John Turturro, a gentile actor who has played Jewish roles, received a Pomegranate Award recognizing Lifetime Achievement on June 2 at the opening ceremony the New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival.
In “Quiz Show” Turturro nailed the anxiety of Herb Stempel, the game show contestant who blew the whistle on the “Twenty-One” cheating scandal. He’s played Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, and he presented a magnetic and persuasive Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf, who supported Charles Lindbergh’s pro-Nazi candidacy in the HBO series “The Plot Against America” based on the Philip Roth novel” and professional poker player Joey Knish in “Rounders.”
Turturro, who is masterful in dramatic roles as well as comedic ones, showed his humor.
“Thank you very much for this Pomegranate Award,” Turturro told the crowd at The Center for Jewish History. “I know that a pomegranate is high in dietary fiber, folic acid, Vitamin C and Vitamin K so it’s a healthy award. My wifeCatherine is Ashkenazi. She’s someone jealous that I’ve been chosen as an honorary …”
His craft has been informed by the city where he lives, he said.
“As an actor and sometimes director, I’ve had the great pleasure to investigate many other different cultures,” Turturro said. “Having grown up in New York, it’s a big part of my DNA.” He added that he enjoys “telling stories that are not“pre-packaged” and make people think.
Also receiving a Pomegranate Award was French director Alexandre Arcady, who is Jewish. His film “The Little Blond as The Casbah” is being screened on June 3. Speaking through a translator, Arcady told the crowd he was moved the see the exhibit of the Nova massacre now on view in downtown Manhattan, then “three hours later, the Israel Day Parade … To see the children, the crowds, with the flags was very exceptional walking down Fifth Avenue.”
The director said that while he was inspired in New York, he was troubled by the situation back home.
“In France, we have removed mezzuzot from our houses,” he said, adding that some have removed kippot, which he described as “a very disturbing situation.”
Many of his films tell the Sephardic Jewish story, be it Israeli characters or members of the mafia.
Stella Levi, who was given the Pomegranite Award for “preservation and celebration of Sephardic Culture, is 101. She took the stage and read a prepared speech, speaking clearly and with conviction.
She thanked her son for calling her every Friday and wishing her “Shabbat Shalom” despite not being religious.
But in the eyes of mainstream American Jews, she said, she was considered an exotic person.
“In fact, when we arrived at Auschwitz, the other prisoners shunned us for not knowing Yiddish,” Levi told the crowd. “It was French, the language that saved us because the French women in the camp spoke both Yiddish and French, translated German for us.”
She helped a number of Jewish cultural institutions around the world and said humanity must be placed above everything else. She cited the “Adon Olam” prayer “Adonai Li V’Lo Ira” or “the Lord Is With Me And I have No Fear.”
Asked how she had the strength to give such a speech to a big crowd, she told the Journal: “This is what I do.”
The program also included a performance by French Algerian singer Enrico Macias, who is Jewish ( his real name is Gaston Ghrenassia). The 85-year-old wowed the crowd with a clear and strong voice and guitar playing. He delighted the crowd with the song “Ose Shalom.”
David Dangoor, president of the American Sephardi Federation said truth and education is important.
“One of the biggest problems for Jews today in the world is the world doesn’t know Jewish history,” he told the crowd. “I mean if you look at all the modern theories that exist-colonizers, occupiers … I don’t think there’s any race or any people that have been on the receiving end of the viciousness of the world and what the world can provide in terms of evilness than the Jewish people, and it continues and it’s difficult to understand why it’s never rectified itself.
“I don’t think there’s any race or any people that have been on the receiving end of the viciousness of the world and what the world can provide in terms of evilness than the Jewish people, and it continues and it’s difficult to understand why it’s never rectified itself.” – David Dangoor
“A very big part of the Jewish world, they don’t know about Sephardic Jews-they don’t understand them, they don’t know them, I almost sounded like Jackie Mason,” Dangoor said.
He joked that the difference between an Ashkenazi rabbi and a Sephardic rabbi is the former tells what is prohibited and the latter tells what is permitted.
Dangoor told The Journal that while these are difficult times the world over, “it was important to have an uplifting and positive event that reminds us of the good things we bring into the world.’”
To see the schedule, go to americansephardi.org.