Touted as “the greatest night in Jewish representation,” the Jewish Institute for Television & Cinema (JITC) Hollywood bureau presented the 2nd Jewish Media Awards at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on November 12, 2024.
It was a celebration of the accomplishments of Jews in Hollywood in various fields who proudly embrace being Jewish.
Allison Josephs, 44, launched the JITC Hollywood Bureau two years ago as a division of Jew in the City, a nonprofit organization she founded in 2007, which helps Jewish people to connect with one another, have pride in their identity, and learn about their faith.
Jew in the City’s three branches – Keter, Makom, and Tikun – work to facilitate this. Josephs told the Magazine that she wished an organization such as Jew in the City existed when she began exploring the meaning of life before she met the Orthodox Hebrew schoolteacher who inspired her to delve into Judaism on a deeper level at age 16.
In 2022, she founded the JITC Hollywood bureau after discovering that other minorities had bureaus advocating for them for over two decades, but there wasn’t one for Jews. The bureau advocates for fair and realistic portrayals of Jewish characters and combats antisemitic tropes and stereotypes in TV and film.
Although Hollywood was founded by Jews, those Jews “were trying to erase themselves,” Josephs explained. She said that before Hollywood, Jews had been banned from the industries they worked in, such as publishing and law, so they went out west and built “their own kind of society…their own kind of universe.”
Josephs described how, like a lot of American Jews, they thought they had achieved the American Dream. She said that they “assimilated enough into basically being invisible, past the point of fear, past the point of danger,” something Josephs attributes to generational trauma.
Storylines and character depictions in films were a reflection of their own beliefs and experiences. Josephs brought attention to a scene in Hester Street, a film written and starred in by Jews, where a Jewish man in a restaurant is mocked for being “too Jewish.”
She elaborated on how Jewish film producers “thought they could be safe – erasing themselves, erasing the thing that makes them different… and then they got this rude awakening since Oct. 7 that the hatred their grandparents faced is alive and well and never actually went away.”
Her response to Hollywood is “No more erasing who you are. Instead, be proud, be out, lean in.”
She added that the 2nd Jewish Media Awards event is the first Jewish media awards show to be sponsored by Hollywood. Disney and Paramount were event sponsors who sent representatives, along with Sony, Netflix, and Amazon, to receive awards for the films being honored.
In her opening speech, Josephs described the event as an “evening of elevating Jewish values,” and noted that Jews of all backgrounds, “from Hollywood to Hassidim,” were being honored and in attendance.
Actors, social media influencers, and activists such as Mayim Bialik, David Baddiel, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Yuval David, Ginnifer Goodwin, Patricia Heaton, Lana Melman, Debra Messing, and Lizzy Savetsky were in attendance to celebrate the event.
Josephs said that Jewish people being represented in a positive light is a kiddush Hashem – a sanctification of God’s name.
In her opening speech, Josephs also noted that JITC’s first award show, also at Lincoln Center, was in December 2019, shortly before the pandemic. “None of us had any idea that in just a few short months the world would be coming to an end with COVID,” Josephs stated. “For Jews, our world has ended twice since then, and we pray for 101 hostages to be released.”
She noted that the state of antisemitism in the world is placing Jews in the most precarious position in our lifetime.
She referenced how “be a Jew in the home, not on the street” was a refrain from our ancestors during the Enlightenment period, when European Jews were emancipated from ghettos on a conditional basis.
“It’s time we put that message to rest once and for all,” she said. “The stories here tonight will uplift and inspire you. With our work, it will be only the beginning of what we will see on the big screen. Imagine what the future can bring.”
Each honoree received a Jewlie award – a gold statuette of a woman proudly holding up a Star of David.
Torah-related quotes appeared on the screen when Keter Shem Tov (“the crown of a good reputation”) Awards were given to honor proud and authentic Jewish representation in TV and film to highlight a related message. Josephs said that the quotes served as a unifier to remind us of our shared heritage.
“I think it really hit people in a deep way,” she commented.
Who won at the 2nd Jewish Media Awards?
JEFF ASTROF, writer for the hit television series Friends, was the first to receive an All Star Award, which honors proud, observant Jews in media, law, tech, and business. Josephs told the Magazine, “There are very few shomer Shabbat people [those who observe Shabbat] working in Hollywood because the industry continues to not be very accommodating.”
Astrof related that when he started out in Hollywood, the first question he would be asked in interviews with show runners, who were Jewish, was “I heard you don’t work on Friday nights?” Despite their concerns, he said that he got offered every job he applied for.
Astrof said that his father worried about his career when he started becoming observant. “I’m very, very happy to say that my career has only gone up since I’ve started keeping Shabbat…So many miracles have happened,” he stated.
Ari Sacher, rocket scientist and one of the primary developers of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, also received an All Star Award. He spoke about how people are always looking for Passover miracles, like the splitting of the sea, while the Iron Dome is right overhead, shooting down missiles and rockets and saving lives.
“I see the Iron Dome as a manifestation of God, he said. “People don’t understand that the system works again and again and again and again, 4,000 times, with a 90 percent rate of success in combat conditions.”
The Iron Dome saved Sacher’s own life. He relayed to the audience how he was driving home from Carmel in southern Israel when he heard an announcement on the radio that the Iron Dome had shot down rockets over the South. “I stopped the car, parked on the side of the road, and said (in Hebrew), ‘God Almighty, how wondrous are Your deeds!’”
Whoever saves a single life is considered by scripture to have saved the world” (Sanhedrin 4:5), flashed across the screen before JITC played a clip of the documentary, We Will Dance Again, which received a Keter Shem Tov Award. Supernova festival survivor Ben Sadeh, 24, held up a phone as he listened to the recorded message of Moran Kaspi, 39, a mother of three, telling Sadeh’s father that her son saved her life.
“I was with him when we escaped,” she said. “If it wasn’t for your son, I wouldn’t be here now. He didn’t give up on me, no matter how many times I fell down.”
Footage of Supernova survivor Eitan Hali, 28, revealed him bravely baring his soul as he looked into the camera and stated, “I’m never going to be the person that I was before Oct. 7, and I’m trying to figure out who I’m going to be next.”
Daniel Posner, founder of Athletes for Israel, was honored with the Lion of Israel Award. A sports fan with a Wall Street background, he became frustrated by the negative portrayals of Israel on social media. His mother’s experience as a Holocaust survivor who hid in an attic in Amsterdam like Anne Frank, and his father, who was active in the civil rights movement, inspired him to create this initiative in 2019 to combat antisemitism and racism.
Athletes for Israel brings legendary sports figures, like former NBA and NFL star players Eddy Curry and Nick Lowery, to the Holy Land can see for themselves the truth about Israel and experience its culture and diversity, and then share their experiences with others.
Posner told the Magazine that Bruce Pearl, the head coach of the Auburn Tigers of Alabama’s Auburn University, brought his men’s basketball team to Israel for a week-long trip in 2022 that was broadcasted on ESPN. They visited historical sites in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Half of the team was baptized in the Jordan River. “A few of the players said, ‘If I don’t make it into the NBA, I want to play basketball in Israel professionally,’ which just shows how much they enjoyed it and loved it,” Posner said.
The following summer, Dr. Robert C. Robbins, cardiac surgeon and president of the University of Arizona, and Jerome “Coach” Tang, head coach of the Kansas State men’s basketball team, visited Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as well as Abu Dhabi and the UAE in celebration of the Abraham Accords. “We’re the first collegiate basketball team that went directly on a charter flight from Israel to the UAE,” Posner said. “Before the Abraham Accords, it wouldn’t have been possible to take that direct flight.”
After learning about Shabbat in Israel, Posner said that Coach Tang and his family decided to keep Shabbat.
Posner took Robbins to visit Save a Child’s Heart (SACH), a humanitarian organization in Israel that provides life-saving cardiac care to children worldwide. Posner described how they were whisked into the surgical unit in medical garb, where they watched an 11-year-old boy being operated on.
He said that afterwards, Robbins was shocked to hear that the little boy was from Gaza. “[The surgeons] told him that he was brought across the border by Israelis who want to help these kids who need life-saving surgeries,” Posner explained. “It’s a sad thing…When they go back to their homes in Gaza, they are not allowed to tell anyone that they were saved by a Jew or saved by an Israeli.”
On October 11, 2023, Robbins issued a statement vehemently condemning the Hamas terror attacks, resulting in the University of Arizona chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine canceling its demonstration scheduled the following day.
Posner said they are currently in talks with Howard University about sending their sports teams to Israel.
“We need partners in this fight,” Posner asserted. “When we have people who are not Jewish talk about Israel, talk about their experiences there, it is incredibly powerful… significantly more powerful than what a Jewish person or an Israeli might say.”
THREE-TIME Emmy Award-winning actress and pro-Israel activist Patricia Heaton got up on stage and said, “When I was growing up learning about the Holocaust, I often wondered what I as a Christian would have done in those days if I were a German. Would I have been that person to hide my Jewish neighbor?
“After Oct. 7, I didn’t have to wonder anymore. It was our opportunity now to use my platform to fight alongside the Jewish people, as they were once again under attack.”
She referenced the story of Queen Esther and introduced Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Meta Platforms.
The verse from Esther 4:14 “Who knows if you came to this position of power for a time like this?” appeared on the screen before Sandberg spoke about her film, Screams before Silence, which received a Keter Shem Tov Award.
After Oct. 7, Sandberg went to Israel to bear witness and document the nightmare of violence and rape that was inflicted upon Israeli women by Hamas terrorists on that catastrophic day. According to a report on the JITC Awards screen, “Most of the victims of sexual violence on that day were killed.”
Sandberg stated, “This is the most important work of my life. Maybe everything I’ve done has led to this moment.” She said that watching the film itself is bearing witness and added, “We can take that pain and take that trauma and turn it into hope…turn it into conviction that we are not going to let this happen again.”
Dating coach, author, and matchmaker Aleeza Ben Shalom, told the Magazine that Oct. 7 has motivated Jewish singles to find their soulmates now more than ever. “People were like, ‘I think I need a Jewish partner,’” she explained. “Nobody else would ever totally understand me. Nobody else will get it.”
The corresponding quote shown at the awards show was “Every day a heavenly voice proclaims that the daughter of so and so (is the match) for so and so.” – Moed Katan 18b.
Ben Shalom stars on the hit Netflix series Jewish Matchmaking, where she sets up Jewish singles from the United States and Israel from all different backgrounds and levels of observance, and coaches them through the dating process. On her show, she said that she has helped over 200 couples get to the huppah.
She uses catchy catchphrases like “Date them till you hate them” and “When in doubt, go out” to make the process fun, while at the same time dispensing valuable and sage advice.
Jewish Matchmaking shows singles finding a connectedness their Jewishness and embracing it, as opposed to other dating shows that typically match Jews with non-Jews. On Jewish Matchmaking, even if the singles who initially meet are not observant, or if one is more observant than the other, there is still an intrinsic feeling of familiarity and shared values between them.
On the show, Ben Shalom revealed her experience of becoming Orthodox. “I went from single, and I wasn’t religious at the time, to married and religious, covering head, shoulders, knees, and toes.”
Her easygoing, upbeat, and non-judgmental nature on Jewish Matchmaking makes it easy for people to open up to her. “With 15 million Jews in the world, and probably 15 billion ways to be Jewish, we did something extraordinary with this show,” she said at the awards ceremony.
Ben Shalom is starting a worldwide Jewish matchmaking movement. “While everyone may not be a matchmaker, anyone can make a match,” she explained. “We have soldiers fighting on the ground. We’re going to have a land. And my question is, Will we have a people? If we do our job right as matchmakers, we will. So I am counting on you to build the future of the Jewish people.”
JITC honored Ben Shalom with a Keter Shem Tov Award. “I’m trying to light up the world,” she told the Magazine.
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