A Jew From East Jesus is a satirical, irreverent “remake” of Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, in a spirit similar to Broadway’s current hit The 39 Steps and Christopher Durang’s A History of the American Film.

The year is 1936. Like Longfellow Deeds on whom he is based, Louis Shvoois from East Jesus, Long Island has just inherited twenty million dollars and has come to New York to claim his fortune.

Uh oh.

Louis is about to get mixed up in the rough and tumble of Manhattan society, the high and the low, the sublime and the ridiculous, the reactionary and the revolutionary.

There is only one thing a man with a strong social conscience can do with twenty million big ones: give it away.
There is only one thing his wealthy white shoe lawyer can do: steal it away before he can.
There is only one thing the beautiful lady reporter who befriends him can do: get the story and fall in love.

Put them together and you’ve got a classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood with a serious cultural kink.

An homage to Frank Capra, A Jew From East Jesus is a “remake” of Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes To Town from an irreverent Jewish point of view. A love story set against a background of social protest, it tells the tale of a nice Jewish boy from the sticks who only wants to do the right thing, get the girl and maybe start a revolution.

A Jew From East Jesus reveals the Jewish cultural identity at the heart of the outpouring of American genius that was the Golden Age of Hollywood