The Public Lives of Jewish Stars

Abstract

In this chapter stages a transition away from an understanding of British-Jewish cinema culture that emphasises an introspective sphere of Jewish cultural activity, and towards a focus on Jewish communal concerns with how a Jewish presence in film made sense to a generalised non-Jewish audience. In the first instance this progresses through a discussion of Jewish film stars and their perceived movement between Jewish and non-Jewish realms. In tracing this motility it is argued that categories of public and private proved central to structuring the social imagination of British Jews around an enclaved/mainstream binary. Receiving extended discussion is the American actor Molly Picon. Embodying the Jewish social body in her screen presence it is argued that key to her appeal for British-Jewish audiences was a sense of the Jews as a people moving into visibility and recognition within the mass public sphere.