Accidental Talmudist, “When Do We Eat?” & Sal-Mon with Salvador Litvak

On this episode of Taste Buds with Deb, host Debra Eckerling speaks with filmmaker, Accidental Talmudist and longtime “Jewish Journal” contributor Salvador Litvak. Litvak’s Passover classic, “When Do We Eat?” stars Max Greenfield, Ben Feldman, Shiri Appleby, Lesley Ann Warren, Michael Lerner, and Jack Klugman. Litvak directed the film that he co-wrote with his wife and partner, Nina Davidovich Litvak. 

 

The Litvaks’ second movie was “Saving Lincoln.” Their new film “Guns & Moses” is out this summer. 

 

“The perennial fifth question of the Passover Seder is, ‘When do we eat?’” Litvak, who is also the author of “Let My People Laugh: Greatest Jewish Jokes of All Time,”  says. “There's all these holiday movies… but there was no Passover movie.” 

 

When the Litvaks made “When Do We Eat?” they were connected to Judaism, but not yet Orthodox. 

 

“The movie's probably a little bit edgier than we would make it today,” Litvak says. “One of the main plot points is that one of the kids doses his dad with a strong hallucinogen at the Passover seder, but also the movie contains wonderful spiritual teachings.”

 

He adds, “[Our dream: that] it would become the Jewish, ‘It's a Wonderful Life,’ the movie that people watch every year.”

 

Salvador Litvak shares the backstories behind “When Do We Eat?” and his new Jewish joke book. the connections between Judaism and food, and his recipe for Sal-mon, which you can get at JewishJournal.com/podcasts. He also talks about creating The Accidental Talmudist, how that community embraced his Passover classic film aka “My Big Fat Jewish Seder.” 

 

“My mom always used to say there's two kinds of people: those who get into conversations in the checkout line at the supermarket and those who don't,” Litvak says. “We are [the first] kind.”

 

Learn more at SalvadorLitvak.com, AccidentalTalmudist.org, and GunsandMosesMovie.com. Check out Salvador’s new book, “Let My People Laugh: Greatest Jewish Jokes of All Time.”

 

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