It was supposed to be a secular night. A Hollywood premiere and drinks at the Chateau Marmont felt safely removed from Jewish purview, and I even felt relief at not having to ‘talk Jewish’ for an evening.
But Hollywood, as we’ve heard stigmatized many times, teems with Jews, so it’s hard to escape the fact that premiere parties could make minyans, and that being Jewish in Hollywood is like a racial stamp, impossible to avoid.
The search for Jews-who-run-Hollywood during an evening that included the second-season premiere of “The Riches” at the Pacific Design Center on Mar. 16, evinced a disturbing reality: an anti-Semitic Hitler admirer wanted to talk about the Jews more than a Hollywood Jew wanted to talk about his Jewishness.
That Jew is Jason Weinberg, manager and power player, oft reputed to be the best in the business. He’s known for his A-list client roster which includes Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan and Madonna. Hilary Swank thanked him during her Oscar acceptance speech—even though she forgot to mention her (then) husband.
For Weinberg, the premiere after-party was business as usual. He sat close to client Minnie Driver, the evening’s star, coaching her through the whirlwind of attention, the lavished praise, the putrid politics.
“I love the Jews,” Weinberg said. But he shied away from my request for an interview.
He approached our table, interrupting our gorging on french fries and caesar salad to bring champagne.
Herz, it turned out, was visiting Los Angeles from Austria, born in the same region—he proudly noted—as Adolf Eichmann and Adolf Hitler.“Uncle Adolf, I used to call him,” Herz said about Hitler. “Eichmann was an a—hole, but Hitler was a nice man.”
