11 Jewish Facts About the Addams Family Movies

[Hrvatski Noahid]

https://www.kveller.com/11-jewish-facts-about-the-addams-family-movies/

They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and… Jewish?

Well, not quite. But between Morticia Addam’s Yiddish pet name for her husband, Gomez Addams, and to the very Jewish writer (Paul Rudnick) behind the movies’ scripts, it’s safe to say that the Addams family is, at least, Jew-ish.

Hulu keeps adding to its vast trove of movies, and — huzzah! — The Addams Family and its sequel, Addams Family Values, are available to stream now. Notably, these hit movies (from 1991 and 1993, respectively) are not based on the ‘60s sitcom, but on the TV series’ original source material: the drawings of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams.

In honor of the iconic movies’ arrival to your TV or home computer, we searched far and wide to gather all the Jewish facts from The Addams Family movies.

1. Family matriarch Morticia Addams, played by Anjelica Huston, endearingly calls her husband Gomez (played by Raul Julia), “bubeleh.” It’s a sweet Yiddish term that translates, in this context, as “darling” or “sweetheart.”

2. Jewish director Barry Sonnenfeld — best known for Men In Black — made his directorial debut with The Addams Family. In the sequel, Sonnenfeld makes a cameo!

3. While filming a scene for The Addams Family — when Gomez discovers his wife Morticia tied up, bondage style — legend has it that Julia kept flubbing his line, which was in Spanish. So Sonnenfeld told the actor to take it from the top “for the Hebrew version.” According to Rolling Stone, Julia asked, “How do you say ‘leather straps and red-hot pokers’ in Hebrew?” When Sonnenfeld confessed that he didn’t know, Julia asked about Yiddish. “Leather straps and red hot pokers? Oy vey iz mir!” Sonnenfeld replied, sending the whole set laughing.

4. In Addams Family Values, everyone’s favorite spooky teenager Wednesday Addams and her brother, Pugsley, are sent to a sleepaway camp. But not just any camp — a Jewish summer camp! While not explicitly mentioned in the movie, Camp Chippewa is a real camp in Wisconsin that’s popular among upper-class, Jewish households.

5. Marc Shaiman, one of the producers and composers of The Addams Family music, is Jewish — and his cultural background clearly inspired his work on the film. There’s “Family Plotz,” a beautiful instrumental song that accompanies Gomez as he reminisces about his long lost brother, Fester. When Fester returns to his family after a mysterious 25-year disappearance, Gomez celebrates by dancing to “Mamushka,” a traditional Addams family celebratory dance that is remarkably hora-like.

6. In Addam’s Family Values, Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) marries the gold digging nanny Debbie Jelinksy (Joan Cusack). As Wednesday, the flower girl, walks down the aisle, a spooky rendition of “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof is played on the piano.

7. Scott Rudin, the producer of both Addams Family movies, is Jewish. “I was a Jewish kid from Long Island who didn’t want to be a Jewish kid from Long Island,” Rudin said.

8. Wednesday’s love interest in Addams Family Values is Jewish (and is played by Jewish actor David Krumholtz). Portrayed as a stereotypical Jewish teen, Glicker wears glasses, is allergic to everything, and has a neurotic mother. The pair meet at summer camp, and share one kiss under the pretense that they’d never see each other again. In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, Rudnick said that Glicker “was a reflection of Barry, Scott Rudin, and myself, because we’re all nice Jewish boys.”

9. Actually, the Addams Family was filled with Jewish contributors. The late Judith Malina, who played Grandmama Addams in The Addams Family, is a Jewish German immigrant, and Dan Hadaya, who played Tully Alford, the evil lawyer who plotted to steal the Addams’ fortune, was born to a Sephardic Jewish family.

10. Legendary Jewish talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael — AKA Sally Lowenthal —had a cameo in The Addams Family. She played herself on her talk show, Sally Jessy Raphael, and did a bit about “Voodoo Witch Doctors in the United States.”

11. When The Addams Family sitcom aired in the ‘60s, it was seen as subtle commentary on racism in the United States. While audiences were growing to love the quirky and spooky Addams family, Jews and black Americans were moving into previously all-gentile and all-white neighborhoods. The TV show represented the social issue that “monsters” were invading white territories. Likewise, The Addams Family and Addams Family Values addressed the same issues, inviting viewers to accept the monsters for their loving personalities, despite their different appearance. Welcoming the stranger — clearly that’s a Jewish and an Addams Family value!

[Israel Chai]

I hate how horror movies try to act like they're commenting on major social issues and saving the world. And how all the witch and demon ones are just reverse Catholic nonsense. Best thing I've seen in the genre recently was the show "what we do in the shadows", which took such a massive awesome crap on all horror movies I couldn't stop laughing.

[Hrvatski Noahid]

I hate how horror movies try to act like they're commenting on major social issues and saving the world. And how all the witch and demon ones are just reverse Catholic nonsense. Best thing I've seen in the genre recently was the show "what we do in the shadows", which took such a massive awesome crap on all horror movies I couldn't stop laughing.

I agree that social issues have no place in horror. Horror is about fear. Nothing more and nothing less.

The best horror movie I ever saw was Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria. I saw it twice. It shook the very essence of my being.

[Israel Chai]

I agree that social issues have no place in horror. Horror is about fear. Nothing more and nothing less.

The best horror movie I ever saw was Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria. I saw it twice. It shook the very essence of my being.

Fear is not something I ascribe to. At 11 or 12, I had a dream where I got sucked by something to a cabin, a witch came out and punched me in the face till I died. I was really annoyed because everything was black in what felt like literally forever, and I created a rage to break out. After that, I would be paralyzed in my sleep, except for my eyes, and this rotten hag would choke me till I almost died, worse and worse every night. I asked a friend at school and he showed me lots of real articles about it, and said his sister died from the same thing. He said I needed to find a way to move any part of me. I spent the next whole day thinking about how much that enraged me, and built the rage over and over and didn't let it out. Well a few times I couldn't hold it, but I got really good at keeping it in and building it. I went to sleep at 7 pm so I'd have energy, and when it came, I managed to move a toe, then a finger, and I broke free of it, threw it to the ground, ripped its eye ball out, and skull raped it until my step dad walked in the room. The world was also like a different world, sort of darker and dimly lit, and it became this world again when he walked in. I asked Rabbi Mizrachi about it, and he said it was a malach that you create from sexual immodesty, which makes sense because I was an unbelievably messed up kid. I waited for it for three months, staying up late every night. Not because I was scared, I just wanted to rape it again, which I didn't tell the Rabbi but also backs his point up.

The dark things of the lower three worlds don't scare me. I killed one as a kid. I just want to know about them more so I can use them as I please. Haven't seen anything like that since, but since then I can feel what others do to an extreme extent. The most obvious is when girls want to have sex, the whole room vibrates and I hear a ringing. Fear smells like sugar too.

[Israel Chai]

I do get a good laugh off their corny jump "scares" and ugly little faces though. I especially like little demon girls with their evil little eyes. And when they make the ugly monster faces have teeth like those deep sea fish.

[Israel Chai]

Actually my primary interest in the genre is tactical. The Romans once upon a time had great weapons and armor, and the Germanic tribes didn't. They did have people dressed as bears, and when they would pop out behind the line and growl, the Romans would go eek, and for a second the Germans could cut their throats. Then naked people with tattoos that scare people would run out, and the Romans would go eek and same deal. Then freeky deeky German women would shriek, the Romans would go eek, the Germans would go ya, and they could do it again. Then they had people with axes with super dark paint and scary demon-looking face paint, they would pop out of the woods, and again eek for the Romans. Also the Briton tribes would throw heads at people with acid on them, which hurts and makes eek. Fear is an extremely interesting weapon, but now that you can't jump out as a bear in front of a jet or tank, I'm very interested in the psychology behind fear, it's extremely useful in my personal fights. I like to imagine it used in modern combat, and would love to have a whole funded research project on demoralizing armies with fear through modern technology.

[Israel Chai]

For instance, there was a scene in one show where a girl was listening into a convo between her dad and a doctor secretly, and her demon possessed uncle pops up next to her. This was an effective jump scare, despite the corniness of the show, because she thought she was in control, and was surprised that the tables were turned. The same is true of the evil little demon girl, you see a little girl and you want to help and protect her, and when it turns out that she's a demon thing, that is turned on your head. It's interesting that the same secret to this type of fear is surprise, which is the same secret to humor, and perhaps psychological conditionning to find fear funny is how I am generally fearless in such situations, and this can be developed as a counter-measure to psycological attacks.

That isn't the only type though. Original zombie movies, the zombies were slow. You could be fine when fighting them, but when you take a second to relax, the uncertainty permeates the air, and it becomes a pervasive fear where every sound and no sound creates a fear that utterly ruins mental peace. Even a minor threat that can easily be defeated, when you don't know when and from where it's coming makes it feel like its everywhere, and that destroys peace of mind. Such a thing could be achieved with constant drone harassment.

There are certain things that cause fear as well just by seeing them. That's a list, and I believe that the use of holograms in warfare could lead to extremely interesting results. If I get paid for this somehow I'll write a paper on my findings.