APRIL 16 • 2020 | 27
Arts&Life
TV
The acclaimed TV creative
discusses the Jewish response
to his alternate-history drama.
ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR
D
avid Simon is the
creator of some of the
most acclaimed TV
series of all time, including
The Wire and Treme. His new
alternate-history miniseries
The Plot Against America, based
on the novel by Philip Roth,
concludes its six-episode run
on HBO April 20 (the entire
series is streaming on HBO
Now). It follows a Jewish
family in Newark in the early
1940s as anti-Semitic war
hero Charles Lindbergh wins
the presidency and begins
targeting Jewish Americans.
Simon, who touched on
his own Jewish identity to
write the show, tells the JN
it’
s about “intolerance of all
kinds.”
This interview has been
condensed and edited.
JN: There are a lot of Detroit
connections in the show:
Lindbergh, Henry Ford. Hank
Greenberg is heard on the
radio, and Detroit’
s one of the
first cities to riot in the climax.
Simon: It was all in the book.
We added a few cities to give
a sense of the civil disturbanc-
es marching east from the
Midwest. But we held Detroit,
because there was no reason
not to. Roth seemed to have a
sense of where he thought it
should start. Hank Greenberg,
is there a better Jewish ball-
player of the era? We didn’
t
have Koufax yet. So there’
s that.
And Henry Ford, that’
s again
Roth. He was the Secretary of
the Interior in the book. Ford’
s
anti-Semitism is well-known.
JN: What kind of role do you
think a show like yours can
play in helping communities
like ours reckon with our own
dark histories?
Simon: I’
m hoping it’
s more
generic than Detroit. Honestly,
as this thing plays overseas, I’
m
hoping that other countries
that are experiencing this turn
toward totalitarianism [see
it]. Because it’
s happening in
a variety of places around the
world.
Also, I’
ll be very clear. The
allegory is for who is the most
vulnerable in our society. And
in 1940, at the height of the
[German-American] Bund
and isolationism and “
America
First,
” Jewish Americans were
othered and made to feel as if
they were less than first-class
citizens. And that was the vul-
nerable cohort.
Right now, anti-Semitism is
decidedly on the rise because
continued on page 29
David Simon
on the Real ‘Plot
Against America’
MICHELE K. SHORT