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Author of The American Jewish Story through Cinema, Dr. Eric Goldman cohosted the Turner Classic Movies series The Projected Image: The Jewish Experience on Film. An adjunct professor of cinema at Yeshiva University, he is currently completing a book on Israeli film and cohosts Jewish Cinematheque on JBSTV.
Over the course of 70 years, Mel Brooks has won more awards than any other living entertainer: Not just the occasional Oscar or Tony, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a Kennedy Center Honor. He is one of a handful of people to achieve the coveted EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) status.
Yet on his recent 100th birthday, he declared that he wanted his gravestone inscription not to list such plaudits but to read: “I was Mel Brooks, one of the funniest little Jews to walk the Earth.”
Born in Brooklyn as Melvin Kaminsky, Brooks is Jewish to the core, weaving classic Jewish humor and Yiddish cadences into his unique comedic voice, smothering fear with laughter and turning Nazis into punchlines.
In this course, we will examine six of Brooks’s most complex and iconic films, including The Producers, Blazing Saddles, History of the World, Part I, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, exploring how his uniquely Jewish essence shaped his groundbreaking comedy.
The Hans A. Vogelstein Course in Jewish History