Nate Bloom blogs on this week's Jews in the News.

Beetlejuice, Again; Winona and Walz; Maybe a Jewish faker?

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is a sequel to “Beetlejuice” (1988), a big hit fantasy/comedy/horror flick. Michael Keaton again plays Beetlejuice. WINONA RYDER, 52, who had a biggish role (as “Lydia Deetz”) in the 1988 film, is a star of this sequel (Opens in theaters on Sept. 6).  

The original film, a critical and box-office hit, was a huge step-up in Ryder’s career. Before Beetlejuice, she had just one film credit (a minor role).

Here are the two films capsule plots: The Maitlands, a young couple, are killed in an accident near their home. They realize they are now ghosts and a “ghost advisor” tells them to stay on at their old home and scare away new, living occupants.

The (living) Deetz family moves in and the Maitlands hire Beetlejuice, a “bio-exorcist”, to get the Deetzes out.  A lot of stuff happens, including Beetlejuice almost blackmailing Lydia into marrying him. At the film’s end, the Deetz and Maitland families are co-existing and Beetlejuice is stuck in a sort of supernatural jail.

In the new film, Lydia’s father suddenly dies. Lydia, accompanied by her rebellious teen daughter Astrid, returns to the family home. Astrid accidentally opens a ‘portal’ and Beetlejuice is released.

It’s no secret that Ryder was born Winona Horowitz. As I have noted before, her father was a secular Jew and her mother wasn’t Jewish. As an adult, Winona identifies as Jewish, but isn’t religious.

She took the last name “Ryder” almost on a whim. An agent asked if she wanted a stage name and she picked Ryder because her dad liked Mitch Ryder, an early ’60s rock star.

What about her unusual first name? She was born in Minnesota and lived there until she was ten. She was named after Winona County, her birthplace. Her family lived in a farmhouse, near the city of Winona (the County’s seat). I imagine almost everyone in Winona knows where the actress was born.

 

Winona County was formerly represented in Congress by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic V-P nominee. I stumbled on a very recent piece that said the city of Winona is a “Walz bastion” of Democrats in a “very red” area  

 No doubt, Ryder is proud of her “homeboy” and wishes Walz well. In 2020, she co-starred in “The Plot Against America”, an HBO series based on a PHILIP ROTH novel. The novel and series depict a Nazified America ruled by an anti-Semitic demagogue. Ryder played a Jewish woman.

In March, 2020, she spoke to “Variety” about the series. She said “Donald Trump’s administration has been a mind-boggling nightmare” and [I] took on the “Plot” series because it seemed “so incredibly timely”. She added: “Obviously a lot has been weighing on all of our minds. The whole fear of ‘the other’ in the eyes of fascism…When I think about this project [the HBO series], it makes me want to speak out and do whatever I can and the way to do that right now is to vote.”

Last week, a movie called “Reagan” opened. The movie script is based on the book “Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” by Paul Kengor, a very conservative political scientist.It’s a serious movie with a lot of name actors (Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Kevin Dillon, others)

ELYA BASKIN, 74, a Russian Jew who defected to the United Staes in 1976, has a small role in the film. He described it in a long article he wrote for Fox News. He wrote: My character, Kertchman, managed to escape the USSR and traveled around the U.S. giving speeches, trying to enlighten Americans about the real life in his home country and about the lies they had been fed by the Soviets with the assistance of easily manipulated westerners. Quite often, Kertchman was met with skepticism, but one who was not skeptical was a young preacher in the small town of Dixon, Illinois, named Ben Cleaver who invited him to speak at his church – the home church of a 17-year-old named Ronald Reagan. (emphasis added, above)

Curious, I looked up on “Ancestry” anyone with the unusual last name “Kertchman”. There is a Benjamin Emanuel Kertchman who shows up in all sort of US government documents (naturalization record, draft cards, etc.). It can’t be a coincidence that there is another “B. E. Kertchman”. Well, the Benjamin Emanuel I found was born in Russia. But he came to the States before the Russian (Communist) Revolution (Nov. 1917) and his WWI draft card says he was living in Chicago in Sept., 1917!! 

I have found a lot of other information about Kertchman that appears, to me, to be inconsistent with Baskin’s “short bio” of Kertchman, above. As I write this, the “Reagan” movie has just opened in theaters. I will watch the movie and, next week, I’ll tell you if the movie Kertchman isn't the real Kertchman.