How Jews shaped the Western – and how the Western shaped Jews

How Jews shaped the Western – and how the Western shaped Jews

When you think about Jewish contributions to the world of entertainment, your mind probably immediately goes to comedies, sci-fi and musicals. But there’s another genre rich with Jewish history: Westerns. In Chai Noon: Jews and the Cinematic Wild West, scholar Jonathan Friedmann examines Jewish figures and themes in Western film and television, dating all the way back to Hollywood’s first feature-length film. The Squaw Man, released in 1914, was…

Never before have more Western films and series been produced. That may be because the world is all Texas these days.