Anne Frank’s face is unmistakable, in her cheerful smile and short dark hair. Anne Frank is a symbol of tragic fate, a life cut short, of wasted potential. But perhaps most recognizable in Anne Frank’s face is the spirit of a girl longing to live a normal life from the confines of a hidden attic, a young girl who wrote with sensitivity, grace and humor.

But Anne Frank never wrote again after The Diary of A Young Girl. Anne Frank died in 1945 at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, succumbing to illness, starvation, or both. However, the exact cause of her death is unknown, and in 2015, The Anne Frank House released a report showing Frank’s date and location of death may have been incorrect. Despite the inconsistency, most believe diarist Anne Frank died at the age of fifteen.

For Israeli actress, Chen Drachman, the reporting surrounding Anne Frank’s death sparked thoughts about death’s supposed definitiveness. In her screenplay, Ruth’s, Drachman asks the provocative question: What if? What if Anne Frank was alive today? What if Anne Frank was living among us? And what if Anne Frank was your grandmother? Such is the premise of Drachman’s short screenplay in which Lizzy confronts her grandmother, Ruth, at a Passover gathering about her real identity, a secret Lizzy has long suspected. In a chilling moment, Lizzy says to her grandmother, “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Part of Ruth’s success can be attributed to the appearance of Tony award-nominated actress Tovah Feldshuh in the lead role, (The Walking Dead, most currently, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) during a reading fundraiser this past November at the JCC in Manhattan.

The screenplay focuses on themes of guilt and celebrity fetishism, as well as the ties that bind us together as family and most interestingly, the millennial generation’s fixation with “doing good.” As the older Anne wisely suggests, some secrets are best left buried. The adult Anne Frank is adamant about maintaining secrecy, stating that she’s paid her dues and deserves peace and quiet. The dialogue between the snappy Feldshuh and the idealistic Drachman is vibrant and realistic; Feldshuh provides a portrait of the wry and quick witted Jewish grandmother with ease.

Although the screenplay is short, hovering just around 10 minutes, the larger questions Drachman brings up feel limitless. What price do we pay when we’re transformed from human to symbol?

Drachman, who is a third generation Holocaust survivor is acutely aware of the negative feedback she could receive from imagining such a scenario, the boldness of revising history. But what is art if not our outlet to imagine other dimensions and reality? What child didn’t want to go through the wardrobe and into Narnia?  

Drachman has raised about a quarter of what she needs to make the screenplay into a movie by submitting to a variety of diverse festivals both mainstream and niche around the world. (Individuals are welcome to donate online, as well.) The screenplay has been recognized several times, including the NYC Independent Film Festival. Ruth’s is sponsored by a 501(c)(3), non-profit, From The Heart and with runaway successes like Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, it’s a good idea to keep your ears open to smaller projects with big hopes.

Photo of Drachman, left and Feldshuh by Oren Korenblum.

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And yea, was the year of 2016, generally speaking, a steaming pile of crap. And lo, did the Lord look unto the people of America and say, “For thy pains, this reprieve.” And behold! In the dawn of 2017 was it announced that Patti LuPone would guest star on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

And not just as anyone— the great musical theatre diva is set to play a rabbi. On an episode entitled, “Will Scarsdale Like Josh’s Shayna Punim?” (yes, really), Rebecca Bunch (show creator and star Rachel Bloom) has to go to Westchester for a family Bar Mitzvah, and LuPone plays her rabbi (perhaps from childhood? We shall see.). Tovah Feldshuh is also back in her recurring role as Rebecca’s mother.

Here they are together. Hallelujah.

LuPone isn’t personally a Member of the Tribe, but in addition to being besties with Mandy Patinkin as sufficient cred, she has played Jews before— in fact, she’ll star on Broadway as Helena Rubinstein in War Paint in just two months.

Not only do we get another female rabbi on mainstream television (joining the ranks of shows like Transparent, of course), but we get to see Patti LuPone rocking a tallit, kippah, and magen david necklace. Baruch HaShem.

The Crazy Ex-Girlfriend episode in question airs Friday, January 13th. Yes, which is Shabbos, if you don’t watch TV then. But the Lord also giveth DVR and a host of streaming platforms.

Amen.

Image credits: Scott Everett White/The CW — ©2016 The CW Network, LLC All Rights Reserved. Via BroadwayWorld.

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Who doesn’t love an anti-hero? Sure, they’re not paragons of virtue. They may lack basic morals. They hurt a lot of people, including their loved ones, and you wouldn’t want to know them in real life… but they make for great TV.

Now, in UnReal and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, women get their chance, not just as those boring housewives who care about the welfare of their family (ugh), but as harm-causing protagonists in and of themselves.

They happen to be Jewish, too.

“Happens to be Jewish” describes the main character of UnReal. Her name is Rachel Goldberg, she’s played by Shiri Appleby…That’s about it, to be honest. In an interview with Tribe Magazine, Appleby says, “Judaism isn’t a focus of the show… but Rachel is definitely a Jewish girl. You see the relationship with my mother… and in the second episode, I say, ‘Sheket b’vakasha [Quiet please].’”

Not exactly in-your-face representation. Perhaps that’s better since Rachel does reprehensible things. Her job is to create drama—essentially, to destroy people— for Everlasting, a reality TV show that is legally not The Bachelor. Her greatest asset is emotional acuity. She moves like Othello’s Iago, earning people’s trust, finding their insecurities, and orchestrating their breakdowns. She compels her victims to ruin their own lives on nationally broadcast television, and they don’t realize until it’s too late.

According to co-workers, Rachel’s skills come from her own instability (self-destructive tendencies, ambiguous personality disorder, requisite toxic relationships). It’s heavily implied that Rachel’s mental and emotional problems are caused by her mother, a psychiatrist who used “treatment” to control and abuse Rachel. Unfortunately, that’s the relationship with her mother that Appleby was referring to when she talked about the show’s Judaism.

UnReal is astoundingly on Lifetime, not HBO. The ensemble consists of beautiful women, not tough Jersey mafiosos.  Instead of a drug empire, Rachel has a mushy romance show, complete with horse-drawn carriages and ball gowns, but the UnReal writers openly aspire to the heights and depths of  The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad—and the critical consensus is, UnReal reaches them.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a musical comedy, so its tone is considerably lighter tone than UnReal’s. Rebecca comes off as cringe-inducing, not dangerous. Her vulnerability and often-addressed mental health issues make her relatable. However, away from the quirky charm, it’s easy to see how toxic Rebecca is. In any other show, Rebecca would be the, well, crazy ex-girlfriend. Here, she’s our protagonist—and it works, thanks to show creator/lead actress Rachel Bloom’s performance and the show’s willingness to address certain issues openly and with nuance. The narrative neither completely absolves nor condemns Rebecca Bunch’s actions, and the same is true of Breaking Bad and Walter White.

Like UnReal‘s Rachel, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rebecca Bunch is an excellent manipulator and a consummate liar. (She’s a lawyer after all, ha ha.) When she runs into a long-ago summer camp fling, he mentions he’s moving to California, so she abandons her New York job and follows him, playing it off as a coincidence. Then, she insinuates herself into his life and wins over his friends with her helpfulness and and supposed altruism. Feigned compassion might be an occasional trick for male anti-heroes, but it’s Rachel’s and Rebecca’s M.O.

Unlike in UnReal, there’s no coyness about Rebecca’s heritage. The  career-driven, Ivy League-educated New York-based lawyer isn’t just coded as Jewish; it’s explicit. Not surprising, considering Rachel Bloom’s YouTube videos include “Chanukah Honey” (a parody of “Santa Baby”), and “You Can Touch My Boobies,” about a boy fantasizing about his Hebrew school teacher.

In one episode, Rebecca squares off against her lifelong rival. Their “JAP Rap Battle” is as densely packed as Hamilton’s “Cabinet Battle,” so listing all the Jewish references would be too much. Some noteworthy ones include:

• “Shebrews from Scarsdale”
• “Translating for the goys” what “shondeh” means
• “Sheket bavaka-shut the hell up.”
• “Should we shake hands/And erase the hate/Created by our mothers pitting us against each other/ for accolades and grades/ We were egged on like Seder plates.”

Apparently there’s no escaping the Jewish mother stereotype. Rebecca’s mother, Naomi (played by Tovah Feldshuh) made an earlier appearance in the Christmas episode (natch). Upon arrival, Naomi repeatedly demands to use the bathroom while criticizing Rebecca’s weight, apartment, job, home decor, appearance, and life choices. When Rebecca tries to respond, Naomi chastises her for interrupting.

At the end of the episode, Rebecca confronts her mother and says,  “If I ever have a kid, I will only care if they’re happy.” Naomi responds, “‘Happy?’ What’s ‘happy?’ …Our people are not about happy. We’re about survival. That is why I’m glad that you stood up to me. Because that means, when the Cossacks come, you can fight back.”

It’s far from a moment of redemption, it doesn’t quell the problematic Jewish mother stereotype—it may even exacerbate it— but these shows are not about feel-good moments or palatable role models. They’re about women who are as troubled as iconic male anti-heroes.

Rachel Goldberg first appears sprawled on a limo floor in a rumpled “THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE” T-shirt. It’s a tone-establishing, tongue-in-cheek visual: can feminism look like a dirty Jewish woman who does profoundly un-heroic things?

In a world full of Heisenberg t-shirts, yes.

A final note: I would be journalistically remiss to not mention Girls, so here I am, mentioning Girls.

Image credit: Rachel Bloom on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, via YouTube

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Broadway actors and composers. The stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer. A computer-animated Golem sent on a path of destruction. No, it turns out I didn’t imagine this entire thing. Aaron’s Magic Village, also released as The Real Shlemiel, is, well, real.

The 1990s French-made children’s film is a pastiche of Yiddish folk tales, particularly ones written or popularized by Singer. It takes place in Chelm, the legendary shtetl where everyone is a fool (an angel made a mistake). It focuses on an orphan, Aaron, sent to live with his uncle’s family (his best friend is Zlateh the goat). Over the course of the film, Aaron adjusts to the town’s antics, meets a magical imp, and ultimately must face an evil sorcerer who decides to create the Golem and use him for nefarious purposes.

Aaron’s Magic Village, also released in German, actually had a limited theatrical release— extremely limited. I remember being about 7 years old and going to see it with my family; a larger, Orthodox family were the only other people in the theater. (Heck yeah did we later purchase it on VHS for our ongoing viewing pleasure!)

The songs are composed by Michel Legrand with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. That’s right; the former is the Oscar-winning composer of the likes of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and the latter is the lyricist of Fiddler on the Roof, who over the course of his career has not only garnered Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize, but is the recipient of a lifetime achievement Tony this year.

And the English voice cast?  If you like theatre, it’s star-studded, from Tovah Feldshuh to Chip Zien, to a young Julia Murney; I counted at least 5 Tony nominations among the group. The narrator is even Yiddish theatre legend Fyuvish Finkel.

So with such an amazing amount of talent behind this film, why did it get buried? Maybe it’s too niche; not only Jewish, but full of deep cuts into specific chapters of Yiddish culture (the story about the Chelm man who gets turned around, ends up at home, and lives there convinced he’s in a parallel of his old town? Classic).

Is the quality great? Well, no, but it’s not terrible (The New York Times gave it a mixed review, though the LA Times was less kind). The animation, songs, story, and characters, are at least decent, and Lord knows that children today subject their parents to worse DVD purchases.

And you can purchase the DVD, for only $4 on Amazon. YouTube has the entire film up in German, so if you don’t speak it, consider dropping the price of a kosher slice of pizza for a weird, charming chapter in Jewish cultural history.

In the meantime, you can watch the English-language trailer below:

Image credit: OVGuide.com

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