Daily Podcasts Video Research

‘Caught Stealing’ gives us tough, Hasidic drug lords — is it good for the Jews?

JL;DR SUMMARY Darren Aronofsky's latest film, "Caught Stealing," portrays Hasidic Jews as complex and intimidating drug lords, diverging from typical depictions. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

New York CityYiddishkeitJewish MysticismRepresentationHasidic JewsGentrificationLiev SchreiberDarren AronofskyVincent D’onofrio

Places mentioned

Israel
"Darren Aronofskys most formative encounter with Haredi Jews may have come when he was an 18-year-old in Israel at the Kotel."
New York, United States
"Set in the gentrifying Giuliani murk of 1998 and stretching across three boroughs Alphabet City is home base Caught Stealing is Aronofskys love letter to his hometown, stuffed with tributes to bygone establishments like Kims Video, cameos by WFANs Mike Francesa and an ethnic patchwork that gives observant Jews a central role."
Flatbush, New York, United States
"Aronofsky who in interviews seems to relish the depiction of landsmen who are a bunch of badass motherfuckers, and whose father was a science teacher at a yeshiva in Flatbush paints the other cultures in this neo-noir."
California, United States
"How did Hank, a country boy bartender and would-be baseball star from California, end up with these Hasids?"

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 60404
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-08-30 05:31:08 UTC
Curated 2025-08-30 08:30:49 UTC