Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

A Minyan Of Jews Shines on Oscar Night

Jews behind the camera, and one who works in front of it, scored big at last night’s 83rd annual Academy Awards. As widely expected, Israeli-born thesp Natalie Portman nabbed the Best Actress honor for her mad-ballerina shtick in “Black Swan.” Backstage, the with-child Portman told reporters, “[Pregnancy] has sort of been a protection against all of the hoopla, and the part that keeps you centered,” Entertainment Weekly reported. While “Swan” director Darren Aronofsky lost to “The King’s Speech” helmer Tom Hooper, the latter picture turned out to be a prize-getter for the Tribe. Screenwriter David Seidler, a stutterer whose grandparents died in the Holocaust, won for Best Screenplay; Emile Sherman, an Australian Jew, was one of three producers who accepted the Best Picture award for “Speech.” The Best Adapted Screenplay nod went to Aaron Sorkin for “The Social Network”; the Hollywood veteran told CBS News he’d “barely” heard of Facebook before the film, and closed his account once the movie wrapped.

Danish-Jewish director Suzanne Bier, the daughter of Holocaust refugees, scored a Best Foreign Language Film statuette for Kenya-set melodrama “In a Better World.” In the hotly contested Sound Mixing category, Lora Hirschberg was one of three honorees for “Inception.” Rounding out the Semitic successes, JTA reported that director-writer Lee Unkrich accepted the award for his animated feature “Toy Story 3,” and composer Randy Newman added another Oscar for his song “We Belong Together” from the same film. And while Israeli films didn’t fare well – none made the cut for Best Foreign Film this year — filmmakers Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman took home the Best Short Documentary prize for “Strangers No More,” about an Israeli school struggling to integrate immigrants.

“The 10 Jewish Oscar winners’ ranks were augmented by an array of Oscar presenters, including Kirk Douglas, Scarlett Johansson, Billy Crystal and Steven Spielberg,” JTA reported. And, said JTA, “co-host James Franco added another heimishe note by introducing his beaming Jewish mother and grandmother, both sitting in the audience.”

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.