‘Shalom’ From Mel Gibson and 8 Other Jewish Moments at the Golden Globes

Image by Getty Images

By Maia Efrem January 11, 2016

Last night’s Golden Globes was perhaps the Jewiest in recent memory and as the fashion police are out in full force today, we thought we’d do a roundup of the best Jewish moments of the night.

Here are our favorites, for better or for worse, moments in no particular order:

• Aziz Ansari stole the show with the funniest cutaway of a nominee of the night. Ansari, nominated for “Master of None,” came prepared to lose to last year’s winner Jeffrey Tambor with a book titled “How to Lose to Jeffrey Tambor With Dignity.” Unfortunately, Tambor did not win, but we wouldn’t mind getting a copy of the book for ourselves.

• While presenting the first award of the night Jonah Hill revealed that he is, in fact, the bear from “The Revenant.” Hill thanked his director Alejandro Iñárritu for taking a chance on a two-year-old bear from the Sierra Mountains. Leonardo DiCaprio, the bear’s arch nemesis, thought the gag was hilarious, especially the bit where Hill wore a green pin for honey awareness.

• Anytime these two ladies get together makes for comedic gold. Just when you thought you couldn’t love Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence more, they show up and win your heart all over again. Let the record show the Forward was the first news outlet to demand they co-host next year’s Golden Globes.

• Director Laszlo Nemes’s acceptance speech after winning the Best Foreign Motion Picture for “Son of Saul.”: “The Holocaust has become over the years an abstraction. For me, it’s more of a face we must not forget.”

• Rachel Bloom’s endearing acceptance speech and excited exit.

• It wouldn’t be a Ricky Gervais hosting gig without a “Schindler’s List” joke. “The Hollywood Foreign Press deemed The Martian a comedy and even nominated it,” Gervais quipped. “And hence, Matt Damon is here tonight. So that worked a treat, didn’t it? To be fair, The Martian was a lot funnier than Pixels. But then again, so was Schindler’s List.“

Harvey Weinstein approved.

• Aaron Sorkin’s win for Best Screenplay for “Steve Jobs.”

Aaron Sorkin, Best Screenplay – Motion Picture for “Steve Jobs”. Photo by @inezandvinoodh #goldenglobes

A photo posted by Golden Globes (@goldenglobes) on Jan 10, 2016 at 7:27pm PST

• Every word of Gervais’s introduction of Mel Gibson: “I’m in the awkward position of having to introduce him again. Listen, I’m sure it’s embarrassing for both of us. I blame NBC for this terrible situation. Mel blames…we know who Mel blames. Listen, I still feel a bit bad for it. Mel’s forgotten all about it apparently, that’s what drinking does. I want to say something nice about Mel before he comes out. So: I’d rather have a drink with him in his hotel room tonight than with Bill Cosby.”

• And just when Gibson thought it was over, Gervais ended the show with: “From myself and Mel Gibson, shalom.”

Congrats to #RickyGervais + #MelGibson for winning Most Awkward Moment at the #GoldenGlobes ? (Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal/@GettyImages)

A photo posted by Fuse TV (@fusetv) on Jan 10, 2016 at 7:23pm PST

Stay gloriously tipsy, Golden Globes, and see ya next year!

Maia Efrem is the former research editor and assistant to the editor and was also responsible for the Forward’s annual Salary Survey. Previously she served as the editor of Blognik Beat, a blog written by students who emigrated from or have ties to the Former Soviet Union. Maia is a graduate of Hunter College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO