The Nebbisher Rebbe
American Apparel founder Dov Charney is notorious for ads featuring scantily clad young women modeling his company’s clothes while striking provocative poses. Now, it appears, he’s found religion — or at least he’s found the appropriate rebbe: Woody Allen.
The trendy T-shirt purveyor recently put up a billboard at the busy corner of Houston and Allen Streets on New York’s Lower East Side featuring a massive image of the neurotic filmmaker dressed as a Hasid from his masterpiece “Annie Hall.” Beside the picture, written in Yiddish, are the words, “der heyliker rebe” — “the holy rebbe.”
Responding to an inquiry from the Forward, Alex Spunt of American Apparel explained: “Woody Allen is our spiritual leader.”
Editor’s Note: For an updated version of this article, please click here.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Dive In
-
Israel News Watch: What happens next with Israel’s judicial overhaul?
-
Israel News ‘A very, very dangerous situation’: An Israeli journalist’s key takeaways from recent protests
-
Israel News Fresh water could be in extremely short supply in Israel in just a few decades, study says
-
Israel News Jerusalem twin bombings: Deadly innovation stirs old traumas
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
- 3
Opinion Stephen Miller’s cavalier cruelty misses the whole point of Passover
- 4
Film & TV How Marlene Dietrich saved me — or maybe my twin sister — and helped inspire me to become a lifelong activist
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump administration can deport Mahmoud Khalil for undermining U.S. foreign policy on antisemitism, judge rules
-
Opinion This Passover, let’s retire the word ‘Zionist’ once and for all
-
Opinion Passover teaches us why Jews should stand with Mahmoud Khalil
-
Culture At a seder by and for trans Jews, guests define liberation for themselves
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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.