OCTOBER 31 • 2024 | 59
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TOP JEWISH DRAMA AND 
A TOP JEWISH DOCUMENTARY

A Real Pain, a very Jewish film, premiered at the 
Sundance Film Festival last January and almost 
all reviews were stellar. It opens wide in theaters 
on Nov. 1.
Owen Gliberman, 65, Variety’s top critic, loved 
the film and you can easily find and read the 
review online (free). 
Jesse Eisenberg, 41, wrote the film and direct-
ed it. He has written plays, and he directed one 
other film. But Real Pain is clearly a great career 
milestone for Eisenberg. It’s almost certain he will 
be Oscar-nominated.
Here’s the premise: David (Eisenberg) and 
Benji (Kieran Culkin) are first cousins who hav-
en’t seen each other lately. They reunite on a 
Holocaust group tour of Poland. David is a “very 
normal” guy, while Benji, in Variety’s words, is 
a combo of a “hipster slacker and corporate 
dick who is also the life of the party.” People are 
alternately annoyed at him and drawn to him.
Of course, because David and Benji are on a 
Holocaust tour, there’s lot of Jewish stuff in the 
mix.
Gliberman praises how brilliantly the main char-
acters have been written and how well Culkin 
and Eisenberg play their characters. He also 
compliments Eisenberg’s direction.
Jennifer Grey, 64, Daniel Oreskes, 65, and 
Liza Sadovy, 65ish, play other American Jews on 
the Holocaust tour. Also on the tour is an African 
(played by British actor Kurt Egyiawan) who sur-
vived the Rwanda genocide and converted to 
Judaism.
Banner Eisenberg, 7, has a small part. He’s the 
son of Jesse, and his wife, Anna Strout, 40.
A few weeks ago, I came across Levys of 
Monticello, a remarkably good documentary 
that is now streaming on Amazon Prime (free for 
subscribers). It is also available on YouTube for a 
$3.99 rental fee. It is one of the best documen-
taries about American Jewish history I’ve ever 
seen, and it is at the level of a Ken Burns PBS 
documentary. 
If you don’t subscribe to Prime, and you don’t 
want to rent the video — do watch the 20! (free) 
videos on YouTube about the film and the Levy 
family. (Search: “Levys of Monticello”) There are 
many interviews with Steven Pressman, 69, the 
Levys director and writer. The film and the videos 
amount to a college course (really!).
Monticello, of course, was the beautiful home 
of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). It is located 
on a hill near Charlottesville, Virgina. Jefferson 
designed Monticello, which was inspired by 
Italian architecture. It was finished in 1772. 

The documentary weaves in the story of slav-
ery at Monticello and that information is largely 
presented by African American historians and by 
descendants of Monticello slaves. Most of the 
work on the building was done by Jefferson’s 
slaves. Jefferson had between 100-200 slaves (at 
any one time) at Monticello. 
Jefferson died heavily in debt. Monticello 
was in poor shape. It deteriorated further in 
the hands of the first buyer. In 1834, Uriah P. 
Levy (1792-1862), a great admirer of Jefferson, 
bought Monticello and spent his money to bring 
Monticello back into its original shape. Sadly, 
Levy bought most of the Monticello slaves and 
they worked for him. (Several Levy descendants 
are interviewed in the film. They are proud of 
Uriah Levy, but the “shine,” they say, is diminished 
by Levy owing slaves). 
Capsule: Uriah Levy was a fifth-generation 
American. He was a war hero who fought 
antisemitism as he rose in the ranks of the U.S. 
Navy. He reached the rank of Commodore (an 
admiral). He stayed loyal to the Union in the Civil 
War. 
The film lays out a complex series of events, 
following Uriah’s death, that lead to a court battle 
for Monticello. It ended in 1879 with the purchase 
of Monticello by Jefferson Monroe Levy (1852-
1924), Uriah’s nephew. 
Jefferson Levy was a wealthy man who poured 
about $1 million of his own money to restore 
the run-down (again) Monticello (Like his uncle, 
Jefferson Levy admired Thomas Jefferson’s cen-
tral role in the existence of freedom of religion in 
America). 
The film has several asides that detail the 
growth of the American Jewish community and 
the growth of antisemitism in America. In the 
early 20th century, antisemites wanted to take 
Monticello away from the “alien” Levys. This 
campaign failed, but financial reverses forced 
Jefferson Levy to sell Monticello (for a loss) to a 
private association (1923). 
The association Monticello hosts virtually 
erased the history of Levy family ownership — 
and how they saved Monticello twice! Finally, in 

1985, new association leadership changed every-
thing and visitors to Monticello are told about the 
Levys’ stewardship — and about slavery. 
But, to me, the most chilling part of the film 
comes near the end. In 2017, neo-Nazis and 
white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville 
to protest the removal of a statue of Robert. E. 
Lee in a city park. They were filmed marching on 
the University. of Virginia campus shouting “the 
Jews will not replace us!” The next day, a count-
er-demonstrator was run down and killed by a 
neo-Nazi.
Millions were outraged when Donald Trump, 
then president, said that there were “good peo-
ple on both sides” (i.e., neo-Nazis and counter 
demonstrators).
Trump’s statement, President Biden said, moti-
vated him to run for the presidency. 
The Levys does include footage of the neo-Na-
zi march. It doesn’t mention the former presi-
dent’s statement. 
The film notes some ironies: Jefferson was a 
champion of tolerance of all religious groups, 
and the sculptor of the Jefferson statue was 
Moses Ezekiel (1844-1917), a Jew who was born 
in Viriginia. 
The film doesn’t mention that Ezekiel fought for 
the Confederacy, was a friend of Robert E. Lee, 
and that he was a white supremacist. He sculpted 
a huge memorial honoring the Confederate dead 
that was, originally, placed in Arlington Cemetery 
(1914).
Well, after the Charlottesville “horrors,” many of 
Moses Ezekiel’s descendants joined, with many 
others, to ask the federal government to remove 
the Arlington Cemetery Confederate memorial. 
It was moved, in late 2023, to a federal park for 
various historical items. 
This all makes me think about a statement 
made early in the film by an African American 
historian [paraphrased]: “How do you work out 
the contradictions — a great president who wrote 
‘all men are created equal’ and championed 
religious tolerance — and owned slaves — and 
a Jewish war hero who saved Monticello, but 
owned slaves, too?” 

CELEBRITY NEWS

NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

HARALD KRICHEL 

Jesse Eisenberg

