Jews in Westerns

[roga]

I don't like "help, I'm writing a paper!" posts so I kind of hate to be making one, but... help, I'm writing a paper?

This semester I took a university course about westerns, and completely fell in love with the genre. My final project is to write a paper about any western I want to. So I was going to go for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,

Comments

[bethbethbeth]

The setting is probably further west than most people think of when they consider westerns (*g*), but there was an episode of the 1960's t.v. series Here Come the Brides (set in Seattle in the 1870's) called "A Jew Named Sullivan." The episode not only had Jewish characters, but actually dealt pretty seriously (for sixties television) with the issue of anti-Semitism.

[roga]

That sounds fascinating - I'll try to look it up, even though I'm focusing on films rather than TV. (And hey, I've seen westerns set in Oregon - Washington isn't much of a stretch!)

[llennhoff]

[Geek mode on]
Trying to push this thing to its limits, the Star Trek/Here Comes the Bride crossover novel Ishmael, by Barbara Hambly has some Jewish aspects. One of the main characters, Aaraon Stemple, is implied to be Jewish. The book is otherwise notable for showing that Spock is descended from characters played by the actor Mark Lenard on both sides. ML played Sarek in TOS, and Aaron Stemple in HCTB. Aaron is shown to be the ancestor of Amanda Grayson in the course of Ishmael.
[/Geek mode]

[roga]

That is (a) cool to know, and (b) pretty much lost on me, sadly - I never got into Star Trek.

[bethbethbeth]

Hee! I was hoping somebody was going to bring this up...

*loved Mark Lenard*

[dafnagreer]

Indeed not! We're very West. Fun fact: Washington state is actually *younger* than modern-day Zionism.

[mamadeb]

I saw that one. Twenty years ago.

The character was played by Daniel J. Trevanti from Hill Street Blues and by great good luck, the ONLY Jewish woman among the brides brought from Providence and he hit it off.

And she even went to mivkeh. (Sort of, anyway. I think it was a barrel, but it was implied that it was a ritual bath. If I remember correctly.)

[bethbethbeth]

*nods* She was "keeping company" with Joshua first, but she wouldn't marry him because of the not-Jewish thing.

But then Joshua found another Jew to marry when he met David Starsky, so...oh, wait...wrong timeline. :)

[mamadeb]

My mom was convinced, blond hair notwithstanding, that David Soul was also Jewish.

But she thinks that about every good-looking guy. I'm not even joking. I love my mom.