I Count Jews in the Movie Credits

When Chappelle held up a mirror, I laughed

Jeffrey Kass
Momentum
Published in
5 min readNov 23, 2022

--

Image: Shutterstock/BAZA Production

I recall at a very early age staying in the cinema to watch the credits after every movie to count the number of Jewish-sounding names that scrolled down the big screen. A few times, when a movie had zero Jews listed at the end, I even wondered if the producer was anti-Semitic. “How is that even possible?” I’d ask myself.

I wasn’t counting Jews because I thought there was some ridiculous secret cabal of Jews running the world — a myth Kanye West and Kyrie Irving have shamefully stoked lately. As a young teen, I was just proud to have the connection with these creative minds from my tribe.

Geniuses who brought us countless movies including “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Out of Africa,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Caddyshack, “A Clockwork Orange,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Full Metal Jacket,” “Animal House,” “Hidden Figures,” “Waiting to Exhale,” “Indiana Jones,” “Jurassic Park,” “Men in Black,” “Spider Man,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “X-Men,” “Rain Man,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Ghostbusters” and “Gone With The Wind.”

The movie list goes on.

“The Simpsons,” “South Park,” “Sex and the City,” “Game of Thrones,” “60 Minutes,” “Friends.” We could do this same exercise with television shows.

--

--

Jeffrey Kass
Momentum

A Medium Top Writer on Racism, Diversity, Education, History and Parenting | Speaker | Award-Winning Author | Latest Book: Black Batwoman V. White Jesus | Dad