.
“I don’t consider the Stahl/Spielberg emphasis on incidents of anti-Semitism to be quite as innocent as you apparently do.”
Whatever. Some people believe that Kennedy was killed by the mafia in league with the Cuban, with the help of Lyndon Johnson and the space aliens at Area 51.
The Holocaust was a seminal event in human hsitory and the 20th century. Would you expect cinema to ignore it simply because zionists attempt to incorporate that event into their position in a way you find offensive?
The problem is the framing that Hollywood gives it. It ignores the attempted genocide against other peoples and ethnicities committed by the Nazis, and it ignores the significance of communism and anti-communism as antagonists in the War. If everything you knew about WWII came from Holocaust movies you’d think that the war was all about persecuting Jews, period.
WOODY TANAKA- “The Holocaust was a seminal event in human hsitory and the 20th century. Would you expect cinema to ignore it simply because zionists attempt to incorporate that event into their position in a way you find offensive?”
The Holocaust, in which about 6 million people died, has received massive cinematic coverage, probably beginning around 1967 when American Jews openly embraced Israel. In WW II, the USSR had over 20 million deaths, China even more. What sort of cinematic coverage has this received? If one examines history it will be apparent that the Holocaust was but one instance of mass murder, the occurrence of which is distressingly common. Focusing on the Holocaust to the relative exclusion of other ‘holocausts’, such as the native Americans or Black slaves, tends to privilege Jewish victim-hood while ignoring concurrent salient factors. It is no accident that Hollywood ignores the 20 plus million Soviets who died while endlessly reminding us of the “6 million.” It is called the Holocaust industry and manufacturing consent all rolled into one. Also, how many movies dealing with this “seminal event” have delved into the life and times of Dr. Rudolph Kastner?
I lived in a house in the neighborhood, Arcadia, Spielberg talks about as a young adult that was previously occupied by a friend’s family. The story is told her older brothers were playmates of the director. Their encounter with celebrity. Although I do not doubt children compared and ridiculed the religion of anyone whose religion was not their own, I do doubt any criticism of Spielberg’s religion was specifically made to demean Jews, or that it was anti-Semitic.
As a child raised in a Lutheran family (not in AZ), I recall an older neighborhood girl claimed Lutheran’s were backdoor Catholics in one of those contrast and comment conversations children have. I did not fear another St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, nor did I retaliate in any way for the insult. Maybe that is why I did not become a hugely successful mediocre Hollywood director.
Spielberg’s oeuvre contains much that I admire. The Normandy landing in Saving Private Ryan, certain scenes in Schindler’s List, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, even de Caprio and Tom Hanks in Catch Me if you Can. Just my opinion I guess, but I don’t think all aspects of his career can be called mediocre.
“I don’t think all aspects of his career can be called mediocre.”
Anyone who would call Spielberg “mediocre” is an idiot. You don’t have to care for his work, but applying the term “mediocre” to him is objectively nonsensical.
I meant, of course, “Was he allowed to shop at Goldwaters?”.
Kids of varying immigrant ethnicities, impoverished, unattractive and intellectually challenged kids also suffer ridicule, rejection and isolation. You’d think only Jewish kids suffer ridicule from other kids. There’s nothing inspiring about perpetual victimhood. Stahl turned this part of the interview into a self-indulgent pity party; no surprise there.
“You’d think only Jewish kids suffer ridicule from other kids. There’s nothing inspiring about perpetual victimhood. ”
Why? Should the interviewer have asked Spielberg about his experiences dealing with the bigotry of Jim Crow laws? I don’t see where you find evidence for such an accusation. Spielberg’s experiences are his alone. The fact that racism against other ethnic minorities was unfortunately common in no way diminishes anti-Semitism’s impact upon those who experienced it. To imply that discussing the very real existence of anti-semitism and its influence upon an individual who happens to be Jewish is somehow evidence of a “self-indulgent pity party” that reflects a culture of wallowing in never-ending victimhood is nothing but the perpetuation of a persistent anti-semitic trope itself. Nothing about discussing one’s own past dealings with bigotry in any way implies that other ethnic groups fared better, or that Jews were the only or most important victims of racism in America. This is nothing but an attempt at downplaying the reality of a popular culture that WAS biased against Jews, in order to simultaneously accuse them (Jews as a whole) of the opposite, building a culture of victimhood, presumably to guilt the gentiles into granting the Jews undeserved societal perks, such as support for Israel.
fyi, 2005 link to adherents.com
From: Frank Sanello, Spielberg: The Man, the Movies, the Mythology, Taylor Publishing Company: Dallas, Texas (1996), pages 2-6:
sound familiar? something like this, if it keeps getting repeated it becomes a theme surrounding a person. just thought i’d point that out.
btw, i have not been following this thread, so excuse me if this is a repeat. well, the story is repeated for a reason.
Annie, was that comment meant as a response to mine?
I was referring to the trope of never ending victimhood as supposedly reinforced by mainstream Jewish culture. I was rejecting the poisonous allegation that Jewish culture perpetuates the idea that only Jews are the important/permanent victims in the world and that they deserve to be compensated in perpetuity for wrongs wrought by Gentiles. (Wrongs that may not even exist as anti-semitism is not a serious problem in reality as its consequences have been greatly overstated for political reasons.)
Allegations like the above are nothing but straight up anti-semitism themselves.
been meaning to get back to you meyer. wrt context. as i mentioned before i had not been following the thread when i intercepted your exchange with kalithea. however i had read phil’s post earlier and at the completion (So: I want the whole American Jewish story, not just the outsider one. ) my first thought was ‘i have read about spielberg in this context before, i already know this about his life.’
with that in mind i wondered about the choice for it to be featured so prominently in this interview, which i do think was by design and i will explain why i think it is by design.
60 minutes is one of the most watched shows on television with a crucial time slot. this is pre election, the most valuable prime time media real estate available on american television with one of the most celebrated moviemakers in american culture. therefore, it is safe to assume this interview was not thrown together randomly on the spur of the moment, nor edited randomly.
also, crucial to the interview is the fact he has a movie coming out. actors and directors, while their audience may be fascinated in them 24/7 – 12 months out of the year, generally do interviews to promote their films. and his film was promoted so one can safely assume film promotion was on the agenda of both spielberg and 60 minutes.
the segment was 14 minutes long. 14 primetime minutes during the hottest media real estate that comes around once every 4 years. so let’s do a review of how those 14 minutes were spent. after a brief introduction about spielberg pre interview stahl says
“but before we tell you about that, we discovered things about spielberg that took us by surprise, stories from his childhood, that are reflected in may of his extraordinary films….he still gets just as worried, panicked, filled with dread as he did when he first started out….”
so, note how there is a bit of intrigue infused with the introduction surrounding his ‘stories from his childhood’?
interview begins at one minute “you’re a nervous wreck”..is it fear?… spielberg ..level of anxiety?
2:00 “fear” ( stahl touched amazed inspired)
2:30 “we wondered if anything tied movies together”. childhood “spent his childhood in arizona”, (actually he was 9 when he moved to arizona).
(2:49 interview w/parents begins)
3:30 trouble fitting in
3:50 “dirty jews”
4:20 “serious anti semitism”
denial of judaism
4:47 outsiders
so, the introduction leads us to anticipate the stories from the childhood and then what were the focus of the stories? this is very riveting information that sets up the whole interview heavily featured during the first 5 minutes, a third of the interview. this was a choice made by 60 minutes. they have researchers, this info was out there about his life already and is not a secret (or a surprise as stahl stated). i also recall reading an interview with his mom at another time where she spoke of it (unless it was another tv interview).
for all we know the actual interview was over an hr. but the way it was cut and presented chose to highlight this event in his life. why? that is something you will have to ask 60 minutes but it wasn’t random. i do not think phil was alone wrt considering “the whole American Jewish story”
so this is what was in my head. he is here promoting his film, discussing his life, the life of a highly successful man in american culture. (btw, here is a video of walker discussing her art and activism. link to mondoweiss.net note the inspirational aspect of where she goes with it )
discussing the very real existence of anti-semitism and its influence upon an individual
it was more about noting where, how and when americans are being directed to focus on the impact of anti semitism in american culture. famous hollywood people have pr people who design their images (based on truth for the most part of course). this is part of spielberg’s story, not just last sunday during prime time. it is not random. it is a theme surrounding his image that is being perpetuated. the american public are being directed to look at anti semitism thru the experiences of an extremely famous popular person (and he was a victim at that time regardless of current success).
it is my perception americans are more exposed to instances of or allegations of antisemitism than bigotry towards other people. this is not only thru the media, for instance the situation at the UCberkeley/santa cruz which was extended to the legislature. it is frequently front and center. whereas i am not really accustomed to having the negative effects of racism directed at other ethnicities featured so prominently when interviewing famous americans. not american hispanics, not american blacks, native americans, arab americans , asian americans.
check out morgan freeman on 60 minutes:
link to cbsnews.com
link to cbsnews.com
do you think as a child he experienced racism in this country? i cannot look at the 60 minutes focus and the framing of spielberg’s interview without seeing the centrality of antisemitism in his life. this is a feature of american culture and discourse, the prominence of confronting anti semitism. why?
btw, i have not been following this thread, so excuse me if this is a repeat. well, the story is repeated for a reason.
annie, thank you for following up to meyer, or i might have missed this bit. here is my confusion over the ‘interview’:
in sanello’s 1996 biography, or least the linked excerpts, the following is written:
“I wasn’t a religious kid, although I was Bar Mitzvahed in a real Orthodox synagogue,” he once recalled. His earliest memory was of entering a Cincinnati synagogue for services with Hasidic elders. “The old men were handing me little crackers. My parents said later I must have been about six months old!”
so here is spielberg bragging about his preternatural memory, recalling scenes from an event he attended as a ‘six-month old’.
then this, from the biography, as you already cited:
Today, his mother regrets this rejection of her roots. “I was raised in an Orthodox home, but I chose to rear my children in non-Jewish neighborhoods. That was my one really big mistake. The kids next door used to stand outside yelling, ‘The Spielbergs are dirty Jews.’ So one night Steven snuck out of the house and peanut-buttered all their windows.”
so in a 1996 biography, the peanut butter affair is recounted. then this from the october 2012 stahl interview:
Lesley Stahl: Do you remember what you did?
Steven Spielberg: I took Skippy peanut butter and smeared it all over their windows.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah.
Steven Spielberg: Did she say that to you?
Lesley Stahl: Yes, she did.
Steven Spielberg: She told you that?
Lesley Stahl: She told us that.
Steven Spielberg: OK. I guess this is– I guess right now we’re beyond the statute of limitations, so I can’t get sued for vandalism.
spielberg’s asking stahl to confirm in 2012 that his mother ‘disclosed’ the secret incident to ’60 minutes’, when he already knew damn well the same story was told by her for sanello in his 1996 biography? am i missing something here? this is unadulterated manipulation. the appearance of a shared personal secret, the shame of disclosure, the ‘intimacy’ of a relationship built between viewer and subject. pure tabloid.
annie,
I think you’re looking at this all wrong. The two themes that Spielberg has built a career on is 1) being an outsider and 2) fatherlessness. He has lately walked away from the second as he’s reconciled with his father. This story was simply an examination of these foundational things, in light of the release of “Lincoln.” I think anyone trying to build some type of “framing” of antisemitism on his part or 60 Minutes’s part is barking up the wrong tree.
i respectfully disagree woody. i do not think it is possible to insert a term as inflammatory as “dirty jew” into prime time and expect people to disregard it as part of the framing. it’s not benign. same for the n word. i think 60 minutes knows that. anyway, that was my impression. it stood out and i do not think it was a random editing decision.
But “framing” of what? I think it is beyond the pale to think that it is framing anything other than, maybe, he’s the basis for Spielberg’s outlook on life. To suggest that the framing has anything larger about Jews in America is a stretch (but wrong, in my opinon); to say it has anything to do with the election or israel as some people here have intimated is, in my opinion, crazy.
the only spielberg biography in my local public library is by joseph mcbride, ‘steven spielberg: a biography’ which was published after the sanello biography. the same story is recounted by spielberg’s mother in that book. that’s at least two other prior public statements about the incident of which spielberg was aware. so it appears that this interview (quotation fingers) was completely contrived. and when commenters here justify the timing of this ‘revelation’ and the motivation behind its public disclosure now (“He hasn’t spoken about this before until his old age so he can’t exactly be acused of trying to make a movie script out of it.”) that justification is completely, utterly without factual foundation.
“I often told people my last name was German, not Jewish.”
I fail to see how this could have improved the situation and reduced the potential for ethnic slurs and harassment.
“I fail to see how this could have improved the situation and reduced the potential for ethnic slurs and harassment.”
Really? German is the most common ancestry among Americans. Probably most of the kids who were hurling slurs were probably part German.
Maybe he should have spread mustard on their windows, then…and lobbed some spaetzle!
thanks for proving my point, Woody and Shlomo
Oh, we didn’t really. Unless your point was so mundane as to be trivial.
Oh great! First we’re wasting peanut butter, and now mustard. It’s like piling condiments on condominiums. No, that’s not right.
One of my grandparents came from Alsace-Lorraine. They felt compelled to insist that they were French, even though the region went back and forth between the two countries several times, and they clearly had some German ancestry as well. They even went so far as to give all their children French first names. This was between the two World Wars. I can’t imagine that it got much better after WWII, particularly in the 1950′s. In the late 1960′s I remember a guy in my school class getting mercilessly teased about the fact that his last name was German. I claimed Swiss and Dutch ancestry. The Dutch was real, the Swiss, well it could have been, and it kept the petty harassment down. French was out because they had folded too soon and collaborated with the Germans according to the childhood standard that was set. Interestingly, this occurred in a school with predominantly Asian-American (mostly Japanese-American) children in attendance. I’m sure the same kids would have suffered similarly in school with a majority of non-Asians.
I was also told an interesting story by an older Jewish man who grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles during WWII. He and his friends were chasing a German immigrant boy who lived in the neighborhood. When they chased him to his house his father came out and asked why they were chasing his son. They said it was because the boy had called them “dirty Jews”. The father slapped his son and and said “That kind of talk is why we left Germany.” The Jewish man, then a boy, said he felt quite guilty at the time, because although the German boy had used the slur, it was only after the Jewish boy and his other Jewish friends had harassed and mocked the German boy because of his German ancestry. (Eventually they all became friends, especially when the German family became the first on the block with a television set!)
Lesson to be learned from all of this? Kids do this kind of thing all the time. Its not restricted to one ethnicity or the other and it isn’t always about ethnicity. Spielberg himself in the interview says as much.
His isn’t complaining about anti-semitism. He’s talking about the angst of growing up and not “fitting in”, which of course is the lot of most kids, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
My take on the peanut butter incident is that his mother was not talking about an incident among kids, which I think makes it worse if it was grown ups who used the slur. However, after reading the interview I have little respect for his mother, who, by her own admission, allowed Steven to think that his father had abandoned them when in reality she chose to leave his father. Its clear from this interview and the arc of his films that this feeling of abandonment was a central hurtful part of his growing up. It was inexcusable for her to leave Steven with such a false and hurtful impression. Since she is the one who brought up the peanut butter incident and seemed particularly proud of it, I suspect there’s probably a lot more to the story than we will ever know. She should have confronted the people herself, rather than congratulate her adolescent son on committing a minor act of vandalism.
@ tree
Your analysis and conclusions seem quite right-on (even about Spielberg’s mother). I’m sure lots of adults have similar tales from their childhoods if you asked them about it. Objectively, it might not seem as if the experiences were so severe, but psychologically to the kid, it could have had tremendous impact that lasted a lifetime.
This has been very entertaining and educational. My compliments.
Steven looks like a classic target of bullying: the new kid, awkward, a loner, parents who didn’t fit in that well either, distant father. Someone in that position didn’t have to be Jewish to be bullied, but in the 1960s it’s wouldn’t have been impossible or surprising if there was an anti-Semitic element.
But there was a certain amount of interpretation involved. If kids say something under their breath and pretend to cough, are they saying “Jew” every time? If somebody throws something hard at you, are they throwing coins as a reference to stereotypes of Jews?
It could be. But it may not always be the case that ethnic hostility was involved. The conclusions Spielberg came to may have been the right ones at the time, but they may also explain if he gets things wrong now by coming to the same conclusions in situations where they aren’t warranted.
Has anyone seen this play “Disgraced” which is described in NYT review “at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater in a sleek production directed by Kimberly Senior, is a continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world, with an accent on the incendiary topic of how radical Islam and the terrorism it inspires have affected the public discourse.”?
The main characters in the play include high achievers coming from different “identities” (African American, Pakistani American, Jewish American & I guess an amorphously ‘white’ woman) and it’s the Isaac (Erik Jensen), a Jewish art curator who ‘rises to the defense’ of Islam.. Wonder how the ‘white’ & ‘Jewish’ identities play out in this? (the review focuses on Islam issues)
link to theater.nytimes.com