Jewish film characters have existed almost as long as the medium itself But around 1990 films about Jews and their representation in cinema multiplied and took on new forms marking a significant departure from the past With a fresh generation of Jewish filmmakers writers and actors at work contemporary cinemas have been depicting a multiplicity of new variants including tough Jews brutish Jews gay and lesbian Jews Jewish cowboys skinheads and superheroes and even Jews in space The New Jew in Film is grounded in the study of over three hundred films from Hollywood and beyond Nathan Abrams explores these new and changing depictions of Jews Jewishness and Judaism providing a wider more representative picture of this transformation In this compelling surprising and provocative book chapters explore masculinity femininity passivity agency and religion in addition to a departure into new territory including bathrooms and food Abrams s concern is to reveal how the representation of the Jew is used to convey confidence or anxieties about Jewish identity and history as well as questions of racial sexual and gender politics In doing so he provides a welcome overview of important Jewish films produced globally over the past twenty years