Sal Litvak’s ‘Guns & Moses’ Offers a Spirited (if Inexact) Love Letter to Chabad
by Moshe New and Tzali Reicher – chabad.org
Antisemitism has surged in the wake of the brutal Palestinian terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023, with Jews and Jewish communities around the world facing unprecedented vitriol. It’s against this backdrop that filmmaker Salvador Litvak’s “Guns & Moses” has debuted—a film that grapples with antisemitism and Jewish empowerment in ways both authentic and unexpected.
The film follows the fictional Rabbi Moshe “Mo” Zaltzman, who is clearly—if inexactly—modeled after a Chabad emissary, as his peaceful California High Desert community faces what initially appears to be an antisemitic attack during a synagogue gala. When prominent donor Alan Rosner is killed in a shooting, the rabbi embarks on a quest to find the murderer.
The 90-minute runtime packs considerable punch. Zaltzman transforms from peaceful clergyman to Sherlock Holmes to marksman with seemingly natural expertise. The film moves at breakneck speed through multiple plot threads and characters, and the production values impress. High-caliber actors bring gravitas to their performances, while the cinematography and musical score effectively blend Western and Jewish motifs.
The production itself broke Hollywood norms that tend to run against Jewish practice. Filming occurred Sunday through Thursday for Shabbat observance, and kosher meals were provided for the entire cast and crew.
For Litvak and his wife and partner, Nina, the film is a love letter to Chabad.
“We just try to communicate our happiness and gratefulness for the amazing journey,” Litvak tells Chabad.org. “All our rabbis and teachers have been Chabad, and when we were thinking of telling this story, in a turbulent time for the Jewish people, we knew a Chabad rabbi had to be our hero.”
Every frame of “Guns & Moses” reflects real affection for Chassidic life, from the rabbi’s patient counseling to his family’s supportive dynamics to the community’s rallying around Jewish values such as compassion and prayer during the crisis.
While the violent resolution may not align with Chabad’s actual approach—and the film doesn’t have much in the way of authentic Torah teachings and wisdom, while the protagonist is less of a Torah teacher than earnest and compassionate community builder—the film’s heart beats with genuine appreciation for a movement that has touched millions of lives through kindness, learning, and unwavering commitment to Jewish continuity.
It was this commitment to Jewish tradition that inspired Litvak over 20 years ago.
Becoming A “Talmudist”
When Litvak walked into a California Judaica store in 2005, he had no intention of becoming a voice for authentic Jewish cinema. The Harvard Law graduate and former Skadden Arps attorney was simply tired of being intimidated by those oversized Talmud volumes he’d long admired from a distance.
Up until that point, Judaism had been dry to him, irrelevant to daily life. Born in Chile to Holocaust survivors and raised in New City, N.Y., he was a searcher who had spent the previous two decades exploring various forms of meditation and spiritual practices, looking for meaning everywhere except, as he puts it, “my own backyard.”
In 2005, at the age of 32, Litvak found himself at his grandmother’s deathbed. Her husband had been murdered by the Germans at the Dachau concentration camp during the Holocaust, and in the trying times that followed she’d heroically shepherded Litvak’s young mother through the Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt. She never remarried after the war, certain that she would one day be reunited with her martyred husband in the World to Come. As she breathed her last, Litvak experienced a moment when he saw their souls come together at the moment of her passing.
“It was so otherworldly that it’s very difficult to explain,” he remembers. “I literally felt the neshamas [souls] of my grandparents in that moment. I knew I had to look more into my Jewish faith.”
For the first time in years, Litvak visited a synagogue, and it was a revelation. It was everything he’d been seeking. He threw himself into Jewish learning with the intensity of someone making up for lost time. Every rabbi he encountered kept referencing the Talmud, but those intimidating volumes both fascinated and frightened him.
“They’re just books,” he told himself. “Just start from the beginning.”
So he went into the store and asked the cashier for Volume 1, Tractate Berachot.
The cashier, making small talk, asked casually: “Oh, you’re doing Daf Yomi?” Litvak had no idea what that meant. When the clerk explained it was a program to study the entire Talmud—one page per day over seven and a half years—and that day was the first of the new cycle, Litvak was stunned.
“Had it been in the middle of the first book, that would have been a cute coincidence. The first month or week, an interesting curiosity. But that I happened to buy my first volume on the first day of the new cycle could only be explained as miraculous and Divine Providence,” remarks Litvak. “I couldn’t ignore it. And so I began a journey of learning the entire Talmud.”
The Daf Yomi ‘coincidence’ launched him on a 2,711-day journey through the entire Talmud, completing it in 2012. By the time he finished, he had already left his law career, earned an MFA from UCLA’s film school, and started making movies. But it was that Talmud study that eventually birthed The Accidental Talmudist, his website and social media moniker that now reaches over a million followers.
“I was learning so much that I wanted to share with others,” he recalls. “We launched The Accidental Talmudist and it took off exceptionally quickly. It has continued to inspire so many people with the idea that Torah study is for everyone, no matter of their background or where they’re holding in their Jewish journey.”
But Litvak’s love of filmmaking remained constant throughout, and in 2017, following the shooting attack at Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover, the inspiration for “Guns & Moses” was born.
Making a Jewish-Themed Movie in Hollywood
Litvak visited the site of the attack in 2017 and attended the funeral of Lori Kaye, who was murdered on that terrible day.
“I was struck by the Chabad response to antisemitism,” he says. “It wasn’t passive or handwringing. It was about inspiring others to learn more Torah and perform more mitzvot, and to double down on being a light in the world in the face of overwhelming evil.”
Together with his wife Nina, Litvak sat down to write what would be their third film as a couple. “We do everything together,” he explains. Working to get it made over the last number of years was a lot harder than the pair anticipated.
“We got a lot of actors who declined to participate because they thought it was ‘too Jewish,’ while filming locations kept falling through,” Litvak says. “Every production faces these challenges, but it felt like ours was facing more headwinds than others.”
At one point, Litvak needed a sign from Above that this project was meant to be.
“I looked up to Hashem [G‑d], and asked for a sign that we were on the right path and that it would all work out. At that moment I got a call from my producer who said we had been approved for a California tax incentive worth $500,000—a huge deal for our small movie.”
The $500,000 incentive usually goes only to major studio productions. The reason they approved it? “They told us they were very impressed with us mentioning in our application we would be Shabbat observant and were blown away by our commitment to principle. It’s amazing to think even in godless Hollywood, with their upside-down values, this was something that got our film over the line.”
Recognizable actors soon joined the production, excited by the script and the Jewish themes of the story. The leads, Mark Feuerstein and Alona Tal, who play Chabad emissaries Rabbi Mo and Hindy Zaltzman in the film, are both Jewish, have an understanding of religious culture, and were moved by the authentic portrayal the Litvaks were after. The pair spent time with several Chabad rabbis Litvak is close with, helping them capture the spirit of a Chabad family on screen.
Litvak wanted to create something that honored, rather than caricatured, traditional Jewish life. But authenticity in Hollywood is easier promised than delivered, which is why Litvak consulted with several rabbis to ensure the look and feel of the film felt right.
There is close attention to detail in its depiction of a Chabad emissary, especially in spirit. Rabbi Zaltzman appears in a perfectly fitted kapote and black hat. His wife wears the modest dress and wig as would a real rebbetzin. Children run the center’s tech equipment—a delightfully accurate touch any Chabad regular would recognize. Props include actual volumes of the blue Kehot English-translated Siddur familiar in Chabad centers around the world, the Rebbe’s Likkutei Sichot and editions of a Chumash with the Rebbe’s commentary.
And of course, Shabbat and kosher were kept on set throughout the entire shoot.
“On all the movies we’ve worked on, regardless of where we were holding in our Jewish observance, thank G‑d we always made sure to never film on Shabbat,” says Litvak. “Schwartzie [the late Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz, a legendary Chabad emissary in California] was a dear mentor of mine, and he always said that it doesn’t matter where on the Jewish ladder practice one is standing; it matters which direction we’re headed. So even as we slowly took on more mitzvot until we could say we were fully observant, I’m proud we never filmed on Shabbat.”
Litvak captures some of the authentic Jewish response to the crisis. At first, the community rallies in prayer, the rabbi counsels all sides regardless of their backgrounds (from community members who have lost faith to angry young men to the primary suspect sitting behind bars), and everyone commits to increased Torah study and mitzvah observance. The film portrays the epitomistic Chabad House’s diverse constituency—spiritual seekers, cultural Jews, Holocaust survivors and everyone in between.
The rabbi’s character is familiar: he’s complex, ingenious, and approaches problems with compassion from unexpected angles. His counseling scenes ring true to any familiar with Chabad outreach, offering comfort through Jewish wisdom, an increase in Torah and good deeds and practical guidance.
Yet while appreciating what Litvak was trying to convey about Jewish self-defense and empowerment, the film’s resolution can only be understood as within the realm of a Hollywood action flick. By transforming its rabbi protagonist into an armed detective whose gun skills are the focus of his family’s and community’s salvation, it elides the true work of the Chabad emissary. While coordinating with local and national law enforcement, and making sure that critical safety protocols are in place, the ultimate role of the Chabad emissary is to dispel the hysteria and fear around antisemitism. Jewish safety, the Chabad emissary knows, comes not from a Glock, but from G‑d Almighty. The Chabad rabbi and rebbetzin understand that Jewish pride, practice and education are the primary tools in their arsenal.
One need only look at Chabad’s responses to antisemitism in the past. A few years ago, when a teenager launched online antisemitic attacks against the local Chabad rabbi in Cumming, Ga., the community’s response wasn’t retaliation but outreach. Instead of pressing charges, the rabbi invited the young man to volunteer at the Chabad center. Today, that former offender is one of the community’s most active members, despite not being Jewish himself.
This reflects Chabad’s fundamental philosophy: when someone tries to push you down, don’t pick up a weapon—climb onto a chair. Be a light unto the nations through increased goodness and committing to what it means to be Jewish, not through superior firepower. The film’s gun-slinging detective work, while cinematically and narratively compelling, feels somewhat off-brand for a movement that emphasizes the power of spiritual solutions over physical confrontation, though it doesn’t undo the authentic portrayal otherwise shown.
“All the Success is Clearly From Hashem”
The film was released in July and quickly gained buzz far beyond the niche Jewish entertainment circuit. Initially, the production had a deal to screen on over 70 screens across the country, an impressive debut for an independent film, yet that quickly fell through.
“It was quite dispiriting,” says Litvak. “We knew we had made a great film with an important message, but we thought people wouldn’t be able to view it until it was released on streaming services, which is still months away. It also looked like we wouldn’t be able to recoup our costs, which would stop us from making films in the future.”
Then came a miraculous breakthrough.
Someone on the production team had the idea to reach out to a company that arranges event screenings for films in hundreds of locations around the country. They set up showings for a limited run, and the booker reached out to see if they would do so for “Guns & Moses”.
“At first, they declined, saying the film already had been showing, however briefly, and since we didn’t go to them first, they didn’t see how they could work with us. But after seeing the film and its message, together with the buzz we were receiving, they came back to us immediately with an offer. Such a thing is unprecedented,” says Litvak proudly.
The end result? “Guns & Moses” will be showing on 550 screens and counting across the United States from September 7-11.
“All the success is clearly from Hashem,” Litvak says. “Nina and I are looking forward to bringing our story to so many more Jewish communities, and what we can do in the future. With the messages of the Torah, and the support of the Jewish community, there’s nothing we can’t do.”
