Part 5: The Reckoning – From Neo-Nazis to Charlottesville to Kanye West

by Mark M. Bello “It can happen here. Maybe it has.” —Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) How did we get here? How did we get from Gentleman’s Agreement—a bold, conscience-driven film that dared to speak America’s name alongside antisemitism—to a country where antisemitic tweets trend globally, Holocaust denial lives on YouTube, and pop culture megastars declare love […]

Part 3: Judaism on Trial: McCarthyism and the Backlash in Tuxedos.

Hollywood, High Society, and the Limits of Polite Protest Introduction: From Courage to Silence by Mark M. Bello When *Gentleman’s Agreement* premiered in 1947, it seemed like a turning point. A major studio film—helmed by Elia Kazan, produced by Darryl Zanuck, and starring Gregory Peck—had taken aim at polite, coded anti-Semitism in America’s high society. […]

Gentleman’s Agreement Part 2: America in 1947; The Polite Curtain of Prejudice

by Mark M. Bello In Part 1 of our 5-part series on a century of American anti-Semitism, we explored the origins of Gentleman’s Agreement and the courage it took for a Protestant director, producer, and actor to shine a spotlight on a form of American bigotry that few cared or dared to speak about. In […]

Gentlemen’s Agreement: Before & After—A Five Part Study of a Century of American Anti-Semitism

Part I: Before the Film – The Climate of American Antisemitism (1920s–1940s) by Mark M. Bello In 1947, a non-Jewish movie mogul named Darryl F. Zanuck released one of the most daring films of its era: Gentleman’s Agreement. While it was not the first film to address American bigotry, Gentleman’s Agreement was the first mainstream […]