Jonathan Kesselman

While at USC, Kesselman wrote and directed a short film version of The Hebrew Hammer,[5] which screened at the 2000 Austin Film Festival.[4][6] In 2001, ContentFilm offered to finance a feature film version, with Edward R. Pressman and John Schmidt on board as executive producers.[4][6]

Kesselman wrote and directed The Hebrew Hammer, a "Jewxploitation" send-up of Blaxploitation and superhero films, starring Adam Goldberg as Mordechai Jefferson Carver, an Orthodox Jew on a quest to save Hanukkah from Santa Claus's evil son. It also stars Andy Dick, Mario Van Peebles, Nora Dunn, Peter Coyote, and Judy Greer,[7][8] and has a cameo from Melvin Van Peebles reprising his role as Sweetback from Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971).[9] It premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival,[5] had its television premiere on Comedy Central on December 8, 2003,[4] and opened theatrically on December 19, 2003.[10] It aired exclusively on Comedy Central for five years after its theatrical release,[11] and is generally considered to be a cult film.[12][13]

In 2005, Kesselman and Goldberg started discussing a sequel to The Hebrew Hammer, and Kesselman wrote the first draft of the script.[14] In 2013, Kesselman and Goldberg first announced the sequel publicly.[11] In The Hebrew Hammer vs. Hitler, the Hebrew Hammer comes out of retirement to combat racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism after an infomercial star becomes president of the US.[15][16]

Kesselman directed the 2016 political satire Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, written by Maz Jobrani and Amir Ohebsion, and starring Jobrani as an Iranian traffic cop who moves from Tehran to Los Angeles to become a private investigator.[17] It premiered at the 2014 Austin Film Festival,[18] where it won the Comedy Vanguard Jury Award[19] and the Audience Award for Comedy Vanguard Feature.[20] It was released in theaters on May 13, 2016.[21]

Kesselman directed the 2013 TV pilot Grow, a comedy about a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary starring Jamie Hector and Dale Dickey.[3] He wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the 2009-10 man on the street show On the Streets with Jonathan Kesselman on the Mother Nature Network website.[3] He directed second unit for the 2016 war film Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, directed by Ang Lee.[14] He taught the seminar Writing Comedy for Film and Television at Yale University,[22] and wrote the five-part series Writing in My Father's Footsteps, published in The Forward in 2009.[23] It won second place in the Nefesh B'Nefesh category of the Simon Rockower Awards.[24]

Kesselman was the showrunner on the six-episode 2020 sketch comedy series Gander, written by Rob Kutner and featuring Adam Goldberg, Lewis Black, Jay Mohr, Oscar Nunez, and Rachel Dratch.[25]