The Unabashed Jewishness of Barbra Streisand

In the history of Hollywood schmaltz, few moments quite beat the sight of Barbra Streisand dressed as a yeshiva boy, on her knees in prayer as the night sky swirls around her, plaintively singing in her buttery soprano, “Papa … can you hear me?”

In 1983, Barbra was at the height of her stardom, a well-established diva with , , and behind her. A silhouette of her nose was enough to identify her. She used that accumulated capital to make this: a musical adaptation of an Isaac Bashevis Singer story, about a girl in the old country who wants to study Talmud and disguises herself as a boy to do so. The film has always had the taint of a vanity project and remains, as a result, vaguely embarrassing. When Streisand wasn’t nominated for best director and itself was barely recognized at the 1984 Oscars, a demonstration was staged outside the ceremony, with protesters carrying signs that read and The outcry was a genuine