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| Image: Paramount photographer "Whitey" Schafer's "Thou Shalt Not" (1940) |
“The Storm of ’34"
As Protestant clergy urged their congregations “to unite with Catholics in their campaign to raise the moral standards of pictures,” the Central Conference of American Rabbis called for cooperation “with other religious and civic bodies in bringing home to the picture producers their responsibility for taking immediate steps to elevate the standards of pictures.” American Jews had special reason to work shoulder to shoulder with Christian America. An antisemitism that was never too thinly veiled lay behind at least some of the attacks on Hollywood as the Sodom on the Pacific. Largely ruled and disproportionately populated by American Jews, the motion picture industry was a conspicuous national stage for a people whose every historical instinct counseled against conspicuous displays. Perhaps noting the significant omission of the “Judeo” from the possessive “our Christian civilization” in Cardinal Dougherty’s pastoral letter, Rabbi Sidney E. Goldstein of the Central Conference of American Rabbis averred that Jews should be more concerned than other religious groups in making sure movies were wholesome, “for if the screen is not kept clean, the disgrace will fall on the shoulders of the Jews.”
Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934 (p. 322)
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