Michael Lucas, born Andrei Treivas Bregman, is a 36-year old graduate of the Moscow State Law Academy. But rather than pursue a career as a barrister, he journeyed first to Germany and then the United States, and somewhere along the way discovered his true calling — gay porn. As an actor, director, and producer, he built his own company in Manhattan, Lucas Entertainment, which has grown into the largest gay porn company in New York, as well as one of the most prestigious, garnering numerous GayVN and Adult Erotic Gay Video ("Grabby") Awards.
Interviewing Lucas recently, Jamie Kirchick discovered what Lucas loves even more
than pornography — Zionism:
Like many Russian Jews who were forced to repress their identity under Soviet rule, Lucas's Jewish heritage is the anchor of his worldview. He visits Israel annually. Not long after touching down there last month, he penned a manifesto on his website titled, "I stand with Israel, I stand with Jews." Shortly after the Lebanon war in 2006, he put on a live sex performance in a Tel Aviv nightclub where IDF members were given free admission ("in the tradition of American USO-style shows," as a Lucas press release described it).
"He's so deeply invested in, and in love with, his roots and his people," says Heather Fink, a former publicist for Lucas who is writing a memoir about her experience working for him.
Lucas is also not afraid to turn fire on his own side, excoriating Republicans as "homophobic and anti-Semitic," and ultra-Orthodox Israelis as "anal warts on the body of Israeli society." The latter remark comes from a July 2007 New York Blade column on what he calls "the Hassidic scourge," of which he warns that "if somebody doesn’t stop the vermin from breeding full-time, there’s no telling what could happen in the future."
But it's a toss-up whether the majority of his contempt is reserved for peacenik liberals, particularly gay liberals, who don't recognize the threat of Islamic extremism for what it is, or Islam itself. When gay artist Charles Merrill burned a $60,000 edition of the Koran that had once belonged to the King of Jordan, Lucas opined:
The Koran is today’s "Mein Kampf." By the way, "Kampf" and "jihad" are, respectively, the German and Arabic words for "struggle." If enough Germans had burned Hitler’s book before the Nazis overpowered Germany, perhaps the Germans wouldn’t have wound up having to rebuild their entire country over the ashes of countless millions of dead. So I salute Charles Merrill for his artistic and social bravery in burning a Koran.
The rest of Kirchick's profile is here, including a deadpan look at what passes for mundane office work in a porn studio.