Paramount Pictures<\/a>. “‘The Hollywood Rabbi’ is a dynamic portrait of a singular figure whose influence spans continents and decades, and we’re honored to bring this story to audiences.”<\/p>\nThe 88-minute documentary features an extensive roster of political and entertainment figures who agreed to interviews because of their connections to Hier. Among them are former President Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billy Crystal, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and social media personality Montana Tucker.<\/p>\n
Promotional materials for the premiere note that Hier’s career has brought him into the orbit of three popes, four kings, eight presidents and a long list of Hollywood figures, including Frank Sinatra, who counted Hier as his personal rabbi. Hier’s two Oscars were awarded for the documentaries “Genocide” and “The Long Way Home.”<\/p>\n
Kean, whose previous films include “Swimming in Auschwitz” and “After Auschwitz,” said the access he received was a direct result of Hier’s reputation rather than his own.<\/p>\n
“These folks didn’t talk to me because I’m me,” Kean said. “They agreed to interviews out of their respect and affection for Rabbi Hier. At one point, I’m sitting a few feet away from Bill Clinton wondering why is this guy listening and responding to me so intently?”<\/p>\n
Kean said Schwarzenegger pranked him repeatedly during filming, that he found Sarandos to be “a real revelation” and that Newsom displayed “some of that Clinton charm.” He also interviewed Mohamed Alabbar, the developer behind Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.<\/p>\n
Production began in September 2023, with roughly 20 days of interviews followed by a week of filming at the Museum of Tolerance. Celebrity interviews were conducted between January and September 2024. Kean said the film was completed through seven distinct cuts before being delivered to Paramount in December 2025, on a budget of $650,000 to $700,000.<\/p>\n
While the documentary leans on Hier’s humor and what Kean described as his “Forrest Gump-like life,” the director said it also confronts difficult subject matter, including the 1992 Los Angeles riots, racial tensions in the city, accounts from Holocaust survivors and the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
Kean said making the film prompted him to reconsider warnings he had heard for years from Holocaust survivors who told him a genocide could happen again, even in the United States.<\/p>\n
“I always played along but felt they were being influenced by their past traumas and not the present realities,” he said. “I think now that I was wrong and they were right. Complacency is real.”<\/p>\n
Kean said he had previously focused on antisemitism originating from the far right while overlooking what he described as antisemitism from the far left. He added that being Jewish in the United States has become “inexorably interconnected with current events in Israel and its government’s choices,” a dynamic he called unique among American minority groups.<\/p>\n
“There are no easy solutions and no easy ways to teach Holocaust remembrance now,” Kean said, noting that the world is approaching a post-survivor era. He said educators must draw connections between the lessons of the Holocaust and contemporary traumas, and must operate from “a common set of truths.”<\/p>\n
Kean cited a recent comment from a local Holocaust survivor \u2014 “never again is for all people” \u2014 as encapsulating the film’s message and Hier’s lifelong advocacy.<\/p>\n
“Tolerance is the only path,” Kean said. “If we want to leave a flourishing world for our future generations, we have got to stop killing each other and talk to each other instead.”<\/p>\n
The documentary is produced by Brad Krevoy, Susie Krevoy and Kean. The premiere will include a tribute to Hier featuring introductions by Schwarzenegger, Elon Gold, Tucker and California state Sen. Ben Allen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic Pictures has acquired “The Hollywood Rabbi,” a feature-length documentary directed by a Santa Monica resident chronicling the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":790855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-790854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116561133547943539","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}