Best of (Getrude) Berg

Jewish TV show succeeded in an anti-Semitic age.

September 18, 2009

Aaron Leibel
Washington Jewish Week

Question: What other TV shows have been “Jewish” or had “Jewish” characters?

The book is titled “Something on My Own, Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929-1956” by Glenn D. Smith Jr. (Syracuse University Press). In this 225-page hardcover, Mr. Smith examines Gertrude Berg, a remarkable figure in American life during the last century.

A pioneer in radio and later in television, Ms. Berg successfully portrayed “Molly Goldberg” in both media. Molly was a Jewish character in an age of widespread anti-Semitism in the United States.

Moreover, in a patriarchal era, Ms. Berg wrote, directed, produced and starred in her own show, generally demanding and getting complete control over the program.

She also stood up for her co-star Philip Loeb, who was under attack in the 1950s by proponents of Sen. Joe McCarthy, even though her actions helped to end her TV career.

Ms. Berg’s fascinating life began in New York City, where she was born Tillie Edelstein in 1899. Her childhood was rocked by the death of her older brother, Charles, at the age of 7, a loss her mother never got over. Her father was always chasing “the perfect job or the next ‘get rich quick’ scheme,” Mr. Smith writes.

As a result, the imaginary Goldberg’s became “Tillie’s picture of the ideal Jewish family.”

She made her show business debut in 1928 in a Yiddish radio commercial despite not knowing that language. (A coach helped her memorize her lines.) Using a language she didn’t know to break into radio was only one of the paradoxes of Ms. Berg’s life.

She became Gertrude Berg in 1928, “a pseudonym possibly used to make here sound a little more sophisticated and intelligent than ‘Tillie’ made her feel,” the author writes.

She could not cook, but that didn’t stop her from writing “The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook.” Her own family was not Jewishly observant, far from the image of Jewishness in her portrayal of Molly Goldberg.

And while the character Molly was simple and down to earth, Ms. Berg lived an upper-middle-class lifestyle, and, according to her daughter, Harriet Schwartz, “loved beautiful things.”

Her radio show, which began in 1929 and ran for 15 years, purposely went against the negative image of Jews prevalent at the time as crude, dishonest people who couldn’t cope in America, the author notes.

He quotes a 1935 interview with Radio Mirror magazine in which Ms. Berg complained about “an awful lot of rot” being written about Jews. On her program, she wanted “to show them [Jews] as they really are—as I, a young Jewish girl, knew them.”

Ms. Berg’s fight to help her co-star, Mr. Loeb, in his fight against being blacklisted and to get her show back on television is the most interesting part of the book.

After battling Jewish TV executives who shied away from her show because it was “too Jewish,” she got on TV in 1949. In 1950, Mr. Loeb was blacklisted, cited as one of 151 entertainers who were members of “Communist or Communist-front organizations.” (Ms. Loeb’s problem was that he was “a loud, passionate, and driven union activist,” according to Mr. Smith.)

Told to get rid of him by her sponsor, Ms. Berg refused, and her show eventually was canceled. She finally succumbed to the pressure and agreed to put on the series without him, but it was too late.

Being off the air for a year had hurt the program, as had the advent of many competitive TV situation comedies, including “Our Miss Brooks,” “I Love Lucy,” “I Married Joan” and “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.”

In addition, corporate America decided that its shows, like its products, should be more American and less ethnic.

Ms. Berg’s series struggled on NBC for a short time, then on the Dumont Network and finally in syndication—but it went off the air for good in 1956.

Ms. Berg then acted on the stage for the next 10 years, dying in 1966.

Ms. Berg’s legacy is as “a prolific force in broadcasting,” Mr. Smith writes. During her time on radio, Ms. Berg used her show “to attack the various social problems affecting her listeners. The Great Depression, the persecution of the European Jews and the Second World War provided the backdrop for many of the show’s plotlines ... .”

The show had many Jewish listeners, but also appealed to non-Jews from various backgrounds, “all intrigued by the ‘plain simple woman’ whose voice became as recognizable and welcomed as their own mother’s.”

In an age when anti-Semitism was the norm, that is an amazing accomplishment.