This week, Dame Maureen Lipman expressed concern at the casting of Helen Mirren in Israel’s ex-prime minister Golda Mesr, despite her not being Jewish.
According to Dame Maureen of 75 years, she said that it was difficult for her to accept the casting. She added: ‘The Jewishness in the character is so essential. It would be impossible for Ben Kingsley, Nelson Mandela’s actor to be cast. I am sure that she will be a marvellous actress. It was impossible for you to even consider going there.
A public image of the film shows Dame Helen playing Ms Meir in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The actor is wearing a prosthetic to make her look like the politician.
US comedian Sarah Silverman has previously slammed the casting of non-Jewish actress Kathryn Hahn as Joan Rivers, calling it ‘Jewface’ and British star Tamsin Greig, a Christian with Jewish heritage, told The Daily Telegraph last month that she ‘probably shouldn’t’ have played a Jewish mother in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner.
FEMAIL examines some major cinematic roles that depicted Jewish characters, but were played by Gentiles.
An image publicity from Golda. Helen Mirren is the ex-Israeli prime minister, Ms Golda Meir. This was taken during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Photos show Helen with a prosthetic to make her more like the politician.
Actress Maureen Lipman (left), who said that Helen (right), the Israeli leader’s actress, should not have been requested to be cast. Lipman also claimed she felt uncomfortable about the casting.
In 1969 Ms Meir, the fourth prime minster of Israel was pictured. Ms. Meir’s role in Golda will be played by Helen Mirren, Dame Helen Mirren.
Will Ferrell, The Shrink Next Door (2021).
Will Ferrell stars as Martin Markowitz (stressed-out merchant from the garment district) in Apple TV+’s 2021 dark comedy series The Shrink Next Door.
Paul Rudd, Will Ferrell, and Paul Rudd will be the stars of Apple TV+’s dark comedy series The Shrink Next Door in 2021.
Based on a true story that was the subject of Joe Nocera’s 2019 Wondery podcast of the same name, Ferrell portrays stressed-out garment district merchant Martin ‘Marty’ Markowitz, while Rudd, who’s the son of English-born Jewish parents, is the seemingly good-natured psychiatrist Dr. Isaac ‘Ike’ Herschkopf. Co-star Kathryn Hahn, who plays Marty’s sister Phyllis, is also non Jewish.
The comedy is set in New York and focuses on the life of the Jewish community during the 1980s. Ferrell played the lead role and was also an executive producer.
Tracey Ullman portrays Betty Friedan as Mrs America 2020
British actress Tracey Ullman played the American Jewish feminist activist and writer Betty Friedan, in Mrs America 2020. The actress revealed she was desperate to be a Betty Friedan and worked tirelessly to convince show directors.
Friedan, a US feminist icon, was born in 1921 to Miriam Horowitz (a jeweler) and Friedan. Friedan went on to play an important role in securing better equality rights for women.
BBC2’s Mrs America aired in 2020 and documented the Equal Rights Amendment of 1970 in the US.
Starring Cate Blanchett as conservative campaigner Phyllis Schlafly, the nine-part show revealed the battle lines drawn between the nation’s traditionalists and the women’s libbers, led by Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) and Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman), over the campaign to secure ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to guarantee equal rights for all US citizens regardless of sex.
British actress Tracey Ullman assumed the role as Betty Friedan (American Jewish feminist activist and writer). She said she was delighted to be playing the iconic feminist. Later, she admitted that she had sent audition tapes and submitted several auditions in order to prove to the directors that Betty Friedan could be her.
Friedan originally hailed from Illinois, and was born in 1921 as Bettye Naomi Goldman, the daughter of journalist Miriam Horowitz and jeweller Harry Goldstein.
Felicity Jones plays Ruth Bader Ginsburg, On the Basis of Sex (2018)
British actor Felicity Jones as Jewish legal firebrand Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 2018 film On The Basis Of Sex, which documented the life of US judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Although the British star was well-respected for her portrayal of the role in this film, she didn’t receive Oscar nominations. Today in the US in 2018, she stated that the task of taking on the iconic and beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg was very nerve-wracking. Ruth Bader Ginsburg 2005.
British actor Felicity Jones was cast as a young ‘RGB’ – as Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in 2020 aged 87, was affectionately known – in the 2018 feature-film dramatisation, On The Basis Of Sex.
It told the story about RGB’s rise in prominence in America, including how her case was rejected by all New York City law firms for either being Jewish or being a woman. She eventually became the first Jewish female justice in the Supreme Court.
British actor Jones (38) was highly praised in her role but she did not receive an Oscar nomination.
Today in the US, she said that portraying the iconic figure was difficult. Her fandom is something I am a big girl love.
Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvellous Mrs Maisel (2017/2017).
Brosnahan played the part of Miriam “Midge” Maisel, Jewish stand-up comedian in the series. Pictured right
Brosnahan said she was influenced by Jewish culture as a child growing up in Chicago’s Jewish suburb. This helped her become a 1950s Jewish housewife.
Wisconsin-born Rachel Brosnahan played the title role of Jewish stand-up comedian Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel in Amazon hit The Marvellous Mrs Maisel, which first aired in 2017.
Brosnahan plays Midge Maisel as she finds a gift for standup comedy after her marital breakup.
Brosnahan claims that her upbringing in Chicago’s Jewish neighborhood helped her transition into the 1950s Jewish homewife mindset.
Christian Bale plays Irving Rosenfeld, American Hustle (2013)
Christian Bale played Irving Rosenfeld’s role in the 2013 film American Hustle, which was directed by Eric Singer and David O. Russell.
Bale, pictured with co-star Amy Adams, put on 43lb to play the fictional Jewish conman and wore a toupe
Bale played the role of Irving Rosenfeld, in David O. Russell’s and Eric Singer’s 2013, largely fictionalised accounts of the Abscam scandal. This was when Melvin Weinberg (a New Yorker conman) joined the FBI to capture corrupt politicians.
Bale was the conman, now known as Irving Rosenfeld. The actor was only 43lb and wore a elaborate toupee for period dramas set in the Seventies. Bale is seen wearing a yarmulke in one scene. This skullcap, worn by Orthodox Jewish men and other Jewish men when they pray, can be seen on public display.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013).
Leonardo DiCaprio recounted the story of Jordan Belfort who was born to Jewish parents in New York. He also laundered money and committed stock fraud.
Martin Scorsese’s director didn’t make any reference to Belfort’s religious beliefs in his film. Some were critical. Right: Jordan Belfort was born to Jewish parents, Leah and Max, and grew up in the Bronx in New York
Jordan Belfort was born in 1962 in the Bronx, New York to Jewish accountant parents Leah and Max. The couple formed an immediate bond when Leonardo DiCaprio was chosen to play the role of Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street 2013. DiCaprio never tried hard drugs.
Martin Scorsese, the director of the film didn’t make any reference to Belfort’s faith in it. This was criticized by some.
DiCaprio told the story of how Belfort fell into a hedonistic lifestyle that eventually led him to prison where he served 22 months for stock fraud and money laundering in 1999.
Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List (1993)
Ben Kingsley was right. He played the role of Oskar Schindler’s righthand man Itzhak Starr in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Liam Neeson (who played Oskar Schindler) is pictured here
Sir Ben Kingsley played Itzhak Stern the part of an Anglo-Indian actor
Anglo-Indian actor Sir Ben Kingsley played Oskar Schindler’s right-hand man, Polish Jew Itzhak Stern, in Steven Spielberg’s cinematic re-telling of how a German industrialist saved 1,200 Jews from the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War.
Kingsley was also the actor who played Gandhi in 1982. Born with the name Krishna Bhanji, Kingsley recited the most powerful lines from the movie, taken from Stern, an accountant, and telling Schindler, “It’s Hebrew. It’s from Talmud.” The line says that “Whoever saves a life saves the entire world.”
He has been known to play Jewish characters several times. In 2001, Kingsley also played Anne Frank’s father in a 2001 miniseries, and took on the role of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal in Murderers Among Us in 1989. In 1991, Kingsley was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky in the film Bugsy.
Millie Perkins portrays Anne Frank in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959).
Millie Perkins from New Jersey was born in 1958 and played the role of Anne Frank, Jewish teenage girl.
Anne Frank, German Jew. After emigrating to Holland with her family, she was taken by Nazis. There she was put to death.
Millie Perkins, now 83, played the role of the extraordinary young German Jewish diarist in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), revealing later that she read Anne’s diary for the first time while on the way to the audition, saying afterwards ‘It just hit me in my heart.’
George Stevens handpicked New Jersey’s star as a model at 18 years old to fill the part.
Anne Frank and her relatives were betrayed by the Gestapo on August 4, 1944. They took Anne Frank’s family from Amsterdam and kept them there for 2 years. Then they were sent to concentration camp camps.
Anne’s poignant diaries stopped that day. Since then, her published diary has been sold in billions around the globe.
Charlton Heston portrays Moses in Ten Commandments (1956).
The 1956 classic Charlton Heston role, The Ten Commandments was one of Charlton Heston’s most recognizable roles. The actor received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance.
Cecil DeMille directed and shot the film on location in Egypt.
Heston was honored for one of his most iconic roles in film history when he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for the Best Performance by an Actor In a Motion Picture for the role of Jewish prophet Moses in 1956’s classic The Ten Commandments.
Cecil DeMille’s most memorable and final film was The Ten Commandments. It was shot on location in Egypt, Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula.
The fact that an actor from Gentiles was portraying the greatest prophet of Judaism was little known. But critics were overwhelmingly enthused about the movie. The film had received seven Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture. It also won the Academy Award in Best Visual Effects.
Charlie Chaplin plays the role of the Jewish Barber (The Great Dictator, 1940)
Charlie Chaplin’s iconic comedy The Great Dictator, one of silent film’s most well-known films, was a classic comedy that featured him as “The Jewish Barber” and he also directed the movie.
According to Kevin Brownlow, Chaplin was not Jewish, but the Nazis believed he was. He never denied this, however. This 1940 movie has been long regarded as an unintentional satire on Hitler and fascism.
One of the silent movie star’s best known films, Chaplin’s classic comedy The Great Dictator saw him star as ‘The Jewish Barber’, while also directing the movie.
According to Kevin Brownlow, Chaplin was not Jewish, but the Nazis believed he was. He never denied this, however. This 1940 movie has been long viewed as a subtle satire on Hitler and fascism.