Jew Trek

... when all of the Vulcans were Jews (Remember Celia Glovsky as T'Pau?)

And I don't know how Jewish I'd say Next Generation was. Having a therapist on board makes them Jewish? OK, we're generally neurotic, but since when do we own the copyright on mental illness?

In any case, I certainly wouldn't say Darmok (starring Paul Winfield as the alien Captain) represented the best of TNG. The entire premise was shaky. How, for example, could an alien species with almost no vocabulary develop technology so sophisticated that their force fields were enough to confound Data and Geordi? In fact, how could the universal translator even function with them, as they didn't really possess a "language", per se, but communicated using mythological concepts? The entire episode was filled with such inconsistencies.

"Much as the ethos he once represented are too caught out
of time." Dude, "ethos" is singular. It is not the plural of "etho," if that's what you were thinking.

I agree that Spock in the movie is callow compared to the character in the television series, but the same is true of James Kirk. Surely that is part of the design of the movie: to show the original characters before they were what they became by the time of the events of the television series.

I agree in part with your analysis, but not entirely.  Judaism has no quarrel with science, and the original Trek was Science Fiction.  This movie is mere Fantasy, having entirely abandon any interest in this world.  I consider this movie to be Star Wars with Trek characters... sort of.

Saying Next Gen is Jewish is like saying Christianity is Jewish.  The statement is neither true nor false, it's a question of what you mean.  Both are moral, this movie is not.

On the other hand, you can argue that this movie is MORE Jewish.  Arguably, the destruction of Vulcan was supposed to be the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 and 140 AD.  The Romulans have always been the Romans.  We are the Jews after 2000 years of exile, not the Jews who followed Bar Kochbar rebellion.

Here's my review:

http://readerswritings.blogspot.com/2009/05/star-trek-movie-star-trek-xi...

For fun the whole family can enjoy, play "Jew, crypto-Jew, Nerd" with the photos from the Star Trek LA premiere . Scan the photos for celebs flashing the obligatory Vulcan salute and then try to guess whether the celeb is a Jew, crypto-Jew, or nerd. [The last category isn't exclusive.]

Hint: Simon Pegg is a nerd.

I thought these Vulcans were ridiculously Jewish, and in fact I have no idea how I'd relate to Spock if I weren't. The most obvious was Spock in front of the Vulcan beit din having them tell him how good/learned he was, given his background. That has happened to me so many times, but I've never had the nerve to say anything, especially not to rabbis; I just roll over and agree. The Vulcan people going into galut was another Jewish moment, surely.

I can't believe this didn't mention that Captain Kirk (well, William Shatner) is a Jew, too. My agent sees him at temple on the high holidays.

Spock wasn't just a Jew.  He was the ship cohen.  Like, when he said "Live long and prosper," he'd often raise hand(s) with the fingers split two-by-two.  Whenever he'd do that I'd think, well Mazel tov to you, too.

ah, I remember Darmok and Ghilard at Tanagra (or something to that effect) good times...

Ship Cohen? Is that like the Starship Shapiro?

Saudi Arabia will ban Star Trek thanks to this thread.

I thought the Vulcans were crazy-Jewish. The parallels were off the charts.

And Chris Pine (who plays Captain Kirk) is Jewish on his mom's side.

At least vulcans are cool! this movie was so awesome!

Nice article.  I, too, wonder if the Jewishness of Trek will get lost in the re-boot.  Nimoy brought a certain Yiddish feel to the role that Quinto lacks.  And there is nothing of Kirk's Jewishness in Pine's portrayal.  Still, there is one possible glaring parallel in the new movie:  The genocideal destruction of Vulcan.  Six Billion Vulcans, Six Million Jews... is this mere coincidence?  Aftr all, J.J. Abrams is Jewish...  On my site, http://www.TrekJews.com, I have written an in-depth analysis of this theme, which you can read at: http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/VulcanHolocaust.html

I am also the author of a new book, "Jewish Themes in Star Trek," available in hardcover, softcover or download --  more info on the TrekJews website.   (The book was written before the new movie, so it deals with the old universe.)  And, BTW, this article is now added to the TrekJews link launcher.  Live long and prosper!

Not a single role was a WASP.  Two Jews, two Irishmen, an African, an Ornamental, a Russian....  The only WASPs were the expendable ones -- you know, the Away Team who get vaporized by force fields, stuck in the transporter, zapped by Romulans, etc., usually towards the beginning, to dramatize the peril of the Enterprise or Earth or the Federation or the Known Universe, which in turn is saved, as usual, by the Jews.

 Gee, lbjack, you seemed to have dropped your tricorder because the ethnic scanner function is way out of calibration. Among the primary characters in the original Star Trek, there were no Jews and no Irish. As there were also no flamingos or lawn jockeys on the bridge, I'll assume you meant "Oriental." 

I'll run down the ethnic backgrounds of the primaries from the original series, starting with the simplest. Uhura, Scott, and Chekhov were African [Bantu?], Scottish, and Russian, respectively. Given the origins of his mixed name, Hikaru Sulu was of Japanese-Filipino background [imagine that lack of ethnic tension in the 23rd century!]. Spock —the subject of much of our speculation— was half Vulcan-half human. For the record, Spock's mother's surname, Grayson certainly looks WASPy. Dr. McCoy was from the American South. The name McCoy is common among Scottish, Irish, and Manx, and prob'ly represents the large Scots-Irish component in the southeastern US. As for Kirk, the most we definitely know of his ethnicity is that he's an all-American boy from Iowa. While the name Kirk commonly derives from the Scots English word for "church," given the ethnic make-up of Iowa, it could also be a partial anglicization of a German or Norwegian surname Kirche or Kirke  —kinda like Schattner into Shatner.

In addition to the seven primaries, regularly appearing crew members included Nurse Chapel [American of French or Anglo-Norman background?], Yeoman Rand [American? unknown background], and various lieutenants with assorted names. As for the "expendables," they're generally known as "redshirts." Among redshirt losses in the original series were O'Herlihy, Rizzo, and Kaplan [!], hardly WASP names.

Otoh, if you were referring to the background of the actors playing the primary roles, yes there were two Jews, Nimoy —born in Boston— and Shatner —born a Montrealer yid. James Doohan was also Canadian. The remainder of the primaries were gentiles born in the US, including George Takei.

So, does anyone want to take on how the regulation Star Fleet sideburns from the original series are like starter peyos?

כֹּל הַכָּבוֹד R. Yonassan, for the linkage of your site in the entry for Judaism at Memory Alpha.

 I tried to put this at the end of my last comment to "Jew Trek," but it keeps getting bounced.

It's amazing how people who seem on one level to be so smart can be so, so stupid.

Why do I say that? Because it seems anyone can turn something into a pained social analysis, but when it comes to doing just a sliver of research to get relevant factual information, they're at a loss.

That's where I come in. As people pointed out above, William Shatner is of course Jewish. Not hard to find out. Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov, was Jewish as well.

In the new version, Anton Yelchin, who plays Chekhov, is Jewish. As one person stated above, Chris Pine (Kirk) is also of Jewish ancestry - but he only has one Jewish grandparent, his maternal grandfather, so it doesn't mean much to this discussion.

What does mean much, however, is everything else - this writer's whole tortured piece is about how Nimoy was the only Jew (yawn, wrong) in the cast and just "how Jewish" he seemed and how that will now be lost (wrong; and just who makes the definition of "Jewish"? I'm not referring to rules within Judaism on that issue, which are relevant, but rather to this incredibly offensive New York social notion that some [white] people "seem Jewish" and others don't).

BTW, while the writer was correct that Zachary Quinto (new Spock) isn't Jewish, the frightening thing is what led to that conclusion. An optimist would believe that he looked up his background (Italian and Irish), but I don't think so. I think he just "knew".

Here's a social analysis for you, and it's only one sentence long - I fully, completely believe that if people simply looked up relevant information in reliable sources, instead of treating their assumptions as facts, this world would be a better place a billion times over.

Koenig’s a yid? How’d I miss that one!? I was using using both the Wikipedia and Memory Alpha entries for my research —Stormfront’s useless, nearly everyone of note is Jewish according to that waste of bandwidth— and Wikipedia plainly lists Koenig as an MOT. The part about his folks being immigrants from Lithuania is very familiar.

I attribute my oversight to I was having lots of problems with the spam filter on that post. My initial lengthy post was rejected, and I had to pare it down considerably then add paragraphs one-by-one. I may have lost information in the process. Note the posting date for “Not a single role was a WASP!?” is after the posting date for my comment to R. Yonassan. No, it wasn’t some temporal anomaly caused by FTL travel.

That being said, the primary point of my post is still valid: three of the seven primaries in the original series were likely WASPs —it’s difficult to be conclusive, because these characters’ church and country club memberships were never detailed in the original series. [I'm using WASP sensu lato, so all you insular Anglo-Saxon exceptionalists and pan-Celtic nationalists can save your comments. Wotthehell are you reading Jewcy, anyway?] Also, many of the red-shirted disrupter fodder had rather unWASPy names.

So, if the actor playing Spock in the new movie isn't Jewish, but the actress who plays his mother is, is the new Spock Jewish? Halakhically inquiring minds want to know.

Scott and McCoy were of course Scots, not Irish (though both Doohan and Kelly were).  If you count Kirk, that's three.  My bad.  But despite Q's pedantic points, mine stands:  of course not a single major role was WASP.  A Vulcan is not a WASP, an Afro is not a WASP, a "Russian" is not a WASP, an Ornamental is not a WASP, three Scots are as close to WASPs as there are.  (Spock was Kirk's, if not the crew's rabbi.  He certainly annoyed McCoy.  Was "You Vulcans" tantamount to "You Jews"?)  WASPs weren't featured not because of bias -- Roddenberry was certainly a WASP -- but because theatrically they are boring, which is why they tended to be disposable walk-ons.

Gorbesto, I don't think there's anything to be alarming about "just knowing" someone is Jewish in this context, that is, theatrical.  Example:  Nancy Walker wasn't Jewish but played Rhoda's "Jewish mother" like a fiddle.  We just "knew" she was Jewish.  The point isn't so much who was or wasn't "really" Jewish, but how they were played.  (I realize that some would characterize Shatner as more asshole than Jew, but that's another issue.)  Maybe putting a Yiddish theatre spin on the series is a bit of a conceit, but it's a harmless one, don't you think?

Gee whiz, lbjack, do you actually read the comments you respond to? By read I mean actually comprehending the text, not just running your eyes over it like Madonna and the Kabbalah. [“Madonna with the Zohar” —that’d be a good phrase for Darmok.]

Scott —we're talking about the character— was the only Scot among TOS primaries. McCoy was from an “Old American” family in the South, and Kirk was of some northern European extraction. Their religious backgrounds were never made explicit in the series, that was Roddenberry’s preference. It’s probable —I'm using the statistical sense— that all three were Protestant. WASP is understood by most academics and lay people to include Americans of northern European heritage [White Anglo-Saxon] and Protestant confession [altho’ old money, establishment Catholics are often included]. By this definition, McCoy and Kirk and likely WASPs. WASP is sometimes expanded in other English-speaking countries to include their “white Anglo-Saxon Protestants” in contradistinction to non-whites, non-northern European foreigners, and non-Protestants: this expanded definition would also include Chief Engineer Scott. 

Since some of our web browsers appear to only scroll forward, let me indulge in a bit of pedantry and quote myself:

 That being said, the primary point of my post is still valid: three of the  seven primaries in the original series were likely WASPs —it’s difficult to  be conclusive, because these characters’ church and country club  memberships were never detailed in the original series. [I'm using WASP sensu lato, so all you insular Anglo-Saxon exceptionalists and  pan-Celtic nationalists can save your comments. Wotthehell are you  reading Jewcy, anyway?] Also, many of the red-shirted disrupter fodder had rather unWASPy names.  

DeForest Kelley and James Doohan —we're talking about the actors now— would be considered WASPs. William Shatner would not. While Doohan's family immigrated from northern Ireland and Kelley may be of Irish background, neither were citizens of Ireland. Doohan was born in Vancouver, BC, and Kelley in Toccoa, Georgia [the state, not the country]. This may seem a minor point, but citizenship and political loyalty have been an issue for Jews historically, and continue to be raised as an issue [if you think not, read the comments about Rahm Emmanuel in the conservative blogosphere]. A little more precision distinguishing ancestry and citizenship would be helpful, even outside a Jewish context.

Btw, “Ornamental” is only cute in the context of Asian trophy wives/girlfriends.... I take that back, it’s not cute anywhere.

“Yiddish theater spin”!? The Star Trek franchise certainly has legitimate connections to Yiddish theater, as Jeff Eyges alluded. But, lbjack, writing about Jews and drama is not writing about Yiddish theater.

McCoy’s use of “You Vulcans...” is no more evidence of a Jewish-Vulcan parallel than it is evidence to an parallel between Vulcans and any other group. The formula “You blanks...” is not an invective aim exclusively at Jews, e.g., “You negroes...” or “You Mexicans...” could have been used to cite a parallel between blacks or hispanics.

Roddenberry’s apparent WASPiness doesn’t preclude a bias against representing WASPs on TV. Who says Jews can have the only self-hating ethnicity? Of course, since McCoy and Kirk were most likely WASPs, it seems Gene had no problem with portraying WASPs within an ethnically nationally, and galactically integrated crew. But I guess I should think about WASPs being boring. That could explain why nobody has ever tried to perform The Great Gatsby on stage or screen.

I think that was part of my point - "just knowing" who is Jewish is and always has been an annoying concept that's based almost exclusively on stereotype, and on keeping that stereotype alive and well, even if the facts don't support it. In 2009, it's especially ridiculous. Certainly if a character is portrayed as religiously practicing, or mentions something like their Bar Mitzvah or Hebrew school - or even - but not really anymore - if they use Yiddish occasionally - that's a real sign that they're Jewish. But most of the time, "just knowing" amounts to thinking any Jason Biggs character is Jewish (and Biggs himself is, of course, not Jewish).

Doohan would not be considered a WASP because he was Catholic, so that knocks off the "P". As for DeForest Kelley. Yes, he had an unquestionably Irish last name. But he came from a Southern Protestant background (his father was even a minister). Did he have some Irish ancestry? Possibly. But under any definition, Kelley would be classified as a WASP; and I'm not getting into his character, but Bones always "felt" Jewish to me. :-)

You caught me there, Gorbesto. I wasn’t thinking: I was so focused on that Shatner is not a WASP that I lumped Doohan in with Kelley. After a little digging, I learned that Doohan's parents were Catholic refugees from “the Troubles.” [Imagine a sectarian version of Star Trek: “The Troubles With Tribbles.” Mebbe a Crying Game pastiche wherein a crewman is in turmoil because fell in love with a tribble and can’t tell what sex it is?] So Gorbesto, should I go back and edit the error out of my earlier posting? ; )

DeForest Kelley may have had Irish or Scottish ancestry, but I'm basing that on the name and his family’s long residence in the South where such heritage is common. I s’pose the answer may be found in his biography.... I always felt that much of Dr. McCoy’s character was derived from Kelley’s background, e.g., Southern, wanted to be a physician like his uncle. Given Kelley’s previous associations with Roddenberry, this is a distinct possibility. McCoy’s “simple country doctor” shtik never seemed particularly Jewish to me. If you want a sci-fi doctor that feels Jewish, go with Zoidberg.