Sometimes, when you’re deciding whether to see a movie, the title tells you all you need to know, and that’s never been truer than with Guns & Moses, the story of a gunslinging rabbi in California, which had its Israeli premiere on Tuesday night at the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.
The movie will be shown in several more screenings around Israel over the next week (on February 25 at Einstein Ir Yamim in Netanya, February 26 at the Community Center in Gush Etzion, February 28 at the Tel Aviv International Synagogue, and March 1 at Aish HaTorah in Jerusalem). It has just become available to screen here on Apple TV+, and in the US, it’s available on Amazon.
Salvador Litvak, who directed the film and co-wrote it with his wife, Nina, attended the Jerusalem premiere and spoke about the film in remarks that mixed Jewish jokes, Talmudic references, and serious political comments, which is just what you would expect from a man behind the The Accidental Talmudist podcast.
The movie mixes different aspects of Jewish life that are close to Litvak’s heart to tell the story of Rabbi Moses “Mo” Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein), who is running a congregation in a small desert town in California out of a storefront in a strip mall. He has the support of his loving family, but he is struggling to make something out of his synagogue, and doubts himself. “I believe in God. In myself, not so much,” he says.
But after a shocking act of violence breaks out at the opening of a community event that takes the life of his friend, and more violence follows, he learns that while he puts his faith in God, it’s on him to take charge of his community’s security. This leads him to try to solve the murders and to take personal responsibility for protecting those around him, by learning to use firearms, along with his wife, Hindy (Alona Tal).
Fans of Feuerstein remember his quietly intense presence in such series as The West Wing and Royal Pains, and in the films Defiance and What Women Want, and will enjoy his performance as a rabbi-turned-hero here. Feuerstein is joined in the film by an excellent supporting cast that includes Christopher Lloyd of Taxi and the Back to the Future series, who gives a show-stopping performance as a Holocaust survivor; Neal McDonough ( The Last Rodeo, Yellowstone), who plays the local mayor and a friend to the Jewish community; Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Chicago Fire), as a Jewish industrialist devoted to creating clean energy; Craig Sheffer (A River Runs Through It), as the industrialist’s right-hand man; and Jackson A. Dunn (Brightburn and Avengers: Endgame), as a young neo-Nazi.
The story is a brooding, character-driven mystery with comic moments, and when it starts out, it seems as if the crime can be solved by tracking down the neo-Nazi, who has been harassing the congregants. But then it turns into something more wide-ranging, as the trail Rabbi Mo uncovers leads to eco-terrorism and Chinatown-style corruption. There are even moments that reference Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, one of Litvak’s inspirations.
For many Jewish audiences who have made the film into a cult hit in the US, where it had a limited release this summer, much of the charm will come from seeing an ultra-Orthodox American rabbi taking up arms to protect his family and friends. They root for him when he is in tough spots, laugh and exult with him when it turns out he is stronger than he ever imagined.
The Jerusalem audience on Tuesday was extremely enthusiastic, cheering, laughing, and applauding throughout the film, especially when Rabbi Mo and Hindy fought back.
In an introduction to the film for the Begin Center, Ilana Brown, who is in charge of external relations for the center, said she got the idea for the showing Guns & Moses there because there is a scene where a character says, “When your enemy tells you that he wants you did, believe him,” and she recognized it as a paraphrase of one of Menachem Begin’s most famous quotes.
Litvak, who said he hadn’t realized it was a Begin quote when he wrote the screenplay, opened with a joke as he spoke to the audience before the screening, but then became emotional, saying, “Welcome to the hottest show in town… It is an honor and a joy to share our film with you here in Israel, where we’re all family. Thank you, Hashem, that we’re here.”
Creating a Jewish mystery thriller in ‘our world’
The grandson of Holocaust survivors who was born in Chile and moved to the US as a child, Litvak grew up mostly secular and reconnected to his Judaism later in life, starting The Accidental Talmudist podcast. Trained as a lawyer, he studied film and made When Do We Eat?, the Passover comedy that has become a cult classic and was Jack Klugman’s last film, as well as Saving Lincoln, a historical drama.
Speaking about how he had decided to make the film, he said, “My wife, Nina, and I set out to make a Jewish mystery thriller in a world that Hollywood never depicts on film – our world. We’re religious Jews, which is to say visible Jews in America. And being visible has made us aware for a long time that the danger to Jews everywhere is real.”
The movie was made before the October 7 massacre by Hamas in 2023, but it was released afterwards, in a climate of rising antisemitism, he said. “Nina and I knew that a story about Jews under attack who fight back would always be relevant. But we never imagined a horror like October 7,” he said.
The question came up about his feelings about Jews defending themselves with firearms. “In 2018, I joined Magen Am, a volunteer Jewish security organization created by Chabad Rabbi Yossi Eilfort. We train extensively, we’re licensed, we carry firearms in shul, and our qualification tests are more rigorous than the FBI’s.”
But he was clear that firearms are not for everyone. “I don’t think every Jew needs a .45… It takes a tremendous amount of training and commitment to be able to use a gun effectively. So if you’re going to get one, you have to get trained, and you have to keep training, because it’s a perishable skill… But we do need a lot of people to take on that responsibility. Because if you rely on the police, the police don’t get there in time. If you rely on other people, who knows if they’ll be there or not? So we need security in our communities.”
It was not easy in the post October 7 United States to get the film to audiences. “A mystery thriller with this level of production value and this level of cast would normally receive 100 to 200 reviews from the mainstream press. Guns & Moses received 11. A movie like this normally opens on 500 to 800 screens in its initial run. We opened on 77.”
He said he felt that if the film depicted “Jews dying in the Holocaust, we would not be facing these challenges. Had we depicted Jews who married non-Jews, we’d be winning awards. But we made a movie about strong, proud Jews who stand their ground.”
Asked how he convinced the non-Jewish actors to appear in the movie, Litvak said, “Let me tell you something – it was much easier to get non-Jews to act in the movie than Jews. The Jews in Hollywood are often part of that same stereotypical, godless thing. They’re very willing to play dead Jews in the Holocaust, or shticky Jews – Larry David-type comedy, Woody Allen. And I love those guys, they’re funny, it’s great. But don’t we need some other images of Jews in movies?”
He said he had especially fond memories of working with Lloyd, who had one of his most dramatic roles ever as a Holocaust survivor who tells his story to the young neo-Nazi. “Everybody loves Christopher Lloyd. It was a really fun day on set with him. Everyone thinks Back to the Future, everybody loves Chris. He was very generous with his time and so sweet. It was great to work with him.”
Litvak said that the message of the movie was, “We have a lot to contribute, we love peace, we love simcha, and we love Torah. But if you mess with us, we’re not a soft target.”
Asked whether there will be a sequel, Litvak said, “We’d love to make a sequel. We’ve got a detective – there are more crimes he can solve. But the movie’s got to succeed, so tell your friends to watch this movie.”