Actress Julianna Margulies is getting a crash course in Hollywood’s complicated Jewish ties.
Not only does the “Morning Show” star lament the lack of industry outrage over Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel, she also bemoans how few shows and films embrace Jewish faith.
“On TV, characters are not ever wearing the Star of David,” the former “ER” star said at Variety’s Hollywood and Antisemitism summit earlier this month. “It’s so easy to put on a cross. Why isn’t it just as easy to put on a Star of David?”
Comic actor Adam Sandler is a notable, relentless exception.
The “Saturday Night Live” alum has spent decades highlighting his Jewish roots in both big-screen comedies and in tunes. Unapologetically so.
And it all started with a song on the show that made him a star.
Each Christmas season, radio stations break out Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” one of the few Jewish ditties to go mainstream over the past 30-odd years. Sandler introduced the number via “Saturday Night Live” in 1994, and it quickly became a sensation.
“Paul Newman’s half Jewish, Goldie Hawn’s half too
Put them together, what a fine lookin’ Jew.”
Silly, self-aware, and sweet, the song became a Sandler trademark, one he updated a few times to add more current Jewish celebrities.
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The song proved more than just a seasonal ditty.
Village Voice critic J. Hoberman praised Sandler and the song for changing perspectives about American Jews.
Sandler’s open cultural narcissism — identifying a “list of people who are Jewish just like you and me” on national TV without fear that this might be a problem — dispensed with the underlying subject of American Jewish comedy. Say it loud. No more anxious self-deprecation. Just the slightest bit of irony!
The comic actor followed the song up with “Eight Crazy Nights,” 2002’s animated ode to Chanukah that failed to replicate the song’s pop culture sting. The film may have borrowed a lyric from the song for its title, but both critics and audiences soured on its collection of crude gags and uninspired storytelling.
It might be better than nothing as far as mainstream animated films dedicated to Chanukah, but it’s pretty close to zilch.
Unbowed, Sandler continued to embrace Judaism in his films and TV projects. Many of his film characters are Jewish, and given they hail from his Happy Madison production company that’s no accident.
Even wacky Sandler romps like “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” found the star addressing his spiritual connections. The title character of the 2008 comedy, a hairstylist and Israeli counter-terrorist agent, moves to America hoping to leave the simmering tensions back home behind.
