American Jewish Committee, USC Annenberg School Co-Publish Book Examining Jews in Prime-Time Television

American Jewish Committee
Tuesday, 28 November 2000

Television's Changing Image of American Jews, a book based on an historic conference in Los Angeles whose participants included the heads of major networks, leading writers and producers, and commentators, has been jointly published by the American Jewish Committee and the Norman Lear Center of the USC Annenberg School for Communication.(To order, call: (212)751-4000 x366)

The volume includes conference keynote addresses by Neal Gabler, author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, and New York Times columnist Frank Rich, as well as a paper by Dr. Joyce Antler, American Studies professor and department chair at Brandeis University. The conference was co-sponsored by AJC, the USC Annenberg School, and the Jewish Television Network.

"Often sensitive to charges that 'Jews control Hollywood,' the Jewish community has become circumspect in articulating criticism of television generally and network programming specifically," said Bruce M. Ramer, president of the American Jewish Committee. "That does not mean that there are no Jewish communal concerns about television, its portrayal of Jewish characters and themes, and the core values that programming transmits."

"That Jews have appeared so regularly on television in recent years reflects standards of openness that have flourished in late 20th century America," said Dr. Steven Bayme, director of AJC's Contemporary Jewish Life Department. "In the 1996-97 season, for example, 20 percent of dramatic programming featured plausibly Jewish characters in leading or supporting roles. But the question remains, how are they portrayed?"

Television, says Neal Gabler in his piece, is about "idealized pluralism." Contrasting the movie and TV industries, he writes, "From an industry, namely film, that turned every ethnic into a white middle-class American, we have an industry, namely television, that turns every white middle-class American and every ethnic into a Jew. Such is the power of Jews on the medium."

Writes Frank Rich, "Every married Jew who appears on TV has to be in an interfaith marriage. It's very unlikely you're going to see an entirely Jewish couple as continuing characters – despite the strides, for instance, in Seinfeld, and Mad About You, to some extent, and certainly The Larry Sanders Show."

Dr. Joyce Antler observes, "Television executives may find Jewish families less appealing for sitcom drama because they are presumed to be less open to situations of dramatic conflict than those with mixed families." The question, she concludes, is whether creative personnel and industry executives have searched adequately for opportunities to explore ethnic identities and themes in settings that could tell meaningful, exciting stories or provide occasion for laughter, even satire.

Conference participants included X-Files creator Chris Carter, Ally McBeal creator David Kelley, All in the Family creator Norman Lear, CBS president Leslie Moonves, NBC president Don Ohlmeyer, Paramount Television chairman Kerry McCluggage, WB Television Network CEO Jamie Kellner, UPN president Dean Valentine, MTM founder Grant Tinker, Paxson Communications president Jeff Sagansky, Lifetime senior vice president Dawn Tarnofsky, Jewish Television Network CEO Jay Sanderson, Universal Television former chairman Greg Meidel, UPN former president Lucie Salhany, actor Jason Alexander and producer Gary David Goldberg.

"It's unlikely that a group this high-powered and this powerful has wrestled in public with questions this sensitive before," said Dr. Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center and associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The conference was moderated by Harvard Law School professor Arthur Miller.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org