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August 29, 2010 | 9:06 pm

Emmy Awards: Top Ten Jewish Moments

Posted by Naomi Pfefferman

Photo

Emmy winner Steven Levitan in Hawaii for “Modern Family,” with stars Sofia Vergara and Eric Stonestreet, who won the Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy. Photo courtesy American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

It’s fitting that the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards on Aug. 29 showed a clip of this year’s Oscar ceremony—the one where Steve Martin decreed that in “Inglourious Basterds,” Christophe Waltz played a Nazi “obsessed with finding Jews.  “Well, Christophe,“ Martin added, gesturing to the audience – “the Mother lode.”  The same could be said of tonight’s Emmys, where “Modern Family” – inspired by the mishpoches of co-creators Steven Levitan (an MOT) and Christopher Lloyd (married to an MOT)—cleaned up with six awards for best comedy.  Triumphing in the best drama category (again) was Matthew Weiner’s “Mad Men,” which has explored anti-Semitism and other sins in its dark take on the 1960s advertising biz.  Here is Arts & Entertainment Editor Naomi Pfefferman’s version of the Top 10 Jewish moments of the evening:

1) Presenter Ricky Gervais—lamenting the lack of booze backstage—pointed out that no one was going to go “mental” since loose-cannon stars such as Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson weren’t around to drink.  When the audience groaned (given Mel’s predilection for anti-Semitic and other racist remarks), Gervais deadpanned that he wasn’t going to dis Mel:  “He’s been through a lot,” Gervais said.  A pregnant pause.  “Not as much as the Jews, to be fair.”

2) The dashing Steven Levitan, accepting “Modern Family’s” award for best writing on a comedy series:  “Thanks to our wives, without whom we’d probably be dating around a lot,” he quipped.  “I mean we just won an Emmy.  That’s a pretty good opening line, I think.”  The camera then revealed his wife, Krista (nee Schmuck – “So I had to marry her,” Levitan told me in an interview).  “What I meant to say, honey is….Thanks for all the inspiration you’ve given us.  ‘Modern Family’ is and will always be our love letter to you.”  And when the series won the Emmy for best comedy:  “I want to thank this amazing cast, who makes us forget how much we hate writing every day,” Levitan said.  He also thanked his writers, who crank out work for which he and co-creator Lloyd often get credit: “I just wanna say, ‘That’s Hollywood, dudes.’”

3) “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner gave a self-effacing kind of salute to his colleagues as he accepted the best writing award for a dramatic series.  His entire cast and crew reads every single one of his scripts and gives him notes: “I’m so insecure that I actually seem open-minded,” he said.  When asked about the best note he’d ever received from a network, he recalled: “They asked me to rewrite some lines from Shakespeare in order to make it a little clearer.” And when Weiner won the best drama award:  “I can’t believe we’re here…I didn’t think we’d get through half of one [season].”

4) Jewish performer and Broadway star Lea Michele did not win as best actress in a comedy for “Glee,” although she did winningly prance around with Fallon, Tiny Fey and host Jimmy Fallon in the ceremony’s opening number, a “Glee-Bruce Springsteen” parody.  Also on hand for that number was Michele’s co-star, Jane Lynch, who – after winning for best supporting actress in a comedy—was jokingly feted for “creating over 62,000 new jobs in the polyester track suit industry” for her ubiquitous attire as the show’s terrifying cheerleading coach. 

5) As Kyra Sedgwick approached the stage to accept her Emmy for best actress in a dramatic series, an announcer declared that she is descended on her father’s side from William Ellery, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  What was not mentioned is that Sedgwick identifies as Jewish, courtesy of her mother, Patricia (nee Rosenwald).  Elated by her first Emmy win, she was, however, slightly surprised by the height (or lack thereof) of the microphone onstage, stating, “This is low, this is really low.”  She thanked her kids, who are almost grown, and her husband, Kevin Bacon, “my one and only love, Kev.”

6) Host Jimmy Fallon strummed his guitar and sang to Tom Hanks, who with Steven Spielberg produced HBO’s World War II mini-series, “The Pacific,” a kind of sequel to their previous WWII epic, “Band of Brothers.”  “The Pacific’s nominated for two dozen awards,” Fallon crooned to Hanks.  “Better break the news to Spielberg, you’re running out of wars.”  “The Pacific” won the Emmy for best mini-series later in the show.

7) The ceremony turned serious during the “in memorium” segment, which honored TV’s recently departed.  Musician Jewel performed her song, “Shape of You,” written for a friend who died of cancer, as a slow-motion montage of late actors graced the stage – including former child star Corey Haim, who died after a battle with drug abuse this past year.

8) When Adam Mazer accepted the best writing award for HBO ‘s “You Don’t Know Jack”—about right-to-death Dr. Jack Kevorkian—he indicated that he did indeed know Jack.  Addressing the elderly Kevorkian, who waved from the audience, Mazer said “Jack, “I’m grateful you’re my friend, but even more grateful you’re not my physician.”  When Al Pacino accepted his own Emmy for portraying Kevorkian, he thanked Mazer, “who wrote a great script.”

9) “Curb Your Enthusiasm” did NOT win for best comedy, but a clip from the show demonstrated why we love the prickly series – which this season featured creator Larry David attempting a “Seinfeld” reunion.  In an argument with Jerry Seinfeld, the 1990s star pointed to the misanthropic David and declared, “icon!” – then pointed at Larry:  “no-con!”

10) Yes, “The Daily Show” won its eighth consecutive Emmy for best variety show, but MOT creator Jon Stewart didn’t bother to show up to collect his award.  Instead, his colleagues quipped that he was home sleeping on the bed he had made by melting down his previous statuettes.

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Jon Stewart is not the creator of the Daily Show. In fact, that show was around for years hosted by Craig Kilborn before Jon Stewart came on board.

Comment by Jason on 8/31/10 at 7:26 am

Most of these are really grasping for straws and have nothing to do with anything remotely Jewish.  Kind of pathetic.

Comment by David on 8/31/10 at 7:28 pm

Weird article, not much to do with Judaism.  Lea Michele is not Jewish (her father is), Dianna Agron (who plays the blonde head cheerleader) is.  Try a bit more research and not relying on stereotypical looks.

Comment by Jacob on 9/01/10 at 12:33 am

Yeah, it’s real intelligent to determine one’s religion by one’s mother.  It’s not like you have a brain-cell or mind to decide something as silly as one’s religion, no your mother should decide, or actually even she doesn’t decide.  It just happens.  It would be an insult to stupid people to call such idiocy stupid.  Sorry, stupid people, but you’ve been outdone.  I’m sure your “brilliant” rabbi can point you to the nearest gas chamber.  No thanks, go on ahead without me.

Comment by theleviteline.com on 9/01/10 at 2:27 am

not worthy of Haaretz and not worth of Jewish accomplishments or contributions to the entertainment world.

Comment by CBR on 9/01/10 at 5:15 am

This is pretty weak, considering it is about Hollywood. If I am to look at this as stereotypically as the author, should I say that all the scowls and frowns were Arab moments?

I saw a guy sitting really straight - a total Nazi moment.

Entertainment news is awful at the best of times (this time doesn’t actually happen) but this is one of the worst things I have ever read.

Comment by Mike Palko on 9/04/10 at 6:43 am

Just happened to read your blog Danielle. Absolutely the worst drivel I have read in a long, long time. Maybe its my age (72) and my literary standards but your blog on the Emmys was semi-literate at best and totally asinine
Connecting the juvenile goings on at the Emmys with
Judaism is on its face ridiculous. Hope you appreciate
the constructive critism.

Comment by Larry Gold on 9/12/10 at 3:25 pm

Boy oh boy Danielle these people, as I have long since discovered, are somethin’ else.  Mr. Gold’s comment is really sickening on many levels.  Larry says, “Hope you appreciate the constructive critism.”  Yet there was nothing constructive in what he wrote, just the usual Jewish name-calling.  I.e.- “semi-literate, asinine, ridiculous.”  If I were you I’d tell Gold where he can stick his criticism, whether he calls it constructive or not. 

He is clearly another (Ashke)nazi Jew and probably some furrowed brow, four-eyed, closed-minded, brain-washed blue-eyed idiot.  I did not see the word “Judaism” used once in your article.  Only the religious Jews and always the non-Semitic blue-eyed Jews wanna act like Jews are only a religion.  Of course I no longer consider myself a Jew, for various reasons, though this is one.  I will not define myself my anyone’s religion.  I will not be told what I must or cannot believe.  I make all those decisions and I would never trust any rabbi, with their track record of leading millions of morons to death camps and gas chambers, Hell No.  I also don’t then run and put my faith and life into the hands of any priest, minister, imam or other cult leader, unless I need to for a short time to move on to the next level.

You and others in the Jewish community should make it clear for the brain-dead and brain-washed that when you call someone Jewish, it means ethnically, when that is what you are referring to.  Of course, I learned a couple of years ago at Limmud in fact that Orthodox Jews do not believe in ethnicity period, not for Jews or apparently for anyone else.  Whether correct or not I just hope The Jewish Journal won’t cater to the simple-minded and closed-minded Orthodox interpretations of anything Jewish.  It’s bad enough they’ve taken over in Israel, there’s no need for them to take over here, except if the well-behaved cowards let ‘em.

Comment by theleviteline.com on 9/12/10 at 5:42 pm

To the individual who uses the leviteline.com as his or her calling card. What venom! What an outpouring of hatred in a supposedly civil E-mail forum. By the way the term constructive critism was an attempt at humor.
I may have misdirected my own harsh words at Danielle rather than at the Emmy material and personalities, but I must have struck some sort of nerve. I am neither Orthodox nor blue-eyed, so I’m not sure where I stand
in leviteline"s pantheon of Jewish types. My unsolicited advice; cool down leviteline, over excited utterances don’t equal reasoned argument

Comment by Larry Gold on 9/12/10 at 6:22 pm

All this pompous judgmentalism.  Also quite typical of many Jews and many whites in general, I am discovering more and more.  You can project and label my words as venom or hatred all you want.  Also very typical.  I know because I’ve experienced it numerous times from numerous Jews.  All in an attempt to STIFLE.  Ain’t gonna work.  I don’t care what you nor the other (Ashke)nazis or for that matter Nazis think, if you are even capable of thinking.  You will in no way control nor limit what nor how I express myself.  In fact Mr. Gold and many others, if and when I get your approval I will then assume I’ve said something false, as I see over and over a lack of appreciation for truth.

As for “reasoned argument” you say this like this is automatically supposed to be my goal.  Again you and your arrogant type of argument like what you said to Danielle, which now you’ve backed off from, only because I had to point it out to you.  Sorry, ain’t buying that garbage.  You said what you said, then you want myself and others to assume you meant something other than what you said.  Uh oh.  If you say it, I assume you mean the words you say.  If at age 72 you still don’t know how express yourself clearly, well then it is probably too late.  Yet seeing how most of y’all read the Torah, very selectively being literal when it suits your interest and not literal when it doesn’t suit your interest.  If something as holy and significant as God’s law can be in effect mocked and treated like some smorgasboard, then all this other game-playing and stupidity and projection makes perfect sense.

Now go ahead and twist and distort my words.  I know what I meant because what I say is what I mean.  I wouldn’t speak in parables to morons who will interpret and analyze simple, clear words and not interpret words that are not meant literally.  Anyway I know I’m wasting my time but here goes.

Comment by theleviteline.com on 9/12/10 at 8:19 pm

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