Jewface

In the 19th century, "Jewface" was a vaudeville act that became popular among Eastern European Jews who immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. The name plays off the term "blackface," and the act featured performers enacting Jewish stereotypes, wearing large putty noses, long beards, and tattered clothing, and speaking with thick Yiddish accent. Early portrayals were done by non-Jews, but Jews soon began to produce their own "Jewface" acts. By the early 20th century, almost all the "Jewface" actors, managers, agents, and audience members were Jewish. "Jewface" featured Jewish dialect music, written by Tin Pan Alley songwriters. These vaudeville acts were controversial at the time. In 1909 a prominent Reform rabbi said that comedy like this was "the cause of greater prejudice against the Jews as a class than all other causes combined," and that same year the Central Conference of American Rabbis denounced this type of comedy. ==Casting==

Culture and religion Jewish American comedienne and actress Sarah Silverman has vocally criticized "Jewface", focusing on what she described as a pattern of gentiles playing Jewish characters whose Jewishness "is their whole being". Jewish creatives and entertainers from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have voiced differing opinions on whether intrinsically Jewish characters should be played by Jewish actors. Time magazine Ethnicity Jews as a race or ethnoreligious group In 2009, the majority of Jewish Americans "found it extremely difficult to position themselves on the racial binary […] in which White is located on one side and "persons of color" on the other", but, by 2020, the majority identified "as racially white". In both studies, the majority also identified as Ashkenazi. Time noted that the supposed white privilege experienced by white Jews in the United States means it is more difficult to label inauthentic Jewish casting as "racism or cultural appropriation", going on to quote Jewish film scholar Helen Meyers in saying "Jewish literacy rather than Jewish identity is what matters". Saval noted that with a rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the United States, the media perception of Jews as an ethnic group needed to be given better treatment. Discrepancy in responses Several Jewish creatives have framed the debate on authentic casting as not being about who can play Jewish, but about the lack of attention inauthentic castings receive; Silverman questioned why, "[i]n a time when the importance of representation is seen as so essential and so front and centre, [Jewishness] constantly [gets] breached even today in the thick of it?" Time wrote that non-Jewish actresses, in particular, may be accepted in playing Jewish characters if their performance is deemed more authentic by Jewish audiences, saying that the prominent examples fall on a scale between Jones' outcry-drawing performance as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sennott's welcomed performance. ==See also==