Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

272 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:271
claimed, was why the antisemitism Green experienced was “petty bourgeois
rebuffs.”
I agree that Green should have widened his subject of study and
report—his findings may have been worse in less refined, elitist circles. I
would have to disagree, however, with the characterization of Green’s experience
as “petty bourgeois rebuffs.” To characterize any hate as “petty” is
an incredible understatement.
Noting that the character of Green, particularly because he was an
astute reporter, was “extraordinary naïve” in that he was so surprised that
antisemitism is “cruel” is perhaps a better assessment by Crowther. But I
think Crowther overlooked the point that until you really experience something
firsthand, you haven’t really experienced it. You may read and study
and think you know what it feels like, how incensed it can make you, but
your notion of cruel takes on new, more intense meaning when you feel it. 1
In 1997 (fifty years since the film’s premiere) the Times did another
film review of Gentleman’s Agreement. It in, writer George F. Custen
uncovered the film’s subtle shortcomings that tell of a Hollywood and its
Jewish stewards not yet comfortable with the public’s eye on the issue of
antisemitism. As Custen reveals, this is evidenced by the title of Green’s
exposé on antisemitism, “I Was a Jew for Six Months,” and what the title
didn’t say rather than what it did say. The title was clear and concise; it
lacked, however, blunt moral authority and social correctness. For Custen,
the title implied that being known as Jewish would mean you would suffer
antisemitism. The title didn’t necessarily make a strong point against
antisemitism. Had the title instead been, “This Country Needs to Stop All
the Unfair Discrimination of Jews”—much more assertive—it would have
had more force. 2
Producer Daryl F. Zanuck’s use of a non-Jew to play a Jew as a way to
protest antisemitism was not unlike Zanuck’s use of a Jewish jazz performer
as a way to protest white protest toward African Americans’ contribution
to Hollywood in the 1920’s film The Jazz Singer. 3 Near the end of
the film at a climactic scene, Jack Robin, played by Al Jolson, pretended he
was black, seamlessly rubbing a black substance all over his face. He did
1. Bosley Crowther, “Movies—NYT Critics’ Pick,” The New York Times,
November 12, 1947, http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0DE7DE113
AE233A25751C1A9679D946693D6CF, accessed March 2010.
2. George Custen, “Film View—Over 50 Years, a Landmark Loses Some of
Its Luster,” The New York Times, November 16, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/
1997/11/16/movies/film-view-over-50-years-a-landmark-loses-some-of-its-luster.ht
ml?scp=4&sq=an%20gentleman’s%20agreement%20film&st=cse.
3. Ibid.