SHTELT FABLOUS
In the century-and-change since DW Griffith’s A Child of the Ghetto introduced goyishe moviegoers to the shtetl of New York’s Lower East Side, on-screen Jewishness has undergone a staggering metamorphosis. It has seen a shift from harried peasants and hairy-knuckled tough guys to “cosmopolitan” intellectuals and anxiety-riddled white collar professionals. But a buzzworthy holiday release has already begun to upset this supposed forward march. With Uncut Gems, the Big Apple-based Safdie brothers have reintroduced to our collective consciousness a bygone model of Jewish masculinity: the conniving low-life, long used by stunted bigots as a foolproof bit of ammo in their ongoing culture war.
The anti-hero at the centre of Uncut Gems, played with ingratiating smarminess by comedian and uber-Jew Adam Sandler, is a wheeler-dealer of the grand old school. Yet despite the early critical praise, there are still a handful of us who remain less
