Jonah Platt: 'Being Jewish' in Hollywood and Ending the "Bad Jew" Myth

Jay Ruderman:
Welcome to All About Change. Now is a great time to check out my new book about activism, Find Your Fight. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy books, and you can learn more about it at jayaruderman.com. These days, young Jews look around, and they have so many Jewish institutions to tap into, federations, youth groups, synagogues, and advocacy groups define our community. And without proper knowledge, a person could take it all for granted. But that community was built by visionaries who knew what a strong Jewish community could be. Now decades into Jewish-American prominence, the institutions these Jews built are being maintained and expanded by a new generation of Jewish leaders, leaders like Jonah Platt. The son of an award-winning producer, Jonah has taken the opportunities granted to him and run. Alongside a widely successful career in acting and singing, Jonah has spent his career advocating for the Jewish people, sitting on the boards of Jewish organizations, participating widely in Jewish leadership programs, and speaking to Jews across the country. Just last week, as he launched the second season of the podcast, Jonah was awarded gold in the W3 Awards for best Indie podcast host. It's so great to see unabashedly Jewish content getting recognized, and I'm excited to continue that recognition on the podcast today. Jonah Platt, welcome to All About Change. It's my pleasure to have you as my guest.

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Jonah Platt:
Thank you. I'm happy to be here as your guest.

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Jay Ruderman:
Congratulations.

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Jonah Platt:
Thank you.

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Jay Ruderman:
Because as you have launched your second season, you've won a couple of awards in the W3 Awards. You have paired this with Webby Award nominations and the Religious Communications Council Award, and I would say that your first season was a huge hit, so mazal tov on that.

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Jonah Platt:
Thank you.

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Jay Ruderman:
Could you share some of the takeaways from your first season and what it meant to you?

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Jonah Platt:
Oh, boy. Where to begin? In terms of what it meant to me, the feedback that I have gotten from this show has just been unbelievable. Not in terms of personal praise, but in terms of the way that it's doing what it was so intended to do, which is to help people and to help people feel seen, to give people things to think about, to help encourage people to lean into their own sense of Jewish identity, or if they're a non-Jew, to lean into their responsibility as an ally or to understand Jews better or feel more comfortable in their own skin. And the feedback that I get is just so encouraging and really is what keeps me going doing this work is just seeing the effect it has on people and how useful of a place and a tool and a community it has been for so many different kinds of people all over the world.

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Jay Ruderman:
So I want to talk a little bit about Hollywood.

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Jonah Platt:
Sure.

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Jay Ruderman:
Because it's a field that I've been a little bit active in as a producer and executive producer and have known or do know some great people in the industry. What has been your experience with other people in the industry either willing to come out and talk about their Jewishness or unwillingness to do so?

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Jonah Platt:
Yeah, I mean, as you might expect, there is a range, and I have interacted with people on all parts of that spectrum. There are, as you say, many Jews who have engaged more deeply than they ever have, have not shied away from this moment, are using their voices and their influence and their relationships to really stand up for Jews in meaningful ways and to work on camera, behind the scenes, all the ways that matter. And I love those people, and I'm inspired by them and encouraged by their energy and urgency. Then there are, of course, there are people who are not that. There are people who are not that in a couple of ways. They're not that in they were never going to be that, they're not engaged, this didn't wake them up. It's business kind of as usual, I'm going to keep my head down. I don't want to get involved. I'm a Jew sort of in name, but not really in heart, and I'm not going to bat here. And then there are people who are actively afraid and people in Hollywood who I've asked, "Do you want to come on the show?" And who have said no, not out of scheduling or whatever, but out of sort of a reluctance to talk about being Jewish publicly.

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Jay Ruderman:
Right. And my wife, Shira, is on the Board of the Academy Museum, and the Academy Museum left off the story of the Jewish beginnings of Hollywood and then did an exhibit, which is interesting, called Hollywood Land in which the major studios that began out in Los Angeles were started by Jews mainly in the garment industry who came out west and started their own industry. And they themselves hid their Jewishness. They were not outwardly Jewish. Their movies, which are some of the classic movies, did not feature Jewish characters. It was something that they almost wanted to fit in so much that Judaism was something that they wanted to leave behind. And I'm wondering if there's a remnant of that going on right now.

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Jonah Platt:
Yeah, I think that's exactly what you have said is 100% accurate. It's something I speak about a lot. The beginnings of Hollywood were built, as you say, on the notion of hiding your Jewishness, but they had a lot better reason than we do now when we don't examine it. I mean, these are European immigrants coming to a new country and wanting to establish themselves as Americans and be successful and be part of this amazing country, their new adopted home. So I get it a little bit. I'm not going to judge. I wasn't there in the 30s. I don't know what it was like trying to make a name for yourself when you're Schmuel Gelbfisz and you need to become Samuel Goldwyn and make a stamp in the American commerce world, especially in an industry that was so looked down upon by the moneyed class at the time in America. But again, as you say that it was about sort of infusing it with their own Jewishness, the values you see in a lot of early Hollywood, sort of that American pop culture of what stories are being told and the way they're being told and the romance, and they hear all this stuff that comes from these Jewish cultural touch points, but never actually about Jews or called anything Jewish and disavowing. And I think that's the legacy. And I think that's sort of always been in the water in Hollywood. I don't think that's brand new today. I think we're just examining it more carefully today because of where we are as a society and everyone's sort of looking to Hollywood in this moment of crisis, but we should have been looking at it for the last 30 years being like, "How come the Jews are still keeping their heads down and hiding and distancing? And the only Jewish characters I'm seeing on TV are either Jewish in sort of name and American culture only, but not really affiliated or distancing themselves, self-deprecating Judaism, or just black hat Orthodox Jews that the typical person feels very removed from?" We've been having issues for a long time, and I think one of the big changes we need to make as a Jewish community outside of Hollywood and definitely within Hollywood is flipping that switch from keeping your head down, disassociating, hiding, because maybe they'll leave us alone, to, well, they're not going to leave us alone even when we're hiding, so we might as well be loud and proud and looking out for ourselves and celebrating what makes us great.

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Jay Ruderman:
Exactly. And it brings a couple of thoughts to my mind. First of all, how do you feel about people who hide their Judaism or are not speaking out? And second of all, with you, as someone who's very outspoken on Israel, on Jewishness, do you think that it's had a positive impact on you in the industry or a negative impact on you?

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Jonah Platt:
In terms of how I feel about folks, it sort of depends on which camp you fall into. If you're somebody, as I mentioned earlier, who is simply not engaged as a Jew, I think it's not really rational to expect that person to speak out and lift their head up and be a proud Jew if they don't really care about being Jewish. It's sort of they're Jewish by birth, by an accident of birth, and they don't do anything else to live Jewishly or practice Jewishly. And I think that's one of the mistakes we make as a wider Jewish community with anybody who can claim the title of Jew. We're like, "Why aren't they standing up for us?" That's not someone I'm trying to necessarily reach. The people who I want to reach. And what I do have feelings about are the people who do identify as and do feel connected and are needing encouragement and needing a challenge to sort of wake them out of their current status quo and say, "Hey, we need you. This is an all hands on deck moment. If you care about being Jewish, if that is an important piece of your identity, if this isn't the moment that you're going to pick your head up and say, 'I'm here, I'm proud, I'm not going anywhere,' what could it possibly take?" I think this is the time for those people. So I feel a duty to those people to help them understand the stakes and to not be afraid. And to that end, in my career personally, it's harder to answer because I've shifted so wholeheartedly into advocacy and into my show. It's not like I'm in an audition room every single week anymore. All I can say is I haven't felt or heard anything negative. Obviously, if there's conversations I'm not privy to about me, I wouldn't know because I'm not privy to them. But what I will say and what I've observed and heard firsthand from basically everybody in the industry is even if you get burned by being loud, proud, and Jewish, once those negative, toxic people fall away, people you don't want to be involved with anyway, if someone doesn't want to be involved with you because you're a Jew, that's not someone you want to be involved with, once they go away, all the other people who are so encouraged and excited and energized by you and see you like, "Oh my God, I didn't know you were one of us too," they flock to you like a magnet and you get all these new opportunities and new relationships and that I'm seeing over and over again. I mean the people who find each other in the dark are all doing projects together and all new friendships and only positive things come out the other side. So I would certainly encourage folks to put away that fear and choose to live as their authentic selves.

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Jay Ruderman:
Well, very well said. And you're an example for many, and in an article about telling positive Jewish stories, about celebrating Jewish life, and you talk about Adam Sandler's recent movie about his daughter's bat mitzvah, I was thinking about Happy Gilmore 2, and it's not overtly Jewish, but he's in his house in, I don't know if it's in Boston or whatever, but there's a mezuzah on the door and the kids are talking about grandma's brisket, and throughout his movies there's this sprinkling of, "Hey, I'm Jewish. I'm not embarrassed about it. I'm going to talk about it." And too often you don't see that. Do you see more of that coming along or do you see an issue with it?

Jonah Platt:
There's only one Adam Sandler. He has probably done more to put real Jewishness into pop culture than kind of almost anybody. I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of, but the fact that he's got a million people singing a song about Hanukkah, not a lot of people doing that. And I have the same reaction, Jay, when I watched Happy Gilmore 2, I couldn't believe it. I was like, "He is planting a flag." He's like, "Guess what, guys? Happy Gilmore's Jewish." And to me it was sort of his message to the people, Jewish people being like, "I'm with you. Everybody knows I'm Jewish and it's important to me and this is who I am." And I love that. I don't see a lot of people doing that. More commonly, you'll get people doing that off-screen, but a lot of it comes from he's in a position to write his own ticket, and he gets to make the decisions and say, "Here's what we're doing. This is my thing." I know there are a lot of engaged Jews in Hollywood who are now trying to come together and do projects together and empower each other from the writer to the director to the studio to the actors. So I would hope within the next one to two years, you're going to start seeing even more of that stuff, but there's only so many people who really have the ability to say, "This is what we're doing. I don't need anyone else's permission. I'm the one who gives the permission and it's going to be Jewish."

Jay Ruderman:
And do you think it's weird when you juxtapose it to the movement for authenticity in Hollywood? So many different groups are very much vocal and there has been many more examples of authentic representation. I myself was very involved for many, many years in Hollywood in promoting the authentic portrayal of people with disabilities in film. And we've made great strides, and there's more and more films where people with disabilities are representing themselves on screen. And that's been a big success. And I can think of dozens of other groups who are out there strong and proud and saying, "If you're going to have a role about us, we should be playing it and there should be authenticity." Why is it not happening so much with the Jews?

Jonah Platt:
I would push back on that a little bit. I think it is happening to a degree with the Jews. I think it's a case by case thing, and I've talked about this a lot, as you might imagine. To me personally, it is a case by case thing. There are certain cases where I get it when they don't cast a Jew, for example, in the Golda Meir film, when they cast Helen Mirren, I get that one. The entire, the director, writer, crew, those were all Israelis, Jews. She had the full sign-off of the family. And honestly, that movie doesn't get made unless it's somebody like a Helen Mirren playing that role. She spent time in Israel on a kibbutz in her youth. She was coming into it with respect and bringing her star power to bear to get that story told. I don't think it happens at that scale with a non-Oscar caliber leading lady of a certain age, and there's just not that many of them. When it comes to things like, for example, this is the one sort of egregious one that pops to mind for me is the Funny Girl, the musical, the national tour famously cast a non-Jew in the role of Fanny Bryce. That is a totally different story to me. That, there's a million actresses who could have played that role, and a lot of Jewish ones could have done it. And it's a show about a famous Jewish performer whose Jewishness was so intrinsic to her personality, and to give that one away when you really didn't have to, to a non-Jew, that felt egregious to me. That was like, that's like an easy layup. You're talking about musical theater, I could name off the top of my head 30 amazing young Jewish female actresses who could have done that. So that bothers me. But I do see generally an awareness that this is a thing.

Jay Ruderman:
Okay.

Jonah Platt:
I'd like to see, I think part of it's the nature of the stories that are getting told, again it comes back to, are the narratives Jewish stories or are they stories where we're writing the lead character as the non-Jewish savior like you get in a lot of Holocaust narratives or Inglorious Bastards, amazing film. We're sticking it to Hitler.

Jay Ruderman:
Yeah, I love it.

Jonah Platt:
Incredible, but the main guy is Brad Pitt. It's always this non-Jewish dude who gets to be the kind of hero. So that's more of an issue, I think. And I think if we correct that, if that character becomes a super-Jewish dude, then we're going to have more naturally Jews in those roles.

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Jay Ruderman:
I want to ask you about the second season of your podcast. What can listeners expect, and how are you thinking about evolving the show?

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Jonah Platt:
Yeah, so the second season is really about expanding the conversation. In the first season, I was very focused on Jewish identity and giving people a place to feel seen and heard and understood. And in the second season, I'm still doing that, but I'm also bringing in more diverse voices, more perspectives, more conversations that maybe aren't strictly Jewish but are adjacent, that speak to identity and belonging and allyship and understanding one another. And I think that's really important because if we're only talking to ourselves, we're not going to move the needle. We need to be in conversation with others.

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Jay Ruderman:
That makes a lot of sense.

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Jonah Platt:
And also just continuing to create a space where people feel safe to have these conversations, to ask questions, to be curious without fear of being attacked or shut down. I think that's something that's really lacking in today's discourse.

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Jay Ruderman:
Absolutely. I agree with that. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you one final question. What gives you hope right now?

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Jonah Platt:
What gives me hope is the people. It's the people who are showing up, who are engaging, who are willing to learn, who are willing to listen, who are willing to stand up and say, "This matters to me." And I see that every day, whether it's through the podcast or through my work in the community. And that gives me a lot of hope that we're moving in the right direction.

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Jay Ruderman:
Jonah Platt, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change. I really appreciate your insights and everything that you're doing.

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Jonah Platt:
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

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Jay Ruderman:
Thank you for being part of the All About Change community. We aim to spark ideas for personal activism, helping you find your pathway to action beyond awareness. So thank you for investing your time with us, learning and thinking about how just one person can make the choice to build a community and improve our world. I believe in the empower of informed people like you to drive real change, and I know that what we explored today will be a tool for you in that effort. All right, I'll see you in two weeks for our next conversation, but just one small ask, please hit subscribe and leave us a comment below. It lets us know that you value this content, and it supports our mission to widely share these perspectives. If you're looking for more inspiration, check out this next video. I chose it for you, and I know you're going to enjoy it. I'm Jay Ruderman. Let's continue working towards meaningful change together. Today's episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation.

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