One of the funniest movies ever....But few realize how anti-semitic much of the humor is.

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2006)

This is one of the greatest comedies of all time. I laugh so hard every time I see it (at least a dozen) that it really does seem that my sides might split! I won't add to the well earned praise heaped upon the film. Nor will I analyze it in the minute detail that other reviewers have done so well.
But, people always seem amazed when I point out the fact that Bialystock & Bloom are characters straight out of a Nazi propaganda movie. One is a sniveling, somewhat effeminate nerd and the other a loudmouthed pushy sleazebag who would cause anyone who shook hands with him to count their fingers. All ethnic groups have their charlatans,swindlers, and even rich old lady seducers. But an anti-semite would tell you that only Jews would be so cravenly amoral as to profit from their own people's misery. And Bialystock gives the impression that he would pull the old lady routine on his own mother. They don Nazi armbands, and sing old beer hall songs with their arms around the author of "Springtime for Hitler", all the while assuring him that they only want to show the world what a kind and gentle man Hitler was!?!
This is exactly what a Nazi would tell you is wrong with Jews. Some of the more academically inclined anti-semites of the past even expressed a degree of sympathy for this behavior. You see, not having a nation state, the poor Jews couldn't help being liars and cheats oblivious to everything but survival and making a buck. Nothing, not even their own people's suffering; much less abstract notions of honor and human decency; could be allowed to get in the way. Mel Brooks (himself a Jew) seems to understand this and makes it an important component of this riotously funny, yet extremely dark comedy.
Please understand that this writer is NOT anti-semitic. In fact, I'm a member of the "Tribe". The wry, cynical, iconoclastic sense of humor that has become a part of Jewish culture is also one of the causes of the disproportionately high involvement of Jews in progressive and humanistic endeavors. It has allowed them to see beyond the blind loyalties and literalism that often retard social progress. Not to mention getting them through more than three thousand years of conquest and persecution.
I guess I'm just surprised at how few have this perspective.