Dostoevsky Was an Antisemite. I Still Think You Should Read Him
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Natalie Portman plays a Jewish housewife turned reporter in segregated 1960’s Baltimore who investigates the mysterious deaths of a Jewish girl and a black woman.
“Lady in the Lake”, a new Apple TV+ series created by Alma Har’el and based on Laura Lippman’s bestselling 2019 novel, features the fictional character Maddie Schwartz (played by Academy Award-winner Natalie Portman), a Jewish housewife turned reporter in segregated 1960’s Baltimore, who investigates the mysterious deaths of an 11-year-old Jewish girl, Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle) and 33-year-old Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram), a young Black mom, struggling to provide for her family.
Lippman, a former journalist herself, brought these characters to life in her book, after being inspired to write about two real-life Baltimore deaths in 1969. An 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl named Esther Lebowitz was sexually molested, beaten and murdered. Lippman had first heard about her case when she was growing up.
That same year, an electrical crew who had been sent out to repair faulty fountain lights discovered the decomposing body of 35-year-old Shirley Parker, a Black woman who had vanished five weeks earlier. To this day, her death is an unsolved mystery.
According to The Baltimore Sun, a rabbi gave Lebowitz and two other children a ride home from school. He dropped her off at a drugstore not far from her home so that she could buy school supplies — but was never seen alive again.
When Lebowitz was first reported missing, both Jewish and non-Jewish neighborhood residents banded together to form search parties for her.
“Somehow this event, as heinous as it was, for one brief moment really pulled the city together,” Lebowitz’s cousin, Abba Poliakoff, told The Forward in 2014. “Everybody was caught up in the tragedy, not just the Jewish community.”
When Lebowitz’s body was found, her neighborhood was shocked and devastated. She was covered in gravel and blue paint; police were able to determine that the sandy substance was used in fish tanks and traced it to a tropical fish store owned by 23-year-old Wayne S. Young and his mom, The Baltimore Sun reported.
During police questioning, Young confessed to killing her.
Nearly 1,500 people came to her funeral, and the Jewish community later went to Young’s trial for her murder — and continued to do so at his court hearings through the years.
Moses Ingram and Natalie Portman
It’s no wonder then, why Har’el was intrigued with the idea of bringing this multi-layered mystery novel to life.
“The murder of Esther Lebowitz changed the Jewish community forever,” she told Aish.com. “There were a lot of public records and articles about her murder as well as about the unsolved murder of Shirley Parker – may they both rest in peace.”
For viewers who have read the book, you might be surprised by how different the television series is.
“The reason I wanted to make so many changes to the book was that I found it important to explore the life of Cleo Johnson and not just her death,” said Har’el. “It would have been easier to make a whole show that focused on Maddie, but the lives of these two murder victims called for more. Shirley Parker's body was found on top of a fountain at Druid Hill Park, and to this day, no one has solved this murder; there are threads online of many speculations.”
While Har’el characters are completely fictional and have a different story, Har’el did spend a long time reading about the two deaths and visiting the locations in Baltimore.
“My goal was to make sure we were respectful of the painful past and to be informed by it.”
The biggest challenge Har’el faced was to turn Lippman’s book into a two-hander and build Cleo's world. “Writing characters like Slappy Dark Johnson played by Byron Bowers, Reggie played by Josiah Cross and Dora who is played by Jennifer Mogbock and bring them to life in a way that feels organic and thematic with the characters in the book.”
It is the disappearance of Tessie Durst who kicks off the series.
Alma Har’el
“Like all of our characters, Tessie has a dream,” noted Har’el. “She wants a seahorse, to have this marvelous creature she’s read about. The series opens with her going to a Thanksgiving parade with her parents, where she discovers she’s not going to get a gift from Santa, a heartbreaking realization for a lot of Jewish kids. She decides to take matters into her own hands and goes into a tropical fish store looking for a seahorse, by herself.”
Born and raised in Tel Aviv, Har’el came to America at 30 years old. Her awareness of Baltimore came from watching “The Wire,” but once reading Lippman’s books, she felt a strong connection to the area.
Har’el loved the experience of working with Portman; the two talked at length about the complex Jewish issues.
“It was a very deep experience, and we got to explore the duality of being oppressed and persecuted while also being in a position to oppress others or be tone-deaf to their struggles,” Har’el noted.
“The true gift of it was to direct in Hebrew for the first time. I never got to direct in Hebrew in the U.S. and Natalie and I spoke in Hebrew on set. There's a nuance to things when I can speak in Hebrew that I can't get to in any other language. I'll cherish it forever.”
The series delves into the fascinating intersectional relationship between Blacks and Jews. “It's interesting how these two communities worked together towards some of the same goals and yet were driven so far apart by the realities of this country,” acknowledged Har’el.
“The search for economic stability as immigrants and the drive to create a life for yourself that ended up in assimilation for many is one of the roots of antisemitism to this day. It is seen as a betrayal of the civil rights movement, but the truth is much more complex and ugly.”
As she developed the tense noir thriller, Har’el pondered what kinds of insights viewers might take away after watching.
“Every viewer might take something else that's aligned with their own experience and beliefs. Our show is a room full of mirrors. To be honest, I was inspired by these two women, and in many ways, this is a love letter to both communities, even though we focus on the context that drove them apart.”
As an immigrant herself, Har’el has witnessed many waves of antisemitism in the U.S.
“It was interesting to look at the economic disparity and financial illiteracy that cause many people to associate assimilation with antisemitic tropes. At the end of the day, survival informs the life of the crabs in the barrel.”
I am not a fan of Natalie Portman either, but the 2 episodes of the mini series are quite compelling. I actually plan to read the book. The stories of this little girl and young women should be shouted from the roof tops!