The "Jews" in Cinema Omer Bartov From cinema's beginnings, the film image of the "Jew" has closely followed the fortunes and misfortunes of Jews. Analyzing more than 70 films made in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, East and West Germany, France, Italy, The United States, and Israel from 1920 to the 1990s, noted historian Omer Bartov argues that depictions of the "Jew" in film have been fed by, or have reacted to, certain stereotypical depictions of Jews arising from age-old prejudices. These images, in turn, both reflected public attitudes and helped to shape them. Bartov points to Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ as a recent example of this ongoing phenomenon. Bartov's trenchant discussions of individual films reveal the ways in which powerful images have remained deeply embedded in the creative imagination, even as the circumstances that originally engendered them have undergone profound changes. Through its coverage of a range of traditions and periods, The "Jew" in Cinema provides original and provocative interpretations that often contradict conventional views. Placing cinematic representations of the "Jew" within their historical contexts, Bartov also demonstrates the powerful political, social, and cultural impact of these images on popular attitudes. Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University. His many books include Hitler's Army, Murders in Our Midst, Mirrors of Destruction and Germany's War and the Holocaust.