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How Jews shaped the Western – and how the Western shaped Jews

Summarizing Olivia Haynie in Forward · Published Sunday, May 4, 2025
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JL;DR SUMMARY Jewish influence on the Western movie genre is explored in Jonathan Friedmann's new book, "Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West." 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'.

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Tags

Jewish History  Hollywood  Stereotypes  Jewish Characters  Gene Wilder  Westerns  Cultural Contribution  Jesse L. Lasky  Revisionist Westerns  Jonathan Friedmann 

Places mentioned

Hollywood, California, United States
"Friedmann writes that some early Jewish Hollywood executives saw their own story reflected in cowboy mythology: the scrappy perseverance of an individual going to a strange world out west to build a new life for themselves, whether they had come from Europe to America or they had left the urban streets of Lower Manhattan for the Hollywood Hills."
Wisconsin, United States
"Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West will be published on June 3, 2025 by the University of Wisconsin Press."
Lower Manhattan, New York, United States
"Friedmann writes that some early Jewish Hollywood executives saw their own story reflected in cowboy mythology: the scrappy perseverance of an individual going to a strange world out west to build a new life for themselves, whether they had come from Europe to America or they had left the urban streets of Lower Manhattan for the Hollywood Hills."
Germany
"This was in part because Jews who went west were part of a different wave of immigration than the Eastern European Jews who immigrated to New York in the 20th century. Roughly 1820 to the mid-1800s, that was more Central European Jews from what would become Germany, parts of France, and so forth, Friedmann told me in an interview."
France
"This was in part because Jews who went west were part of a different wave of immigration than the Eastern European Jews who immigrated to New York in the 20th century. Roughly 1820 to the mid-1800s, that was more Central European Jews from what would become Germany, parts of France, and so forth, Friedmann told me in an interview."
Israel
"At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse."

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Retrieved 2025-05-05 05:30:52 UTC
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