Director Salvador Litvak brought “Guns & Moses” to a Jewish film festival in Atlanta earlier this year, and an audience member gave him an earful.
The film follows Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein), who becomes proficient in using firearms after a gunman targets his synagogue.
‘Now, in the Jewish community, the term “survivor” has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel].’
“I don’t have a question. I have a statement. … This is not what we need. This is not how we fight — with guns. We fight with a pen,” Litvak recalls the woman telling him during a post-screening Q&A.
“Ma’am, I 100% agree with you. Articles, editorials, speeches. We need to be doing that the best that we can to fight anti-Semitism and to build alliances with our friends and supporters,” Litvak told her.
“But when a bad guy enters a synagogue intent on killing people, then you need a guy like me and a guy like Rabbi Mo … to stand between you and that would-be murderer,” he continued.
Protect and serve
Litvak, an Orthodox Jew, is part of Magen Am, a volunteer security organization that trains Jews to protect their communities.
“The crowd applaude. … You could see it was so difficult for her,” the “Saving Lincoln” filmmaker said about the exchange.
Pictures from the Fringe/Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
“Guns & Moses” — co-starring Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney, and Christopher Lloyd — offers a timely look at Jews fighting back via the Second Amendment. Litvak, who co-wrote the film with wife Nina Litvak, wrapped production before the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Jewish community already understood all too well the threats against it. Post-October 7, the film’s sobering message hits harder.
‘Good and meaningful’
Litvak says he decided to make a thriller as his next feature back in 2019. He began watching a classic thriller every day to study the best of the best. Then he read about a California synagogue shooting that killed member Lori Gilbert-Kaye.
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein survived the assault but lost two fingers in the melee. Litvak later interviewed the rabbi.
Goldstein had asked people to make something “good and meaningful” from the tragedy, the director recalls.
“I was very moved by that,” he said, and “Guns & Moses” was born.
Fear of faith
The director assembled a sturdy cast, including veteran thesp Lloyd, who plays a Holocaust survivor. Litvak landed on the “Back to the Future” alum — who hired a dialect coach to get his Eastern European accent just right — after being rejected by a series of “very big names of a certain age.”
“This older Hollywood [community] is very afraid of faith. … It’s like a peanut allergy for them,” said Litvak, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust.
He faced more roadblocks while sharing the rough cut around Hollywood. He recalls screening the footage for a “big agent” who predicted the film would clean up on streaming platforms.
Litvak gently told him he saw the title as a theatrical release, adding that the film’s audience will be not just Jewish patrons but Christians and conservatives.
“What are you talking about? Those people hate Jews,” he recalls the agent saying.
“My jaw was on the floor. … Have you ever met the people you fly over? Obviously, you don’t know them. I know they support the Jewish people. I don’t think this is news.”
Shattering stereotypes
The exchange stuck with Litvak.
“This guy is so out of touch. Hollywood in general is so out of touch with half of America,” he said.
He hopes “Guns & Moses,” which opens in cinemas today, shows the power of self-defense in uncertain times. He also wants the movie to shatter Jewish stereotypes.
“It’s a faith-based movie. It’s an action thriller, which isn’t a typical genre within the faith-based [genre]. It’s about an orthodox rabbi who takes his faith seriously. … It’s not about a nebbishy or neurotic Jew,’ he said.
“[Judaism] is a beautiful tradition that has so much to share. It’s very important to us to smash those stereotypes.”
“Guns & Moses” takes firearm training seriously. It’s not a matter of showing the hero knocking over a few tin cans in a slick montage.
“In the real world — God forbid you’re ever under pressure and in danger and you have to draw a firearm and use it — to hit the bad guy and not hit innocent people … takes not just skill but muscle memory,” he said.
‘Never again,’ again
The film’s subject matter meant Litvak’s team had to work around the Hollywood system, not benefit from it.
“We knew that no studio was going to make this movie,” he said. What he couldn’t foresee was a massacre on the scale that Hamas committed two years ago.
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Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“We always thought [the topic] would be relevant. … Now, in the Jewish community, the term ‘survivor’ has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel],” he says.
That, plus the “overt” anti-Semitism on college campuses nationwide, rocked him.
“It was at least considered inappropriate or impolite to call for the death of Jews on national TV,” he said. “Democrats will not walk back support for ‘globalize the intifada,'” he added, alluding to New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.
“We’re living in such times,” he said. “‘Never again’ means we have to take responsibility for our safety.”
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