6 | MARCH 16 • 2023
1942 - 2023
Covering and Connecting
Jewish Detroit Every Week
To make a donation to the
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
FOUNDATION
go to the website
www.djnfoundation.org
The Detroit Jewish News (USPS 275-520)
is published every Thursday at
32255 Northwestern Highway, #205,
Farmington Hills, Michigan. Periodical
postage paid at Southfield, Michigan, and
additional mailing offices.
Postmaster: send changes to:
Detroit Jewish News,
32255 Northwestern Highway, #205,
Farmington Hills, Michigan 48334
MISSION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will be of service to the Jewish community. The Detroit Jewish
News will inform and educate the Jewish and general community to preserve, protect and sustain the Jewish
people of greater Detroit and beyond, and the State of Israel.
VISION STATEMENT The Detroit Jewish News will operate to appeal to the broadest segments of the greater
Detroit Jewish community, reflecting the diverse views and interests of the Jewish community while advancing the
morale and spirit of the community and advocating Jewish unity, identity and continuity.
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
32255 Northwestern Hwy. Suite 205,
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
248-354-6060
thejewishnews.com
Publisher
The Detroit Jewish
News Foundation
| Board of Directors:
Chair: Gary Torgow
Vice President: David Kramer
Secretary: Robin Axelrod
Treasurer: Max Berlin
Board members: Larry Jackier,
Jeffrey Schlussel, Mark Zausmer
Executive Director:
Marni Raitt
Senior Advisor to the Board:
Mark Davidoff
Alene and Graham Landau Archivist Chair:
Mike Smith
Founding President & Publisher Emeritus:
Arthur Horwitz
Founding Publisher
Philip Slomovitz, of blessed memory
Editorial
Director of Editorial:
Jackie Headapohl
jheadapohl@thejewishnews.com
Contributing Editors:
David Sachs, Keri Guten Cohen
Staff Reporter:
Danny Schwartz
dschwartz@thejewishnews.com
Editorial Assistant:
Sy Manello
smanello@thejewishnews.com
Digital Manager:
Elizabeth King
eking@thejewishnews.com
Contributing Writers:
Nate Bloom, Rochel Burstyn, Suzanne
Chessler, Annabel Cohen, Shari S.
Cohen, Shelli Liebman Dorfman, Louis
Finkelman, Stacy Gittleman, Esther
Allweiss Ingber, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
Robin Schwartz, Mike Smith, Steve Stein,
Julie Smith Yolles, Ashley Zlatopolsky
Advertising Sales
Director of Advertising: Keith Farber
kfarber@thejewishnews.com
Senior Account Executive:
Kathy Harvey-Mitton
kmitton@thejewishnews.com
| Business Office
Director of Operations: Amy Gill
agill@thejewishnews.com
Operations Manager: Andrea Gusho
agusho@thejewishnews.com
Operations Assistant: Ashlee Szabo
Circulation: Danielle Smith
Billing Coordinator: Pamela Turner
| Production By
Farago & Associates
Manager: Scott Drzewiecki
Designers: Kaitlyn Iezzi, Kelly Kosek,
Deborah Schultz, Michelle Sheridan
PURELY COMMENTARY
interview
A History of Mel Brooks as a
‘Disobedient Jew’
J
eremy Dauber subtitles
his new biography of
Mel Brooks Disobedient
Jew. It’s a phrase that captures
two indivisible aspects of the
96-year-old
director, actor,
producer and
songwriter.
The “Jew” is
obvious. Born
Melvin Kaminsky
in Brooklyn in
1926, Brooks
channeled the Yiddish accents
and Jewish sensibilities of his
old neighborhoods into charac-
ters like the 2000 Year Old Man
— a comedy routine he worked
up with his friend, the writer
and director Carl Reiner. He
worked Jewish obsessions into
films like 1967’s The Producers,
which features two scheming
Jewish characters who stage a
sympathetic Broadway musical
about Hitler in order to bilk
their investors.
Brooks’ signature move is to
inject Jews into every aspect
of human history and culture,
which can be seen in the forth-
coming Hulu series History of
the World, Part II. A sequel to
his 1981 film, History of the
World, Part I, it parodies histor-
ical episodes in a style he honed
as a writer on 1950s television
programs such as Your Show of
Shows, whose writers’ rooms
were stocked with a galaxy of
striving Jewish comedy writers
just like him.
The “Disobedient” part
describes Brooks’ relationship
to a movie industry that he
conquered starting in the early
1970s. In a series of parodies
of classic movie genres — the
Western in Blazing Saddles,
the horror movie in Young
Frankenstein, Alfred Hitchcock
in High Anxiety — he would
gently, sometimes crudely and
always lovingly, bite the hand
that was feeding him quite
nicely: In 1976, he was fifth
on the list of top 10 box office
attractions, just behind Clint
Eastwood.
Dauber describes the parody
Brooks mastered as “nothing
Andrew
Silow-Carroll
JTA
MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Mel Brooks sings
the title tune in
his movie High
Anxiety, which
was released in
1977.