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Nov, 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

Oct. 31, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Our Immutable Noble Essence

Caroline B. Glick: Running against Bush

Oct. 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The End of the Special Relationship?

Steve Lipman: 'Kid Kosher' Gets A Title Shot

Oct. 29, 2008

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: GET US THE TAPE THE L.A. TIMES REFUSES TO RELEASE, AND WE'LL GIVE YOU CASH!

Dr. Ari Korenblit: Making The Write Choice for President

Oct. 28, 2008

Mona Charen: Denial runs through American Jewry

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Sell-off to capitalism or sell-out to Islam?

Oct. 27, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Are tax deductions for charitable donations moral?

Jonathan Mark: The Mystery Of The Arab-American Vote

Oct. 24, 2008

'Why aren't all religious people vegetarians?': Response by Miriam Kosman

Caroline B. Glick: Testing Obama's mettle

Oct. 23, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama Would Fail Security Clearance

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A fast chicken dish with an Asian accent

Oct. 20, 2008

Gary Rosenblatt: Still One Torah

Jonathan Tobin: Government 'Gifts' Are Not Free

Oct. 17, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Sukkos and the Great Meltdown

Caroline B. Glick: The disappearance of law

Oct. 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Copying DVDs: RIP OR RIPOFF?

Cal Thomas: Blaming the Jews (again)

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 4, 2008 / 4 Elul 5768

With humor as their weapon, the Three Stooges took on Hitler

By Bruce Dancis


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) So you think this is all there is to the Three Stooges: Moe gets mad, pokes Larry in the eye and hits Curly on the head, followed by a torrent of flying pies, nyuk, nyuk, nyuks and woo, woo, woos.


Well, how about the Three Stooges as Nazi fighters?


It turns out that the screen comedy trio of Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard (Moe's little brother) made the first Hollywood films to satirize and lampoon Adolf Hitler and his Nazi government. And these shorts, daring for their time, are included in the just-released DVD set "The Three Stooges Collection, 1940-1942, Volume Three" (two discs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $24.96, not rated).


"You Nazty Spy!" hit the theaters in January 1940, nine months before Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." It was a time when most of the Hollywood studios remained reluctant to address — dramatically or comedically — the Nazi state, its persecution of Jews and the war Germany had started in Europe in 1939.


The timidity of the studio heads was based on several factors — they didn't want to close down the European market for Hollywood films, and they were being pressured from conservatives and isolationists in Congress who opposed U.S. involvement in the European war and were concerned about Hollywood making "propaganda" films attacking the fascists. Warner Bros. broke the ice with its 1939 production of "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," but, as film historian Michael E. Birdwell writes in his book, "Celluloid Soldiers: Warner Bros.'s Campaign against Nazism," the studio faced the opposition of the Production Code Administration (Hollywood's censors). Its director, Will Hays, stated that given the nation's policy of official neutrality, no studios could produce any more anti-Nazi films.


But that didn't deter the Three Stooges and Columbia Pictures from making "You Nazty Spy!," written by Clyde Bruckman and Felix Adler and directed by Jules White. Historian Lynn Rapaport, writing in the San Diego Jewish Journal, points out that film shorts were not as closely regulated or censored as feature films, so perhaps the Stooges' efforts were unnoticed or ignored.



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"You Nazty Spy!" was released with a disclaimer, "Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle," which was patently ridiculous because the short depends on Moe's physical resemblance to Hitler — particularly after he pushes his hair back on one side and gets a piece of black tape stuck to his upper lip.


As a paper-hanger named Hailstone from the country of Moronica, Moe becomes the foil of three evil government officials who want to overthrow their king and form a dictatorship. So Hailstone becomes dictator, even ranting in his speeches like Hitler, with Curly turning into Field Marshal Gallstone and Larry being appointed Minister of Propaganda Pebble.


The short is filled with references to beer-hall putsches, the appeasement at Munich, book burnings and "concentrated camps" for dissidents, and the Nazi leadership — the Stooges — is depicted as raving idiots.


The Stooges returned to the same roles in their July 1941 short, "I'll Never Heil Again," also included in the DVD set. This time the opening disclaimer reads, "The characters in this picture are all fictitious. Anyone resembling them is better off dead."


There's more Hitler-mocking oratory by Moe, a swastika made out of snakes and disputes with other Axis powers that culminate in a football game with a globe of the world taking the place of the ball.


The tone remains madcap as usual, but there's a clear and strong political message in lines such as this from Curly, now known as Field Marshall Herring, to Moe's Hailstone: "We bombed 56 hospitals, 85 schools, 42 kindergartens, four cemeteries and other vital military objects."


Lawrence Jeffrey Epstein, author of "Mixed Nuts: America's Love Affair With Comedy Teams," reports that "You Nazty Spy!" was Moe and Larry's favorite Stooges short, and the trio was evidently proud to have made several anti-Nazi films. Like many Jewish Americans in show business, the Stooges had changed their names to appear less ethnic — Moe and Curly were born Moses and Jerome Horwitz, while Larry was originally Larry Feinberg. But their films were always filled with Yiddish words, and their Brooklyn accents ("soitenly") were hardly disguised.


The rest of the 21 shorts in this collection contain the usual assortment of Stooge-style cartoonish mayhem, silly puns and juvenile humor, the kind that has endeared the trio to (mostly) boys and men for decades.


But at one particularly perilous time in history, these three Jewish comedians, these Three Stooges, fought back against the fascists with the only weapon they had — their sense of humor.

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