Day 512 - All that is Jewish and controversial at the Oscars

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

News

4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Film critic Jordan Hoffman joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's Daily Briefing, a bonus episode of our weekly What Matters Now podcast series.

Ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards on Sunday night, The Times of Israel’s film critic gives his predictions on which of the five films related to Israel or the Jews will have any chance of taking home a statue.

We hear about how the ongoing war in Gaza is creating off-screen drama for a film, “September 5,” that has nothing to do with the current conflict but dares to show Israel as a victim after the country’s athletes were massacred in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Hoffman weighs in on the merits of “A Real Pain” and pronounces it an excellent addition to the pantheon of Jewish film. About “The Brutalist,” he has some reservations, although he applauds the film overall.

We learn how the Bob Dylan biopic may not have anything really overtly Jewish about it, but that it’s not a slam to Members of the Tribe.

And finally, Hoffman discusses the Palestinian/Jewish Israeli co-production that is hardly a coexistence project, but rather a “From the River to the Sea” production.

And so this week, we ask Jordan Hoffman what matters now.

Please see today's ongoing live blog for more updates.

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves.

IMAGE: Adrien Brody, left, and Guy Pearce in a scene from 'The Brutalist.' (Lol Crawley/A24 via AP)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to What Matters Now, the Times of Israel's weekly podcast drilling into one issue facing Israel and the Jewish world right now.
0:11.4	I'm your host deputy editor, Amanda Borschal Dan, here with my friend and film critic Jordan Hoffman, whom I haven't seen in eight years since the time. He took me to the New York
0:25.7	Jewish spot, Katz's Deli. Jordan, I've missed you so much. So good to see you. Yes, I guess it has
0:32.6	been eight years since we saw one another. We did. We went to Kat' Deli, and you were, I mean, obviously,
0:38.4	the food is marvelous, but I remember you just, like, brimming with like, this is so New York,
0:43.1	this is so New York. A lot of what impressed you, which I just kind of flew over my head,
0:48.6	was how it was not an exclusively Jewish spot. It was everybody. There were Hispanics, black people, Muslims,
0:57.0	the whole nine yards, everybody just really enjoying the pastrami sandwich and the matzabal soup.
1:02.5	And who knew that those were such more enlightened days eight years ago than today? I don't
1:09.5	know what the vibe is like at Kansas now. I haven't
1:11.5	been there in a while. And it was my first Knish, which is obviously an important moment as well.
1:17.2	I'm honored. I'm honored to have been there, you know. So listeners, those of you who
1:23.2	regularly listen to our podcast know that it's generally very dour and serious and about the war.
1:29.7	But today we're going to do something slightly different.
1:33.0	Jordan is here.
1:33.8	And we're going to discuss all that is Jewish about the upcoming Oscar ceremony and a little bit of
1:40.7	anti-Semitism because we can't go too far away from anti-Semitism.
1:45.3	So anti-Semitism in Hollywood as well.
1:48.0	But where there are Jews, there is anti-Semitism.
1:52.2	They go hand in hand.
1:53.3	It's like peanut butter and chocolate.
1:56.0	Peanut butter and jelly as well.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times of Israel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Times of Israel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.