John Podhoretz on the Best and Worst of Jewish Cinema
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2018
⏱️ 45 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The great thinkers of Athens sought to understand man’s place in the world through the medium of philosophy. But the prophets of Jerusalem explored man’s role and obligations through the art of storytelling. In the Hebrew Bible and the Midrashic tradition, in modern Yiddish literature and contemporary Jewish cinema, Jews have used powerful stories as the medium through which they explore and convey the rhythms, history, and wisdom of the Jewish condition.
In the 20th century, Jewish artists produced a plethora of films that captured the American Jewish experience at key moments in modern history. And there is no one better suited to discuss the best and worst of Jewish cinema than Commentary Editor and prolific movie critic John Podhoretz. In this podcast, Podhoretz chats with Jonathan Silver about everything from The Jazz Singer and Exodus to Schindler’s List and X-Men, evaluating their success—or failure—at illuminating the tension between tradition and modernity, the drama of the Zionist project, and the horrors of the Holocaust.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as Midnight Three by Sirus Music.
This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Tikvah Center in New York City. If you would like to find out about future Tikvah events and live podcast recordings, please email [email protected] and ask about joining the Tikvah Society.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. |
| 0:13.0 | This week we feature a discussion of Jewish film with John Podhoritz. We'll get to our discussion in a moment. |
| 0:19.0 | But since this week's broadcast was recorded |
| 0:21.6 | live at a private event for members of the Tikva Society, I thought I'd spend a minute and tell |
| 0:26.5 | you about the Tikva Society. All of the work we do at Tikva, from our publications and educational |
| 0:31.4 | programs, to our online courses and this very podcast, benefit from the support of friends in the |
| 0:37.3 | Tikva Society. |
| 0:38.3 | If you believe in what we're trying to do at Tikva, let us know. Write to us at membership |
| 0:42.3 | at tifah fund.org. That's membership at t-I-K-V-A-H-F-U-N-D.org. By joining the Tikva Society, |
| 0:52.4 | you'll get access to exclusive private events like this one, |
| 0:56.1 | receive invitations to conferences that we host, and join a community of Jewish leaders |
| 1:00.3 | invested in the Jewish future. |
| 1:02.2 | As ever, if you enjoy listening to our podcast, you can subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and leave |
| 1:07.2 | us a rating and a review. |
| 1:09.0 | And you can learn more about our work at Tikva at Tikvafund.org |
| 1:12.5 | and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. |
| 1:15.0 | Here now is a previously recorded live conversation on Jewish film with John Podhoritz. |
| 1:21.2 | I want to introduce this evening's event. |
| 1:24.1 | You're all here at a live recording of the Tikva podcast with someone who, aside |
| 1:29.0 | from being a Jeopardy Champion, and a White House speechwriter, and one of the founders of the |
| 1:35.6 | weekly standard, and a columnist at the New York Post, and the editor of Commentary Magazine, |
| 1:40.5 | aside from all of these distinctions, you're all in the presence of one of the most |
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