Jay Ruderman:

Welcome to All About Change.

Now is a great time to check out my new book about activism, Find Your Fight. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy books, and you can learn more about it at jayaruderman.com.

These days, young Jews look around, and they have so many Jewish institutions to tap into, federations, youth groups, synagogues, and advocacy groups define our community. And without proper knowledge, a person could take it all for granted. But that community was built by visionaries who knew what a strong Jewish community could be.

Now decades into Jewish-American prominence, the institutions these Jews built are being maintained and expanded by a new generation of Jewish leaders, leaders like Jonah Platt. The son of an award-winning producer, Jonah has taken the opportunities granted to him and run. Alongside a widely successful career in acting and singing, Jonah has spent his career advocating for the Jewish people, sitting on the boards of Jewish organizations, participating widely in Jewish leadership programs, and speaking to Jews across the country. Just last week, as he launched the second season of the podcast, Jonah was awarded gold in the W3 Awards for best Indie podcast host. It’s so great to see unabashedly Jewish content getting recognized, and I’m excited to continue that recognition on the podcast today.

Jonah Platt, welcome to All About Change. It’s my pleasure to have you as my guest.

Jonah Platt:

Thank you. I’m happy to be here as your guest.

Jay Ruderman:

Congratulations.

Jonah Platt:

Thank you.

Jay Ruderman:

Because as you have launched your second season, you’ve won a couple of awards in the W3 Awards. You have paired this with Webby Award nominations and the Religious Communications Council Award, and I would say that your first season was a huge hit, so mazal tov on that.

Jonah Platt:

Thank you.

Jay Ruderman:

Could you share some of the takeaways from your first season and what it meant to you?

Jonah Platt:

Oh, boy. Where to begin? In terms of what it meant to me, the feedback that I have gotten from this show has just been unbelievable. Not in terms of personal praise, but in terms of the way that it’s doing what it was so intended to do, which is to help people and to help people feel seen, to give people things to think about, to help encourage people to lean into their own sense of Jewish identity, or if they’re a non-Jew, to lean into their responsibility as an ally or to understand Jews better or feel more comfortable in their own skin. And the feedback that I get is just so encouraging and really is what keeps me going doing this work is just seeing the effect it has on people and how useful of a place and a tool and a community it has been for so many different kinds of people all over the world.

Jay Ruderman:

So I want to talk a little bit about Hollywood.

Jonah Platt:

Sure.

Jay Ruderman:

Because it’s a field that I’ve been a little bit active in as a producer and executive producer and have known or do know some great people in the industry. What has been your experience with other people in the industry either willing to come out and talk about their Jewishness or unwillingness to do so?

Jonah Platt:

Yeah, I mean, as you might expect, there is a range, and I have interacted with people on all parts of that spectrum.

There are, as you say, many Jews who have engaged more deeply than they ever have, have not shied away from this moment, are using their voices and their influence and their relationships to really stand up for Jews in meaningful ways and to work on camera, behind the scenes, all the ways that matter. And I love those people, and I’m inspired by them and encouraged by their energy and urgency.

Then there are, of course, there are people who are not that. There are people who are not that in a couple of ways. They’re not that in they were never going to be that, they’re not engaged, this didn’t wake them up. It’s business kind of as usual, I’m going to keep my head down. I don’t want to get involved. I’m a Jew sort of in name, but not really in heart, and I’m not going to bat here.

And then there are people who are actively afraid and people in Hollywood who I’ve asked, “Do you want to come on the show?” And who have said no, not out of scheduling or whatever, but out of sort of a reluctance to talk about being Jewish publicly.

Jay Ruderman:

Right. And my wife, Shira, is on the Board of the Academy Museum, and the Academy Museum left off the story of the Jewish beginnings of Hollywood and then did an exhibit, which is interesting, called Hollywood Land in which the major studios that began out in Los Angeles were started by Jews mainly in the garment industry who came out west and started their own industry. And they themselves hid their Jewishness. They were not outwardly Jewish. Their movies, which are some of the classic movies, did not feature Jewish characters. It was something that they almost wanted to fit in so much that Judaism was something that they wanted to leave behind. And I’m wondering if there’s a remnant of that going on right now.

Jonah Platt:

Yeah, I think that’s exactly what you have said is 100% accurate. It’s something I speak about a lot. The beginnings of Hollywood were built, as you say, on the notion of hiding your Jewishness, but they had a lot better reason than we do now when we don’t examine it. I mean, these are European immigrants coming to a new country and wanting to establish themselves as Americans and be successful and be part of this amazing country, their new adopted home. So I get it a little bit. I’m not going to judge. I wasn’t there in the 30s. I don’t know what it was like trying to make a name for yourself when you’re Schmuel Gelbfisz and you need to become Samuel Goldwyn and make a stamp in the American commerce world, especially in an industry that was so looked down upon by the moneyed class at the time in America.

But again, as you say that it was about sort of infusing it with their own Jewishness, the values you see in a lot of early Hollywood, sort of that American pop culture of what stories are being told and the way they’re being told and the romance, and they hear all this stuff that comes from these Jewish cultural touch points, but never actually about Jews or called anything Jewish and disavowing.

And I think that’s the legacy. And I think that’s sort of always been in the water in Hollywood. I don’t think that’s brand new today. I think we’re just examining it more carefully today because of where we are as a society and everyone’s sort of looking to Hollywood in this moment of crisis, but we should have been looking at it for the last 30 years being like, “How come the Jews are still keeping their heads down and hiding and distancing? And the only Jewish characters I’m seeing on TV are either Jewish in sort of name and American culture only, but not really affiliated or distancing themselves, self-deprecating Judaism, or just black hat Orthodox Jews that the typical person feels very removed from?” We’ve been having issues for a long time, and I think one of the big changes we need to make as a Jewish community outside of Hollywood and definitely within Hollywood is flipping that switch from keeping your head down, disassociating, hiding, because maybe they’ll leave us alone, to, well, they’re not going to leave us alone even when we’re hiding, so we might as well be loud and proud and looking out for ourselves and celebrating what makes us great.

Jay Ruderman:

Exactly. And it brings a couple of thoughts to my mind. First of all, how do you feel about people who hide their Judaism or are not speaking out? And second of all, with you, as someone who’s very outspoken on Israel, on Jewishness, do you think that it’s had a positive impact on you in the industry or a negative impact on you?

Jonah Platt:

In terms of how I feel about folks, it sort of depends on which camp you fall into. If you’re somebody, as I mentioned earlier, who is simply not engaged as a Jew, I think it’s not really rational to expect that person to speak out and lift their head up and be a proud Jew if they don’t really care about being Jewish. It’s sort of they’re Jewish by birth, by an accident of birth, and they don’t do anything else to live Jewishly or practice Jewishly. And I think that’s one of the mistakes we make as a wider Jewish community with anybody who can claim the title of Jew. We’re like, “Why aren’t they standing up for us?” That’s not someone I’m trying to necessarily reach.

The people who I want to reach. And what I do have feelings about are the people who do identify as and do feel connected and are needing encouragement and needing a challenge to sort of wake them out of their current status quo and say, “Hey, we need you. This is an all hands on deck moment. If you care about being Jewish, if that is an important piece of your identity, if this isn’t the moment that you’re going to pick your head up and say, ‘I’m here, I’m proud, I’m not going anywhere,’ what could it possibly take?” I think this is the time for those people. So I feel a duty to those people to help them understand the stakes and to not be afraid.

And to that end, in my career personally, it’s harder to answer because I’ve shifted so wholeheartedly into advocacy and into my show. It’s not like I’m in an audition room every single week anymore. All I can say is I haven’t felt or heard anything negative. Obviously, if there’s conversations I’m not privy to about me, I wouldn’t know because I’m not privy to them. But what I will say and what I’ve observed and heard firsthand from basically everybody in the industry is even if you get burned by being loud, proud, and Jewish, once those negative, toxic people fall away, people you don’t want to be involved with anyway, if someone doesn’t want to be involved with you because you’re a Jew, that’s not someone you want to be involved with, once they go away, all the other people who are so encouraged and excited and energized by you and see you like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know you were one of us too,” they flock to you like a magnet and you get all these new opportunities and new relationships and that I’m seeing over and over again.

I mean the people who find each other in the dark are all doing projects together and all new friendships and only positive things come out the other side. So I would certainly encourage folks to put away that fear and choose to live as their authentic selves.

Jay Ruderman:

Well, very well said. And you’re an example for many, and in an article about telling positive Jewish stories, about celebrating Jewish life, and you talk about Adam Sandler’s recent movie about his daughter’s bat mitzvah, I was thinking about Happy Gilmore 2, and it’s not overtly Jewish, but he’s in his house in, I don’t know if it’s in Boston or whatever, but there’s a mezuzah on the door and the kids are talking about grandma’s brisket, and throughout his movies there’s this sprinkling of, “Hey, I’m Jewish. I’m not embarrassed about it. I’m going to talk about it.” And too often you don’t see that. Do you see more of that coming along or do you see an issue with it?

Jonah Platt:

There’s only one Adam Sandler. He has probably done more to put real Jewishness into pop culture than kind of almost anybody. I’m sure there are others I’m not thinking of, but the fact that he’s got a million people singing a song about Hanukkah, not a lot of people doing that.

And I have the same reaction, Jay, when I watched Happy Gilmore 2, I couldn’t believe it. I was like, “He is planting a flag.” He’s like, “Guess what, guys? Happy Gilmore’s Jewish.” And to me it was sort of his message to the people, Jewish people being like, “I’m with you. Everybody knows I’m Jewish and it’s important to me and this is who I am.” And I love that. I don’t see a lot of people doing that. More commonly, you’ll get people doing that off-screen, but a lot of it comes from he’s in a position to write his own ticket, and he gets to make the decisions and say, “Here’s what we’re doing. This is my thing.”

I know there are a lot of engaged Jews in Hollywood who are now trying to come together and do projects together and empower each other from the writer to the director to the studio to the actors. So I would hope within the next one to two years, you’re going to start seeing even more of that stuff, but there’s only so many people who really have the ability to say, “This is what we’re doing. I don’t need anyone else’s permission. I’m the one who gives the permission and it’s going to be Jewish.”

Jay Ruderman:

And do you think it’s weird when you juxtapose it to the movement for authenticity in Hollywood? So many different groups are very much vocal and there has been many more examples of authentic representation. I myself was very involved for many, many years in Hollywood in promoting the authentic portrayal of people with disabilities in film. And we’ve made great strides, and there’s more and more films where people with disabilities are representing themselves on screen. And that’s been a big success. And I can think of dozens of other groups who are out there strong and proud and saying, “If you’re going to have a role about us, we should be playing it and there should be authenticity.” Why is it not happening so much with the Jews?

Jonah Platt:

I would push back on that a little bit. I think it is happening to a degree with the Jews. I think it’s a case by case thing, and I’ve talked about this a lot, as you might imagine.

To me personally, it is a case by case thing. There are certain cases where I get it when they don’t cast a Jew, for example, in the Golda Meir film, when they cast Helen Mirren, I get that one. The entire, the director, writer, crew, those were all Israelis, Jews. She had the full sign-off of the family. And honestly, that movie doesn’t get made unless it’s somebody like a Helen Mirren playing that role. She spent time in Israel on a kibbutz in her youth. She was coming into it with respect and bringing her star power to bear to get that story told. I don’t think it happens at that scale with a non-Oscar caliber leading lady of a certain age, and there’s just not that many of them.

When it comes to things like, for example, this is the one sort of egregious one that pops to mind for me is the Funny Girl, the musical, the national tour famously cast a non-Jew in the role of Fanny Bryce. That is a totally different story to me. That, there’s a million actresses who could have played that role, and a lot of Jewish ones could have done it. And it’s a show about a famous Jewish performer whose Jewishness was so intrinsic to her personality, and to give that one away when you really didn’t have to, to a non-Jew, that felt egregious to me. That was like, that’s like an easy layup. You’re talking about musical theater, I could name off the top of my head 30 amazing young Jewish female actresses who could have done that. So that bothers me.

But I do see generally an awareness that this is a thing.

Jay Ruderman:

Okay.

Jonah Platt:

I’d like to see, I think part of it’s the nature of the stories that are getting told, again it comes back to, are the narratives Jewish stories or are they stories where we’re writing the lead character as the non-Jewish savior like you get in a lot of Holocaust narratives or Inglorious Bastards, amazing film. We’re sticking it to Hitler.

Jay Ruderman:

Yeah, I love it.

Jonah Platt:

Incredible, but the main guy is Brad Pitt. It’s always this non-Jewish dude who gets to be the kind of hero. So that’s more of an issue, I think. And I think if we correct that, if that character becomes a super-Jewish dude, then we’re going to have more naturally Jews in those roles.

Jay Ruderman:

There’s something else that you’ve talked about which really resonated with me because I’ve done a lot of work in Israel educating Israelis, politicians, journalists, influential leaders in the community about the American Jewish community, and basically saying the American Jewish community does not look like Israel. It’s a different community. The Reform Movement is, I don’t know, 30, 40% of the community, extremely influential, and it doesn’t help to denigrate a community. And you’ve talked about calling people bad Jews. Now this is sort of inside baseball in the Jewish community, but what is going on there? Why are we labeling each other as good or bad? And how is that at all helpful?

Jonah Platt:

That’s the question, right? I mean, it’s more rhetorical than it is something I can answer. I don’t know, and you’re actually inspiring me, maybe this is something I need to really dig into in a fact-finding kind of way and really listen on this is obviously I observe this and call it out all the time, and so much of what my advocacy and my show is all about is inclusivity within Judaism. But there is this really negative streak of in versus out, are you good enough? Are you Jewish enough to hang with us in a way that I think is morally reprehensible and strategically idiotic. Most bad behaviors in life come, if you trace them, they come from fear. So I would assume the fear is we’re disappearing. There’s less of us. I feel like we’re losing people, and if I’m an Orthodox Jew looking down at a Reform Jew, I’m seeing somebody who’s letting go of the things that are so important to me and softening and slowly disintegrating my community.

I think there’s just a gross misunderstanding there of how many Reform Jews or conservative Jews are deeply committed and passionate to their Judaism and to their identity, and it just looks a little different, but it’s no less deeply felt and deeply held. But it’s an issue. I mean, I think that’s probably the number one issue for American Jews within our community is the way that we treat each other and the way that we exclude each other and the way that we don’t look out for one another. And please know this is not a monolithic thing. There are many amazing Jews of all observance levels who this does not apply to at all and are extremely inclusive and very interested and curious about one another and are living beautifully together. But it certainly is a truth that there is this deep-seated streak of exclusivity that serves nobody.

Jay Ruderman:

Yeah, I mean, I see it. I’m a member of the modern Orthodox community, and I hear it and I’m like, “What good does this do?” As an organization, we’ve worked with the Reform Movement, the Conservative Movement, and I may not identify with them religiously, but they’re Jews and they’re important and they’re an important part of our community, and I just don’t get this.

And I do think that we are siloed. We’re siloed into different groups geographically, religiously, culturally, and there is not enough mixing. It’s important. It’s important because there’s not a lot of us.

The other interesting thing, as time goes on in America, I’ve noticed even in the Orthodox community, people have children who are LGBTQ, they’re with a partner who’s not Jewish, there’s all sorts of things they have to try to figure out, and some of them we’re pretty hard with their kids and their kids go in a different direction and then they have to make a decision. “Am I holding onto the relationship or am I not holding onto the relationship?” But there’s a lot of dynamics in our country that I think will change the way people relate to each other.

Jonah Platt:

I hope that’s true. I think, again, it all comes to fear of losing what we hold so dearly, and I guess I just think if Tevye can find room in his heart for each of his daughters doing something crazy, it’s like we could do it too.

Jay Ruderman:

Exactly.

That leads me to my next question about Jewish institutions because you’ve been very involved as a leader in Jewish organizations, and in the decades since they were formed over a hundred years ago, there’s even more of them. And how do you balance your involvement with historical Jewish organizations and also doing your own thing with the podcast and having your own voice out there?

Jonah Platt:

It depends on the person. For me, I’ve always been a color outside the lines leader kind of guy. Ever since I was in kindergarten, my first notable leadership experiences when I was five or six in kindergarten, I wrote a song for my teachers and choreographed a dance for my whole class as a surprise, and then we performed it for the teachers and they put it in the yearbook and all this stuff, and I just did that. I’ve always been a guy who just like when I get an idea, I’m not going to really wait for somebody else to do it, I’m going to just go do it and make it happen. I recognize that that’s not everybody. That’s just sort of my personality.

And so what I look to the organizations for, and I’ve looked to them a lot in my twenties and thirties, if you’re someone whose life is consumed by other things, but you want to stay involved somehow, that’s when I really leaned on institutions was sort of in my twenties and thirties where I was looking, I want to be involved Jewishly. I don’t want to be disconnected. I want to be around other Jews. I want to feel like I’m contributing. I want to be learning, whatever. There’s all these programs and opportunities that all these organizations offer, and I think that’s incredibly valuable and clearly for me was an important stepping stone to where I am now. The fact that I was building relationships and meeting people and gaining exposure to this world and just being more steeped in it, so much wonderful stuff has come from that.

And then actually, now that I’m saying it out loud, it really was an important step. I wouldn’t be able to come out and say, “Okay, I have an idea of what I want to do differently or my own way in the space,” if I wasn’t already familiar with what the space looked like and had already experienced a lot of it. The organizations now still, they play such a pivotal role in what I do in helping amplify the stuff that I do and partnering with me on stuff, and we work together to, we’re all rowing in the same direction, so I just provide sort of a different, same company, different division.

Jay Ruderman:

It’s such great advice because a lot of times people who are interested in getting involved and doing advocacy and making a difference, they get overwhelmed and they’re overthinking the issue rather than just starting to get involved and hooking up with other people who think like them and allies and starting to do the work.

Jonah Platt:

I get that all the time, Jay. I get people being like, “I want to do more, but I don’t know where to go. I don’t know where to start.” And I always say, “Is there a federation in your town? Have you looked into AJC? Have you looked into JNF? Is there a synagogue? Is there a JCC?” And it’s funny, it’s the same advice I give to Hollywood folks coming out of college. They’re like, “Well, how do I get started? What do I do?” I’m like, “Well, you got to pick New York or LA. But then you got to just go there and pick a place, like pick a theater, pick a writer group, pick a whatever, and just start building relationships, start making stuff, start planning routes, and the rest will sort of happen organically as you get involved.” And then you learn what you like and what you don’t like and who you’re vibing with and who you’re not. But the key is just to pick something and start. Nothing is forever. Just like pick something. There’s no wrong answer.

Jay Ruderman:

Jonah, I want to end by talking about some of the projects you’re involved in. And I know you’re producing an upcoming film called The Mensch. Can you talk a little bit about this project or anything else you’re working on right now that you’re excited about?

Jonah Platt:

Well, what I’m most excited about, which I actually just got off a Zoom call for, it’s not entertainment based, but it’s actually Jewish world based, I piloted this idea of a dinner, a Shabbat dinner, bringing together Jews and non-Jews in a way that I called it a mosaic Shabbat, because I brought each person was a unique identity. So the half of the group that were Jews, they were all different kinds of Jews. There was a Chinese-American Jew, there was an Iranian Jew, there was a LGBT Jew, excuse me, there was a Holocaust survivor. And then on the flip side, the non-Jews, there was a Venezuelan, there was a Black person, there was all these different colors, shapes, and sizes. I programmed it to the nth degree. So every moment of it was really intentional and really geared towards building meaningful bridges that are going to have impact beyond the dinner itself.

I am looking on how to really scale that up and not just scale up the events itself, but scale up the analysis and the data collection so that I can really see if what I’m sort of now anecdotally observing is working and have an instinct that it is working. I can really quantify it and say, “Follow this playbook, and we actually do change people’s attitudes and do build meaningful bridges between communities.” Because I think those things are so important. And short of a landmark cultural offering in the guise of a film or a TV show that can humanize Jews at scale, it has to be on a people-to-people level and just sort of every day, another heart and mind changed one by one.

Jay Ruderman:

So important. Do you want to say a couple words about The Mensch?

Jonah Platt:

Sure. The Mensch is, it’s my version of trying to put my money where my mouth is in terms of the kinds of narratives I want to see on screen. It is an entertaining contemporary story that happens to be about Jews, and not just Jews, but Jews who are three dimensional, who are engaged and proud of their Judaism, but then also struggle with it and have crises of faith.

And there are fun hijinks and drama and comedy as you would want in any excellent piece of entertainment. They just happen to have some Jewish thematic tie-ins and Jewish characters, and I think that’s, I want to see a hundred of those kinds of projects with all different kinds of, this one takes place in New Mexico. It is about a female rabbi and a female congregant. It doesn’t need to be about a rabbi to be a Jewish film. It doesn’t need to be about the sort of big MacGuffin in this film is this priceless Torah that goes missing that they have to track down, but it doesn’t have to be that. It could be anything as long as the characters, and that’s why I liked Adam Sandler’s film, You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, it was really like a teen movie with a coming-of-age story, but the vehicle for it was a girl dealing with her bat mitzvah. We need that kind of framework.

Jay Ruderman:

Well, Jonah Platt, thank you so much for being my guest on All About Change, and I want to wish you to go from strength to strength. You’re doing amazing work and keep doing it.

Jonah Platt:

Thank you, Jay. I appreciate it so much.

Jay Ruderman:

Thank you for being part of the All About Change community. We aim to spark ideas for personal activism, helping you find your pathway to action beyond awareness. So thank you for investing your time with us, learning and thinking about how just one person can make the choice to build a community and improve our world. I believe in the empowerment of informed people like you to drive real change, and I know that what we explore today will be a tool for you in that effort.

All right, I’ll see you in two weeks for our next conversation, but just one small ask, please hit subscribe and leave us a comment below. It lets us know that you value this content, and it supports our mission to widely share these perspectives. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out this next video. I chose it for you, and I know you’re going to enjoy it.

I’m Jay Ruderman. Let’s continue working towards meaningful change together.

Today’s episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation.