Who should play jews and who shouldn’t? | thearticle

Israeli TV drama is becoming more popular on Netflix with shows like _Fauda_,_ Shtisel_ and _The Girl from Oslo_. At the same time, American TV shows are becoming more interested in Jewish

characters, with hits like _ The Marvelous Mrs Maisel _ (Season 4 just started on Amazon Prime), Mandy Patinkin as spymaster Saul Berenson in _Homeland_,_ The Spy _with Sacha Baron Cohen and

_ Hunters _ with Al Pacino. But at this very moment, British TV, the BBC, in particular, is getting in a strange tangle with dramas about Jews. Either the BBC is casting non-Jewish actors

in Jewish roles or they take Jewish characters and make them non-Jewish. There seem to be problems whether Jews are visible or invisible. The casting of non-Jewish actors in Jewish roles

comes at a time when there is much debate about whether only gay actors should play gay parts, only disabled or neuro-diverse actors should play disabled or neuro-diverse parts and whether

only black actors should play black roles. These days it is unthinkable that a white actor should ‘black up’ as Othello. There would now be a huge controversy about casting Dustin Hoffman as

Raymond, the autistic savant, in _Rain Man_. It seems fine to cast a famous Black actor like Denzel Washington as Macbeth, Cush Jumbo as Hamlet or Meera Syal as Beatrice in _ Much Ado _ _ .

_ But would it now be acceptable for an able-bodied actor like Raymond Burr to play Ironside (in the first TV crime drama show to star a policeman with a disability) or for a white actor to

play Gandhi? With Jewish actors and characters things seem more complicated, at least for Jews. Maureen Lipman was unhappy when Helen Mirren, not Jewish, was cast to play the former Israeli

Prime Minister, Golda Meir in the biopic, _Golda_. Speaking on ITV’s _Good Morning Britain_, she added that actors who shared the background of their character should be looked at first. On

the portrayal of Meir specifically, she highlighted that “the Jewishness of the character is so integral”. Mirren handled the controversy with great dignity, saying questions over the

choice to have her play Israel’s Golda Meir, are “utterly legitimate” and that there was “a discussion to be had” about the suitability of certain actors for certain roles. “It was certainly

a question that I had, before I accepted the role. [Meir] is a very important person in Israeli history,” she said. “I said, ‘Look, Guy [the director Guy Nattiv], I’m not Jewish, and if you

want to think about that, and decide to go in a different direction, no hard feelings. I will absolutely understand.’” But this gets complicated very quickly. Agnes O’Casey who played the

Jewish central character Vivien Epstein in the BBC1 drama, _Ridley Road_, has one Jewish grandparent but is mainly of Irish descent (the Irish playwright Sean O’Casey was her

great-grandfather). To ask whether having one Jewish grandparent is enough to play a Jewish character has a nasty ring of the Nuremberg Laws about it. On the other hand, Eddie Marsan, who

played Vivien’s Jewish uncle, Soly Malinovsky, is not himself Jewish, but I defy anyone watching his superb performance to know whether or not he was Jewish. Now the BBC has cast the

non-Jewish Christopher Eccleston (“My dad’s family were Catholic. My mum was very Church of England — still is”) as Fagin, one of the most famous Jewish characters in fiction. Eccleston is a

terrific actor, but was there really not a suitable Jewish actor to play the part — or did no one ask the question? This, of course, was the issue behind the controversy at the Royal Court,

when a villain in a recent play, _Rare Earth Mettle_,_ _was called Hershel Fink and no one at the theatre thought to ask if it was appropriate for a super-rich villain to be given such an

obviously Jewish name. Not asking the obvious question seems part of the problem in some of our more famous cultural institutions — when it is inconceivable that if someone gave an obviously

Indian or West Indian name to a villainous character, alarm bells would not be ringing all over the place.     The most recent example is the new BBC hospital drama, _This Is Going to

Hurt_, written by Adam Kay, based on his hugely successful memoir of the same name and his one-man show. Kay is Jewish. His parents are called Stewart and Naomi and he has a sister called

Sophie. The Kay family was from Poland, with the original family name being Strykowski. But Ben Whishaw (non-Jewish) plays Kay and there are no references to Kay’s Jewishness or his family’s

Jewishness in the series. His mother, played by Harriet Walter, has also been stripped of any trace of Jewishness and her name has been changed from Naomi (quite Jewish) to Veronique (not

very). Since Kay wrote the series himself, one could assume he made this choice and was happy with it. But, of course, it’s also possible that someone else involved in the production or in

the BBC drama department did not want the central character to be Jewish. There are two separate questions here. First, does it matter whether non-Jewish actors play Jewish characters? There

is one good reason why it doesn’t matter. If the actor is as good as Eddie Marsan there’s no problem. But there are several reasons why it does. First, why should Jewish actors not be cast

in these roles? Second, what happens when you get an actor like Olivier or Alec Guinness hamming it up (excuse the phrase) as Shylock or Fagin? (Read Jonathan Miller’s account of trying to

persuade Olivier not to play Shylock with a huge nose and bizarre wig.) Third, playing a big part in a BBC drama can open doors for a future career, so why should Jewish actors not be

allowed this opportunity? Ben Kingsley (born in England but half-Indian) played Gandhi. It transformed his career. The second question is why would someone want to take a Jewish person like

Adam Kay and strip away their Jewishness in a TV adaptation? And why would no one at the Royal Court hear alarm bells in the Herschel Fink case? These are not the same questions. Unless, of

course, they are. In a fine piece in _The Jewish Chronicle_, Jonathan Freedland writes of “Jewish erasure”, removing Jewish characters or themes from a play or a film (in this case he is

comparing the recent West End production of _Cabaret_ with the 1972 film). Freedland is making a very important point. We need to be more sensitive to worrying absences when it comes to

Jewish characters or subjects. Or at least to ask what is going on here. Dick Van Dyke got his big break in _The Dick Van Dyke Show _because the CBS network didn’t want to cast a Jew (Carl

Reiner, whose brainchild it was). Dustin Hoffman got his big break in _The Graduate _because the (Jewish) Director and Screenwriter didn’t care that he looked so Jewish. Perhaps what matters

is not whether Jewish actors play Jewish roles, but who gets to make the decision?      A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We

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