I Heart Adam Goldberg

At the risk of sounding like a fangirl, a couple plot holes from the Hebrew Hammer persist in perplexing me.

A.) Adam Goldberg has tattoos. Is it supposed to make him cooler? Isn't it sorta weird that someone who's Shomer Shabbat would be all tatted up? Like Prof. Cohen said, his outfit sorta incorporates garb from various denominations; maybe this was a shoutout to the Jews from Heeb. I'm guessing in reality it just would've cost too much to try to cover them up.

B.) The sex scene. I think Lisa was alluding to this when she made that comment about Esther. I really found it odd at first 'cause like.....again, they're all Shomer Shabbat and she's rockin' the long skirts and it sorta seemed out of place. I kinda think Kesselman ignored that part in order to achieve his greater goal of establishing a Jewish sex symbol. Or he just wanted to get Adam Goldberg in bed (who can blame him).

C.) Speaking of Adam Goldberg, this isn't really a plot hole, but the fact that he isn't Jewish (he made the conscious decision to stop going to Hebrew school when he was 12 since his mom isn't a Jew and he doesn't consider himself one...um, it was on the "daily show") but is constantly typecaste as THE JEW says a lot about stereotypes. Even I think he seems "really Jewish." It's interesting that on one hand, Kesselman is making this movie to break Jewish stereotypes, but on the other hand, in order to find someone "Jewish" enough to play the most badass of Jews, he had to find a gentile. Looks-wise, he didn't really break any new boundaries.

On the other hand, maybe part of what he's saying is that you don't have to completely break away from Jewish culture (or even all the Jewish stereotypes that go with it). Like the whining thing or the Jewish-looking thing. He's creating a new space to be sexy instead of saying that Jews can "live up to" the White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant ideal.