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The Affaire Blum
East Germany, 1948, 109 minutes, B&W (16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Erich Engel
This suspense story based on a 1926 murder trial with Dreyfus-like overtones
represents an early postwar East German reflection on Nazism. Dr. Blum,
a Jewish manufacturer living in Germany, is falsely accused of killing his
bookkeeper. Even when the real killer’s identity becomes evident, the state
prosecutor refuses to accept Blum’s innocence. The film explores German
reaction to the trial and investigates the relationship between the legal
system, antisemitism, and fascism, providing insight into the historical
context that allowed Nazism to flourish.
All Jews Out (Alle Juden Raus!)
Germany, 1990, 82 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
German with English subtitles
Director: Emanuel Rund
This captivating film traces the story of the German-Jewish Auerbacher family
of Goppingen, Germany from 1933 through 1945. The film begins with home
movies of the family in the 1930s and follows Inge Auerbacher from her home
town to her deportation to Theresienstadt, where she suffered for 3 1/2
years and was among the 100 children who survived. The rare footage is accompanied
by on-camera interviews of Inge and her mother on a return visit to their
town, and to Theresienstadt, where an amazing amount of photographs and
documents were saved. All of the movie’s interviews, including those of
former Party members, the former commander of the Goppingen fire brigade,
and a switchboard operator from Theresienstadt are conducted by German high
school students. Like Michael Verhoeven’sThe Nasty Girl, Rund's documentary
exposes Germans who attempt to deny and conceal their involvement in the
Holocaust.
"Do not take this film to be just one more work about Nazis and
Jews. It is in a class by itself.... because of its wealth of extraordinary,
previously-unknown archival materials, its unflinching revelation of evil
and callousness, and most of all, the moral fervor of the filmmaker."
- Amos Vogel, founder, New York Film Festival
"..a compelling documentary... No frame of film is wasted; every camera
angle has been precisely planned... astounding." -Variety
Altalena
Israel, 1994, 53 minutes, color/B&W (video)
English and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ilana Tsur
This documentary examines the 1948 episode of the Altalena, a ship whose
fate nearly incited a civil war in the newly-established State of Israel.
Immediately after Israel attained statehood, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion
established a national army into which several independent Jewish defense
forces were supposed to unite. However, on June 20, 1948, the Altalena arrived
in Israel carrying 930 World War II refugees and a stockpile of ammunition
amassed by the Irgun (one of the independent defense forces) in direct violation
of Ben Gurion’s new military chain-of-command. In the midst of the ship’s
landing and the cease-fire of the War of Independence, Ben Gurion gave an
order to shell the ship, forcing Jews to fire on Jews and almost sparking
a civil war. The late Yitzhak Rabin was one of the participants in this
tragic event and is interviewed here along with many other eye witnesses.
The controversy surrounding the Altalena affair continues to reverberate
in current Israeli politics.
"The riveting footage, emotion-wracked recollections by participants
on both sides, the mind-boggling fact of Jew firing on Jew and the power
play between Begin and Ben-Gurion make this extraordinary documentary
a must-see!" - Jewish Forward
"Evocative... well-researched... The viewer is haunted by the faces of
those Tsur interviewed from both sides, themselves still struggling to
find a place to store the piercing memory." - The Jewish Week
Ambulance (Ambulans)
Poland, 1962, 15 minutes, B&W (16mm/video) (study guide)
Music- no narration/dialogue.
Director: Janusz Morgenstern
In this haunting short fiction film, a group of Jewish children and their
teacher are herded into an ambulance by Nazis; the vehicle, ordinarily representing
comfort and safety, becomes the group’s death chamber. Morgenstern’s presentation
of the incident serves as a metaphor for the horror of the Holocaust, and
provides a powerful "trigger" for discussion of the disturbing issues raised
by the film. The character of the teacher may be considered an allusion
to Janusz Korcak (1879-1942), the Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in
the Warsaw ghetto and died with his young charges at Treblinka.
America Condemns Nazi Terrorism
USA, 1938, 4 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Narrator: Lowell Thomas
This Movietone newsreel from the week of November 20, 1938 is the only known
filmed American news story about Kristallnacht. The footage shows President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull at microphones
with voice-over summary statements, followed by very strong on camera statements
by former President Herbert Hoover, Al Smith, and Alf Landon. No actual
footage of the violence is shown, because the Nazi action was ordered to
be executed in secret and at night. As a document of its time, this newsreel
remains a dramatic statement, as much for the omissions as for the specific
content.
An Appeal to the Jews of the World
USSR, 1941, 6 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Russian, Yiddish and English with English subtitles
In 1941, a group of the Soviet Union’s most prominent Jewish writers and
artists appealed to Jews throughout the world, imploring them to join the
Soviet people "in the holy war against Fascism... to destroy the enemy of
humanity and of the Jewish people." The group included actor Solomon Mikhoels,
poet Peretz Markish and film director Sergei Eisenstein. This newsreel footage
captures their eloquent, impassioned appeals. Tragically, Mikhoels and Markish
later fell victim to the Stalinist purges in the 1940s and ‘50s (Eisenstein
died of natural causes in the 1940s.) This film stands as an important record
of how the Soviet government relaxed its ethnic policies in order to appeal
to anyone who could help fight fascism and the Nazis.
Anne Frank’s Diary
France/Ireland/UK/Netherlands/
Luxembourg, 1999, 35mm, 89 minutes
English
Director: Julian Y. Wolff
An animated version of Anne Frank’s famous diaries that makes her story easily accessible for a new generation without losing the power of the original text. We meet Anne on the occasion of her 13th birthday, just prior to going into hiding in the secret annex above her father’s office in Amsterdam. She is in many respects like every other teenage girl, keenly aware of the world around her at times, petulant, selfish and contrary at others.
Once in hiding, the film focuses on the story of the personalities of the eight people who shared the annex, largely as seen through Anne’s eyes. Most moving is Anne’s internal life, her reaction to their persecution and subsequent life of total isolation, silence, boredom, terror and ultimately the positive and humanitarian attitude she is able to maintain. Complemented by cutting edge animation, the film’s most significant success is its ability to use the diary entries to create an Anne Frank who is compelling and endearing without being maudlin. Beyond that, the film’s greatest virtue is that it is certain to encourage anyone who sees it to read the actual diaries of this century’s most famous and tragic memoirist.
Angst
Australia, 1993, 56 minutes, color (video)
Director: Judy Menczel
Examining the lives of three Jewish comedians (Deb Filler, Sandy Gutman,
and Moshe Waldoks) whose parents are concentration camp survivors, this
documentary video shows the effect of the Holocaust as a familial and cultural
legacy. The film includes interviews, glimpses into the subjects' personal
lives and excerpts from stage performances. These elements are interwoven
with commentaries by experts in Jewish humor, as well as psychologists who
specialize in treating the syndromes suffered by some children of survivors.
(See also: Punch Me in the Stomach, Breaking the Silence).
Annie Hall
USA, 1977, 93 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Woody Allen
Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Picture
With this semi-autobiographical portrait of the amorous partnership between
Woody Allen and co-star Diane Keaton, Allen finally comes into his own as
an accomplished filmmaker. Allen’s comedic masterpiece chronicles the romantic
Manhattan adventures of successful, twice-married Jewish comedian Alvy Singer
and Midwest girl Annie Hall (Diane Keaton).
The Annotated Alice
Israel, 1998, 51 minutes, color (video)
Produced and Directed by Paula Weiman-Kelman
Made possible by a grant from the Dorot Foundation
In this intimate documentary portrait, Alice Shalvi shares her thoughts
and memories of her public and private life, from her childhood in Essen
to her present-day success as a leading Israeli scholar, feminist and peace
activist. Prof. Shalvi tells the story of her personal odyssey as a daughter,
wife, mother of six, university professor, principal of an experimental
girls' religious school and founding chairwoman of the Israel Women's Network.
The program ends as she begins her present job as Rector of the Schechter
Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. Paula Weiman-Kelman's film is
a richly textured tribute weaving together home movies, archival footage
and Alice's splendidly told tales.
"This is an important film about an important person. It is poignant,
insightful, and genuinely compelling." - Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
"Alice Shalvi's resume is impressive, but seeing and feeling her journey
on this film is overwhelming." - Dianna Friedgut
"A wise and witty portrait of a genuine heroine by a gifted new filmmaker.
Alice Shalvi's journey is an inspiration to women - and men - everywhere."
- Stuart Schoffmann, Jerusalem Report
Arbinka
Israel, 1967, B&W (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ephraim Kishon
Following the international success of his classic Sallah Shabbati
, Kishon once again combined his witty brand of social satire with the talents
of Chaim Topol to create a memorably comic Israeli anti-hero. As the title
character, a good-natured but incorrigible layabout, Topol becomes embroiled
in a plot to rob the Israeli lottery, all the while indulging his boundless
zeal for mischief and romance.
"... a brilliant satire of police stupidity and municipal bureaucratic
inefficency." - Amy Kronish, World Cinema: Israel
As If It Were Yesterday
Belgium, 1980, 85 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
French with English subtitles
Directors: Myriam Abramowicz and Esther Hoffenberg
Many Belgian citizens risked their lives in an effort to rescue over 4,000
Jewish children from deportation and extermination during WWII. Composed
of interviews with those who orchestrated the mass rescue and those who
owe their lives to it, this highly intimate film documents an extraordinary
endeavor by caring strangers and testifies to the courage of evcryday people.
"In the wake of films about the Holocaust, invoking ineffable sadness
in the viewer, As If It Were Yesterday is a film that shines with
hope. It is an affirmation of the human spirit in the most trying of times."
- Charles Ryweck, The Hollywood Reporter
"This film suggests the glimmer of hope to be found within horrific circumstances,
and applauds the modest heroes and heroines by whose graces the filmmakers
are alive today."- Annette Insdorf, Newsday
Auschwitz (Oswiecim)
USSR, 1945, 21 minutes, B&W (16mm, video)
English narration/ Produced at the Central Documentary Film Studio
This Soviet Army film of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp
was awarded the Red Banner in 1945. It contains dramatic footage of the
survivors and some of the atrocities perpetrated in this most notorious
of camps, including captured German film of medical experiments performed
on prisoners. Photography by cameramen of the First Ukrainian Front: N.
Bykov, K. Kutub-Zade, A. Pavlov, A. Vorontzov. See also: The Liberation
of Auschwitz 1945
Avodah
Israel, 1935, 50 minutes, B&W (35mm/video)
Director: Helmar Lerski
Preserved and restored by the British Film Institute and the Jerusalem
Cinematheque
A long-lost, landmark documentary celebrating the pioneering labors of
early Jewish settlers in Palestine. With striking visual compositions
and a remarkable soundtrack by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, the film
records the technological and agricultural accomplishments of the pioneers
and extols the idea of a socialist Jewish state. Footage includes shots
taken at the Jaffa port, in Tel Aviv, and on various kibbutzim of the
time; Strasbourg-born director Lerski’s expressive style creates an almost
mythic image of the Jew toiling and triumphing amidst the sweeping desert
landscape of the Holy Land.
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Ben Dov: Images of a Dreamer
France, 199?, 55 mins, color/B&W (16mm, video)
Hebrew & French with English subtitles
Director: Alex Szalat Yakov
Ben Dov came to Jerusalem from the Ukraine with little more than a still
camera to his name. He became one of the most accomplished filmmakers
of his time, capturing the momentous events of his country. This eloquent
portait of an early cinema pioneer mingles astounding documents of early
twentieth century Jersualem with images of contemporary Israel.
The Bene Israel: A Family Portrait
India, 1994, 33 minutes, color (video)
Marathi with English subtitles
Directors: Karen Nathanson and Jean-Francois Fernandez
Honorable Mention, Judah L. Magnes Museum Video Competition, Berkeley
CA
An intimate family portrait and a fascinating ethnographic study of the
Bene Israel, one of three groups of Jews living in India today. Filmmakers
Nathanson and Fernandez spent months living with one family in the Bene
Israel community, documenting the family’s daily lives and recording the
religious and cultural traditions of this unique branch of Judaism. Through
stories, songs, family prayer and community ritual, the film introduces
the viewer to three generations of Indian Jews.
"...an inspiring and endlessly beguiling documentary... as uplifting
as it is informative." - Ken Feil, Jewish Advocate
Benjamin and the Miracle of Chanukah
USA, 1978, 30 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Robert Mitchell
This animated film featuring the voice of Herschel Bernardi traces the story
of Chanukah through the fictional story of a young boy and his faithful
donkey. The boy volunteers for a mission to obtain oil for the rededication
of the temple. He goes off to Caesaria and overcomes one peril after another
and returns successfully to Jerusalem by following the stars. Although the
film takes considerable artistic license with its subject, it remains a
delightful way to present Chanukah and the miracle of the oil.
The Benny Zinger Show
Israel, 1993, 37 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English Subtitles
Director: Arnon Goldfinger
Best Short Film, Jerusalem Film Festival
Benny Zinger presents slide shows at weddings, until one day, while preparing
a show for a couple, he falls in love with the bride. Populated with wonderfully
offbeat characters and enlivened by a good-natured sense of humor, this
quirky short presents an appealing and highly entertaining slice of modern
Israeli life.
"A wonderful fantasy... Lively, funny and smart. A local cinematic miracle...
clearly a rising star in Israeli film." - Amalia Hadar, Haifa Weekly
"The Benny Zinger show is a very intelligent, humorous and emotionally
captivating film."- Judd Ne‘eman,Tel Aviv Weekly
Benya Krik
USSR, 1926, 90 minutes, B&W (35mm/video)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: V. Vilner
The seamy Jewish underworld of Odessa is the setting for Isaac Babel’s story
based on the life of gangster king Mishka Yaponchik ("Mike the Jap") Vinnitsky.
Murder is a way of life for Benya and his gang. They profit from their criminal
activities until the Russian Revolution, when the local commissar assigns
them "emergency revictualing patrol," and makes them a "revolutionary" regiment
complete with tattooed red stars. This new post backfires for Benya as he
finds himself ensnared in a Bolshevik trap.
" [Benya Krik] not only presented its swaggering hero as the victim
of the Bolshevik regime but risked accusations of anti-Semitism by Jews
as criminal profiteers... Opening in Kiev in early 1927, Benya Krik
was almost immediately banned by the Ukrainian office for political education."
- J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Beyond the Walls
Israel, 1984, 103 minutes, color (35mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Uri Barbash
Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Film; International Critics Prize, 1984
Venice Film Festival; Israeli Oscar, Best Movie of the Year 1984
Beyond the Walls tells the story of an unusual friendship between
two prisoners, a Palestinian Arab and an Israeli Jew, who manage to unite
their respective groups in a revolt against the manipulative prison authorities.
Barbash’s film works both as a brutal, compelling prison story and an
allegorical tale about the power of cooperation between Arabs and Jews.
Hailed as a powerful and controversial milestone of the Israeli cinema,
the film broke box office records in Israel and was the first feature
to be screened before the Knesset.
"Hard-hitting... a harsh, realistic portrayal of the best and worst within
Israeli society." - Amy Kronish, World Cinema: Israel
The Biggest Jewish City in the World
UK, 1976, 60 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
Produced by Thames Television for the series "Destination: America"
This comprehensive, nostalgic exploration of the Jewish immigrant experience
in New York City includes footage and interviews spanning 1900-1976. Beginning
with footage of the Lower East Side at the turn of the century, the film
progresses from sweatshops and labor strikes, to early American-Jewish institutions
like the Daily Forward newspaper and Yeshiva University, to prosperous
descendants of Jewish immigrants living on Long Island. Featuring commentary
by Irving Howe and Sam Levenson, the hour is filled with wonderful images
and tales; a most enjoyable history lesson for all.
Biloxi Blues
USA, 1988, 106 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Mike Nichols
The further adventures of Eugene Jerome, Neil Simon’s youthful alter ego
introduced in Brighton Beach Memoirs. Here, World War II is winding
down and Eugene (Matthew Broderick) leaves Brooklyn for Biloxi, Mississippi
and ten grueling weeks of army basic training. Also stars Christopher Walken,
Matt Mulhern, and Penelope Ann Miller.
Bitter Herbs and Honey
Australia, 1996, 70 Minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Monique Schwartz
During World War II and the postwar era, thousands of impoverished Jewish
immigrants fled Europe to rebuild their lives in the Australian suburb of
Carlton. There, the refugees found themselves in bitter conflict with a
more assimilated, established Anglo-Jewish community that had lived in the
area for generations. Refusing to join the cultural melting pot, the new
arrivals chose to maintain their own language, religion, and culture, bringing
traditions reminiscent of the Polish-Jewish shtetl life to their
newly-adopted country. Former residents speak candidly about Carlton’s close
communal life, and about the division between different elements of Jewish
society.
"This is a specialized effort, but it’s one that will entrance many with
its tender dissection of traditions and lifestyles that seem to be slowly
disappearing."- David Stratton - Variety
Blaumilch Canal (The Big Dig)
Israel, 1969, 95 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ephraim Kishon
Nominee, Golden Globe Award for Outstanding Foreign Film, Hollywood
Press Association
Kishon’s most outrageous feature, a slapstick comedy lampooning bureaucracy
and the madness of everyday life in Israel, centers on an escaped lunatic
(Bomba Tzur) who digs up the streets of Jerusalem with a pneumatic drill.
The madman’s random excavations set off a chain reaction of political pandemonium,
as misguided government agencies rush to assist and claim credit for the
project.
Blind Man’s Bluff
Israel, 1993, 93 Minutes, color (35mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Aner Preminger
Best Israeli Feature, Jerusalem Film Festival; Best Actress, Israeli
Film Academy
Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, this contemporary feature takes
a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance
herself from her survivor parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves
out of her parents’ house in search of her own identity. She moves into
a small apartment but remains caught in a lattice of demanding relationships;
tension increases as Micki attempts to achieve success in the classical
music world. Ultimately, Micki finds the courage to confront her problems
and emerges as an independent and mature woman.
Bonjour Shalom
Canada, 1991, 53 minutes, color (16mm/video)
English and French with English subtitles
Director: Garry Beitel
Blue Ribbon, 1993 American Film and Video Festival; Silver Apple, 1993 National
Education Film and Video Festival; Best Documentary, 1993 Gemaux Film Festival
In the small Montreal municipality of Outremont, two very different communities
live side by side: Hassidic Jews and their French-Catholic neighbors.
Intent on preserving their traditional lifestyle, the Hassidim distance
themselves from outsiders. The French Catholics respond to their little-understood
neighbors with a mixture of curiosity, frustration, and mistrust. Evocative
personal interviews and scenes from daily life illustrate the complex
dynamics involved in this clash of cultures.
Born in Berlin
Israel, 1991, 85 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
German, English, Swedish and Hebrew with English subtitles
Directors: Nomi Ben Natan and Leora Kamenetzy
This penetrating documentary produced for Israel Educational Television
looks at the lives of three Jewish women writers: Cordelia Edvardson,
Angelika Schrobsdorff, and Inge Deutschkron. All three grew up in pre-war
Berlin, until Nazi racial laws shattered their lives; uprooted and cut
off from family and friends, the three made their way to Israel, where
they became accomplished journalists and authors. The film, shot in Germany,
Sweden, Bulgaria, and Israel, follows the unique paths taken by each of
these women in their quest for identity and the meaning of life in the
aftermath of their dreadful wartime experiences.
"Wonderful... as soon as the film is over, one wants to meet with the
subjects in person." - Fabiana Chafetz, Ha’ir, November 8, 1991
Both Sides of the Wire
Canada, 1993, 51 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Neal Livingston
Music by Leonard Cohen
This documentary focuses on a group of German and Austrian refugees who
were deported from Britain in the summer of 1940 and sent to a Canadian
prison camp. These civilian refugees, most of them Jews, were ironically
labeled as "dangerous enemy aliens" by the Canadian government, which has
since grudgingly acknowledged that the internment was unnecessary. This
documentary (based on a book by Ted Jones) reunites the prisoners of war
fifty years after their ordeal, detailing the political circumstances which
led to their imprisonment, recalling the atmosphere of the camp, and exploring
the effect the experience had on their lives.
"Excellent." Video Rating Guide for Libraries.
"… a gentle story, full of interesting first-hand accounts of a little-known
episode…" Stephen Pedersen, The Chronicle Herald, 1993
Bound for Nowhere: The St. Louis Episode
USA, 1939, 9 minutes, B&W (16mm/video) (study guide)
Produced by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)
An authentic film document of the JDC effort to save 900 Jews (including
200 children) fleeing Nazi Germany by sailing the refugees to Cuba aboard
a vessel called the St. Louis. The film contains footage of the refugees
on the ship and records the indifference of many nations - including the
U.S.- to their plight. When Cuba refused to allow the passengers to land,
the ship sailed to the Miami area where the US government also barred
the ship's entrance. The St. Louis languished in the waters around Cuba
while the JDC searched for countries to accept the refugees. Finally,
some European countries accepted the refugees and the St. Louis returned
to Europe to, the narrator states with unintended irony, "a new and better
life." Tragically, most of these passengers ended up in countries subsequently
occupied by Germany and lost their lives in the Holocaust.
(See also:Voyage of the St. Louis . )
Braids
Israel, 1991, 90 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Yitzhak Halutzi for Israel Educational TV
Based on a true story, this docudrama tells the tale of So’ad, a fourteen-year-old
Jewish girl imprisoned by the Iraqi government in 1947 for her participation
in the Zionist movement. The film illuminates a complex and sensitive period
of Jewish life in Iraq when Jews felt their security threatened as antisemitism
surfaced with the growth of Zionism. Jailed for three years, So’ad joined
other political prisoners in a campaign of disobedience until Iraq opened
its gates in 1950 and allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel.
Breaking Home Ties
USA, 1922, 86 minutes, B&W silent (16mm/video)
Directors: Frank N. Seltzer and George K. Rowlands
During the 1920s, some American Jews responded to the rise of antisemitic
campaigns by attempting to make motion pictures presenting Judaism in a
positive light. Produced by a "syndicate" of prominent Jews in Philadelphia,
this feature was one of the first such efforts. The stated goal of the film
was to truthfully represent "the every-day life of the Jew, with emphasis
on that human and sympathetic element in his nature too often overlooked...."
The film focuses on David Bergman who, thinking he has killed a friend in
a jealous rage, flees Russia and becomes a successful lawyer in New York.
His penniless family follows him to America, but by now he has lost touch
with them. When David gets married on the premises of a home for the aged
(to which he and his bride have contributed) he is happily reunited with
his family, who also live in the home.
Breaking the Silence: The Generation After the Holocaust
USA, 1984, 58 minutes, color (video)
Director, co-producer: Edward A. Mason, M.D.
Writer, co-producer: Eva Fogelman, Ph.D.
CINE Golden Eagle Award; First Prize, Nat'l Council on Family Relations
Film Festival; Finalist, American Film Festival
This PBS documentary tells a moving story of personal growth as the children
of Holocaust survivors find the strength to confront their painful legacy
and overcome the barriers of unasked and unanswered questions that separate
them from their parents. As the young adults connect with their parents,
the second generation discovers its own voice and grapples with the question
of how to bear witness to their own children. Poignant dialogues are interwoven
with commentary by Robert Jay Lifton, Helen Epstein, and Moshe Waldoks
documenting this encounter between the two generations.
"Breaking the Silence is more than a documentary... it is a labor
of love which builds a bridge from one generation to another." - Washington
Post
"... very powerful... superior for curriculum uses in studies of family
relations, psychology and sociology. Highly recommended." - Library Journal
Brighton Beach Memoirs
USA, 1986, 110 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Gene Saks
Screen version of Neil Simon’s autobiographical play about two Jewish
families living under the same roof in 1937 Brooklyn. Starring: Jonathan
Silverman, Blythe Danner, Judith Ivey, Gene Saks.
Bye, Bye America
Germany/Poland, 1993, 35mm,
86 minutes
English, German, Yiddish and Polish with English subtitles
Director: Jan Schütte
After 30 years in Brighton Beach, big Genovefa, her tiny husband Moishe, and his best friend Isaac the plumber embark on an absurdist journey back to Poland in search of "home." Along the way, they find that in America they will always be immigrants; in Berlin they are still Jews; and in Poland they feel like Americans.
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Chariots of Fire
UK, 1981, 124 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Hugh Hudson
Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Picture
An absorbing and unusual drama based on the true story of two men-devout
Scottish missionary Eric Liddell and driven Jewish university student Harold
Abrahams-who run in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Abrahams’ Judaism figures significantly
in the film, as he faces elitist anti-Semitism at Cambridge University.
Chasing Shadows
UK, 1990, 52 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Naomi Gryn
Hugo Gryn was 15 years old when he left his hometown, Berehovo, never believing
he would see it again. Once part of Czechoslovakia, now near the Hungarian
border of the Ukrainian Republic, Berehovo was closed to Western visitors
until 1990, when this film was made by Gryn’s daughter Naomi. Following
Hugo’s first return to the town since 1945, the film is filled with stories
of heritage and tradition, evoking the vibrant time when half the town was
Jewish. Yet the world of Hugo’s childhood has all but vanished, leaving
only ghosts and shadows.
"... an extraordinary bridge between then and now." - The Daily Telegraph
"... a rich evocation of rural life between the wars and a quiet lament
for the later terror." - The Guardian
"... this film could have been a wholly mournful one. Instead, through
Gryn’s superb storytelling and warm and engaging personality, the viewer
comes away with a feeling of loss and hope... highly recommended." - Library
Journal
A Child of the Ghetto
USA, 1910, 15 minutes (35mm/16mm/video)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: D. W. Griffith
This short tale of Lower East Side life captures the hustle and bustle of
Rivington Street through the lens of legendary Hollywood director D.W. Griffith.
The film's melodramatic silent movie plot is distinguished by the fact that
it was one of the earliest motion pictures to treat an interfaith romance
unproblematically.
"Rivington Street was the lively one, eternally jammed with pushcart
peddlers hawking their wares. They had every imaginable commodity, from
a needle to a wedding outfit... Emotional, tempestuous, harrowing Rivington
Street was perpetually a steaming, bubbling pot of human flesh." - D.
W. Griffith
The Children of Izieu
USA, 1992, 28 minutes, color (video)
English and French with English subtitles
Director: Tom Demenkoff
Produced by Sheila Schwartz
In 1944, one month before the end of World War II, the Gestapo in Lyon,
under the command of Klaus Barbie, sent two vans to the French village of
Izieu to remove Jewish children from an orphanage called La Maison d’Izieu.
In a cold and senseless raid, forty-four children and five adult caretakers
were thrown into vans like pieces of cordwood and sent to Auschwitz, where
they were immediately gassed. An emotionally-wrenching journey through a
tragic chapter of the Holocaust.
The Chosen
USA, 1982, 108 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Jeremy Paul Kagan
Adapted from Chaim Potok’s best-selling novel, this film examines the differences
among Orthodox Jews and conflicts between fathers and sons. Set in Brooklyn
in the 1940’s, the story focuses on two sons (Robbie Benson and Barry Miller)
and two fathers (Maximilian Schell and Rod Steiger): Danny, the brilliant
scion of a Hasidic dynasty in training to succeed his formidable father
as Grand Rabbi; and Reuven, the son of a worldly progressive scholar. The
boys develop a strong friendship and find themselves influenced by the other’s
father. When the fathers enter into a bitter, passionate conflict over the
issue of Zionism, their devoted and dutiful sons must part ways-until one
makes the painful choice to oppose his father and claim his own destiny.
Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising According to Marek Edelman
Poland, 1994, 70 minutes, B&W (video)
Director: Jolanta Dylewska
In this documentary, Marek Edelman, a member of the Jewish Labor Bund and
leading participant in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, gives a daily account
of events from April 19 through May 10, 1942. Edelman's amazingly thorough,
vivid and distinct memories are augmented by Dylewska's mesmerizing, poetic
use of slow-motion and freeze-frame techniques applied to footage taken
by the Nazis of Jews about to be deported to Treblinka. An artful, often
understated portrait of heroism.
"Through leisurely timing and skillful use of archival material, Jolanta
Dylewska infuses the film with an almost hypnotic power, as we follow
Edelman's tale of death and survival... a testament to bravery as well
as an indictment of man's inhumanity to man." - Variety
"... a tale of Jewish resistance and heroism as stirring as it is astonishing
and revelatory... riveting." - New York Press
"A passionate, eloquent reminder that there can never be enough productions
on the Holocaust, at least when they contain as much heart, soul, and
insight as Edelman's 'Chronicle'." - New York Post
Chronicle of Love
Israel, 1998, 35mm, 90 minutes
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Tzipi Trope
Nava and Yoram are Israeli yuppies living the good life with their two kids and a new house in the suburbs. But underneath their veneer of prosperity lurks a secret that threatens to destroy them. Nava is a social worker who helps battered women, most of them poor. The horrible irony is that the affliction of abuse, so often relegated as a disease specific to the poor, also terrorizes Nava and her children. Genia, a recent immigrant, is one of her clients who is also suffering in an abusive relationship and picks up on the clues that Nava is in a similar predicament. Trapped by love, together they attempt to escape their destructive relationships.
Cohen on the Telephone
USA, 1929, 9 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Robert Ross
With the advent of sound, the vaudeville-immigrant genre added comic speech
to its repertoire of physical comedy and funny situations. Here, the Jewish
immigrant is characterized not simply by how he moves and looks, but by
how he speaks. From his office, Cohen telephones his landlord to ask him
to fix a window that was blown out by a storm. Unfamiliar with the telephone
and still uncomfortable with the English language, Cohen embroils himself
in a comic monologue of misunderstanding.
Cohen Saves the Flag
USA, 1913, 10 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Director: Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett’s Keystone Company was famous for the style of screen farce
which ushered in the work of such famous slapstick comedians as Charlie
Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle. Ford Sterling, Keystone’s most popular comedian
before Chaplin, plays Cohen, a sergeant in the Union Army who is the bitter
rival of another officer for the attentions of Rebecca (Mable Normand).
Like most burlesque Jewish characters of this period, Sterling’s caricature
borders on antisemitism. Yet Cohen is also the hero of the film and unwittingly
turns the tide of battle. This film also boasts some of the most remarkable
battle scenes of the silent era and a fascinating, unusual portrait of a
female Jewish character.
Cohen’s Advertising Scheme
USA, 1904, 1 minute, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Director: Edwin S. Porter
This is perhaps the earliest cinematic example of the Jewish stereotype
known as the "scheming merchant," a familiar caricature from theater and
literature. This typical one-shot gag film was produced for the Edison Company
by Edwin S. Porter, who had previously filmed the famous silent movie version
ofThe Great Train Robbery. In this film, Cohen, a grotesquely made-up
Jewish shop owner, hits upon a new advertising scheme: tricking a passerby
to buy a coat on which he hangs a large sign advertising his store on the
back.
Cohen’s Fire Sale
USA, 1907, 10 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Director: Edwin S. Porter
By 1907, extended stories had become popular over the single gag. As in
Cohen’s Advertising Scheme, Cohen is again portrayed as the "scheming
merchant." This time a new shipment of hats is accidentally picked up by
the trash man. Cohen, made-up in grotesque vaudevillian Jewish style, pursues
the trash wagon throughout New York picking up the hats as they drop off.
When he finds the hats are not selling, Cohen reads his insurance policy,
arranges for an "accidental" fire, and afterwards holds a fire sale. At
the end of the film, Cohen sits happily holding the insurance policy as
he places a large ring on his wife’s finger.
Cohens and Kellys in Hollywood
USA, 1932, 78 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: John Dillon
In this entry in the '30s immigrant/ethnic genre, the Cohens and Kellys
take Hollywood by storm in typically robust slapstick fashion. When Kitty
Kelly becomes the darling of Continental Pictures and the world at large,
her family jumps at the chance to look down their noses at the lowly Cohens.
But fortune is capricious in these matters and the Cohens manage to rise
high on the flood of talking pictures. Before both clans are thrown back
into the gutter, they manage to turn the studios into one big circus tent!
Cohens and Kellys in Trouble
USA, 1933, 69 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: George Stevens
In this, the last in the series of Cohens-and-Kellys films (and one of the
first directorial efforts of Hollywood great Stevens), Nate Cohen joins
his bootlegger friend, Captain Pat Kelly, on his boat for a series of mishaps,
chases, and explosions.
Commissar
USSR, 1967, 111 minutes, B&W (16mm; call for 35mm and video
availability)
Director: Alexander Askoldov
"This innovative and daring work, Askoldov's only film, was completed in
1967 but, due to its anti-militaristic tone and acknowledgement of Russian
persecution of the Jews, was immediately banned. Twenty-one years later,
under glasnost, the ban was lifted and the film heralded as a 'lost' masterpiece.
Set during the 1922 Civil War between the Reds and the Whites, Commissar
is the story of a stern female Red Army officer who finds herself pregnant
and abandoned in a Ukrainian town where she is billeted with a Jewish family.
Her initiation into Jewish culture coincides with her growing humanity until
the return of the war leads her to reinvest her newfound feelings in the
Revolutionary struggle. Askoldov draws on the rich Soviet tradition of innovators
such as Eisenstein, Pudovkin, and Dovzhenko and fashions a supercharged
blend of hyperfluid camera movement, startlingly direct symbolism and jarring
transitions in which leisurely glimpses of ghetto life are punctuated by
paroxysmic outbursts of violence and lyrical energy." - New Yorker Films,
1993
Comrade Abram
USSR, 1919, 15 minutes, B&W (35mm/16mm)
Director: Alexander Razumni
This short propaganda film (or agitka) tells the tale of a Jew who
survives a pogrom and becomes a leader in the Red Army. Intended to indoctrinate
Soviet citizens by showing heroic examples of conversion to the Revolutionary
cause, the agitka ('agitation pieces') were originally screened on
Russian 'film trains.' A rare portrait of a Jewish character in early Rusasian
cinema.
Crossing Delancey
USA, 1988, 97 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Joan Micklin Silver
Set in modern-day New York, this romantic comedy highlights the contrasting
values between first and third generation American Jews by focusing on a
33-year-old single Jewish woman (Amy Irving), who works, lives, and loves
in the modern gentile world and repeatedly rejects her grandmother’s efforts
to find her a traditional Jewish suitor. When she meets "the Pickle Man"
(Peter Riegert) she begins reexamining her values as a modern, assimilated
Jew and her prejudices against the "traditional" Jewish world.
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Daniel
USA, 1983, 130 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Sidney Lumet
In this screen adaptation of E. L. Doctorow’s celebrated novel "The Book
of Daniel," the children of a couple patterned after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
must confront their painful heritage in order to deal with their own lives
in the protest-filled 1960s. Stars Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Edward
Asner, Ellen Barkin, and Amanda Plummer. (See also UNKNOWN SECRETS: Art
and the Rosenberg Era )
Danzig 1939
USA, 1980, 30 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Director: Sidney Reichman for the Jewish Museum of New York
This documentary details the struggles of Jews in the German city of Danzig
to survive the brutal assault of the Nazis. All but approximately one hundred
Danzig Jews escaped the Nazi terror because local synagogue leaders made
the unprecedented move of selling their religious artifacts; the money gained
from this sale was used to finance the immigration of the entire community.
The film documents an exhibit exhibit of Danzig’s religious treasures, reclaimed
and stored at the Jewish Museum in New York City. Interviews with the survivors,
along with film footage from 1939 and photographs of the lost community,
paint an unforgettable portrait of a courageous people who managed to save
their lives and part of their history from the murderous Nazi regime.
Davidoff Newsreel
Palestine, 1934, 10 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Hebrew (an English translation sheet accompanies film)
Produced by Davidoff Newsreel Company
This newsreel segment depicts the first voyage of a Polish ocean liner to
Palestine in 1934. The film contains crudely edited footage of the festive
departure from the Black Sea port of Constanta, the passengers enjoying
the pleasures of the open sea, the recitation of Yom Kippur prayers on deck,
and an extended cantorial performance. Other images include passengers dancing
the hora, singing Zionist songs, and the impressive urban vistas of Haifa
and Tel-Aviv which greeted the visitors upon their arrival.
The Day Grandpa Died
USA, 1970, 11 minutes, color (16mm)
A young Jewish boy is plunged into shock and disbelief at the death of
his beloved grandfather. Parental kindness, frankness and family solidarity
at the funeral help him to accept and understand what has happened. The
film depicts Jewish mourning practices and attitudes toward death, and
can serve as a starting point for a discussion of these traditions with
young people.
Dealers Among Dealers
USA, 1997, 67 minutes, color (video)
Director: Gaylen Ross
Gold Hugo Award, Chicago Film Festival; Best of Fest Award, Edinburgh Film
Festival; CINE Golden Eagle
Welcome to the heady world of New York diamond dealers... an amazing
insiders’ look into the heart of America’s jewelry business - New York’s
47th Street. Here you can still buy million dollar gems on
a handshake and a promise, Mazel and Brocha - all on trust - dealers among
dealers. Yarmulke clad gem cutters sing Hebrew songs as they work, and
dealers buy, sell, schmooze and proffer occasional baubles of wisdom in
the diamond in the making, and follow them in pursuit of flawless perfection
and a great deal from New York to the world-famous auction houses of Sotheby’s
and Christie’s in Switzerland. This fascinating film is dripping with
fabulous jewels but the real gems are the dealers themselves, great characters
who still deal in the old fashioned way.
"Sholem Aleichem meets Walt Disney." - The New York Times
"Deft, entertaining... even sparkling..." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Death Mills (aka Mills of Death, Die Todesmuhlen)
USA, 1945, 22 minutes, B&W (16mm)
English narration: Rita Karin
Produced by the U.S. Department of War Information
Originally made with a German soundtrack for screening in occupied Germany
and Austria, this film was the first documentary to show what the Allies
found when they liberated the Nazi extermination camps: the survivors, the
conditions, and the evidence of mass murder. The film includes accounts
of the economic aspects of the camps’ operation, the interrogation of captured
camp personnel, and the enforced visits of the inhabitants of neighboring
towns, who, along with the rest of their compatriots, are blamed for complicity
in the Nazi crimes - one of the few such condemnations in the Allied war
records. Nonetheless, in compliance with U.S. policy, the word 'Jew' is
never used.
The Diary of Anne Frank
USA, 1959, 156 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: George Stevens
This is the true story of teenager Anne Frank, a young Dutch Jew who, along
with her family, were forced to hide in Amsterdam during World War II. She
kept a diary of what happened to her and her family during this time. Discovered
after years of hiding, Anne Frank perished at Auschwitz. Shelley Winters
won an Oscar for her role as Mrs. Van Daan in this meticulously produced
film based on the classic book and Broadway drama of the same name. Starring:
Millie Perkins, Joseph Schildkraut, Shelley Winters, Richard Beymer, Lou
Jacobi, Ed Wynn.
Dirty Dancing
USA, 1987, 97 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Emile Ardolino
Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze star in this nostalgic, romantic Hollywood
hit about a Jewish teenage girl who falls for her dance instructor during
a family vacation at a Catskills resort hotel during the 1960s.
Disraeli
USA, 1929, 89 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Alfred E. Green
George Arliss won an Oscar for his portrayal of the British Prime Minister
as a great (and cunning) statesman and a devoted husband. Also stars Joan
Bennett and Anthony Bushell.
The Distance
Israel, 1994, 85 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Dan Wolman
The Distance is a moving contemporary drama about a young architect
torn between his Israeli roots and his new life in America. Reunited with
his aging parents while interviewing for a job in Jerusalem, Oded (Chaim
Hadaya) must weigh his expatriate lifestyle against his emotional ties to
his family and homeland. Award-winning director Wolman (Hide and Seek) sensitively
portrays the complexities of a social dilemma faced by many Israelis while
focusing on poignant emotions which transcend the "distance" created by
cultural differences.
"Haunting... "The Distance" will hold onto filmgoers with its disturbing
implications." - Jewish Advocate
"Sensitively scripted and beautifully shot, "The Distance" is a perceptive
and moving little gem... the best locally-made feature in years." - Calev
Ben-David, The Jerusalem Report
Divorce (Get)
Israel, 1992, 34 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ayellet Menachemi
Originally presented as part of the acclaimed anthology film Tel Aviv
Stories, this short satire addresses one of the most difficult and serious
issues facing Israeli women today. When a policewoman (Anat Waxman) suddenly
recognizes her husband who has been AWOL for years, she takes an odd assortment
of local onlookers hostage, threatening to kill them if she is not issued
a divorce immediately. An unusual look at the conflict between religious
law and modern Jewish life.
Dream of My People
USA, 1934, 66 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
English and Yiddish language versions available
Director: A.J. Bloome for Palestine-American Film Co.
An early travelogue on Palestine featuring the last appearance of Cantor
Joseph (Yosselle) Rosenblatt. Locations featured here include Jerusalem
sites (the market, Hebrew University, the King David Hotel, the Jewish Agency);
the Judean Hills, Mikve Israel Agricultural School, pioneers working in
fields; Rishon le Zion, Rehovot, Nes Ziona, citrus picking and packing;
Jezreel valley and settlements; Tiberias and Lak Kinneret; Bedouin dwellings;
Tel Aviv and Jaffa beach and street scenes and the Maccabiah Stadium.
Dreamers and Builders
Israel, 1996, 50 minutes, B&W (video)
Director: Yaakov Gross
This historic document of Palestine during the tumultuous 1920s includes
footage from three rare films by Ya’akov Ben Dov, the father of Hebrew cinema.
Preserved in a joint project by the National Center for Jewish Film and
the Israel Film Archive, these works include Return to Zion (1920-21),The
Rebirth of a Nation (1923), and Romance of Palestine (1926).
Considered lost for more than 70 years, the films depict the early builders
of the Zionist vision who pioneered the Third Aliyah and the Fourth Aliyah
and contain images of settlements and activities in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv,
Rishon le Zion and Old Jaffa. From this rare archival footage, director
and scholar Ya’akov Gross has created a vital and accessible look at a formative
period in Israeli history whose legacy continues to influence Israeli politics
today.
"... A triumph of photographic composition and content." - Amy Kronish,
World Cinema: Israel
Driving Miss Daisy
USA, 1989, 99 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Bruce Beresford
Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress
Adapted from Alfred Uhry’s stage play about a simple black man (Morgan Freeman)
hired as chauffeur for a cantankerous old woman (Jessica Tandy), the dowager
of an old Southern Jewish family.
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The Eighty-First Blow
Israel, 1975, 91 minutes (originally 115 minutes), B&W (16mm)
Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles
Director: David Bergman
This is the first documentary of a trilogy (see also Flames in the Ashes
and The Last Sea ) produced under the auspices of the Israeli
‘Ghetto Fighters’ House’ (Beit Lohamei Haghetaot), a kibbutz-based organization
of Holocaust survivors dedicated to preserving the history of Jewish resistance
and the memory of those who fell victim to the Nazis. Written by Israeli
soldier, poet and journalist Haim Gouri, the trilogy constitutes one of
the most ambitious attempts at a comprehensive film history of the Holocaust.
This Academy Award-nominated film is drawn mainly from Nazi film footage
and Jewish eyewitness testimony (much of the latter given at the Eichmann
Trial.) The film opens with a montage of scenes of workaday Jewish life
in pre-Hitler Eastern Europe, then describes the rise of Nazism in Germany,
the German occupation of Poland, the various stages of the "Final Solution,"
and instances of Jewish resistance.
"... a rare event... powerful and moving, using art to advance the causes
of humanity and justice... to raise the level of moral judgment among
its viewers." -Wall Street Journal, May 7, 1975
"... a mosaic that cuts deep into the living flesh. This is an authentic
testimony of the Holocaust, of barbarism and the degradation of humanity,
a shattering document that cannot be expressed in words, a metaphysical
experience, an apocalyptic nightmare that leaves the spectator numb and
speechless..." - Ma’ariv, September 10, 1974
Embroidered Canticles
France, 1991, 26 minutes, color (16mm/video)
French, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Izza Genini
The matrux is a unique form of Moroccan-Jewish music which fuses Hebrew
and Arabic texts. The music and the texts are derived from Andalusian traditions
of music and poetry, reflecting the centuries-old link between Jewish and
Muslim societies. While the singer might address secular topics in Arabic,
Hebrew is reserved for sacred matters. This unique film features a live
performance with Rabbi Haim Louk and Abdelsadek Chekara and interviews with
performers and scholars.
Emporte-Moi
Canada/Switzerland/France, 1999, 35mm, 94 minutes
French with English subtitles
Director: Léa Pool
A tender coming-of-age story that features 13-year-old Hannah, a charming, if confused and affection-starved young girl living in the rundown Mile End section of Montreal.
The daughter of a ne’er-do-well Jewish poet (Miki Manojiovic, Black Cat, White Cat) and a Catholic Québécois mother, Hannah is trapped by their destructive marriage and is an outsider at the Catholic school she attends. But in 1963 she finds the role model she is looking for when she sees Anna Karina in the role of Nana in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Vivre se vie. Entranced by the film and relieved by its ability to transport her away from her life, Hannah becomes obsessed with the femme-fatale character of Nana.
During one of her many visits to the theater, she befriends Laura, an adventurous girl from the better side of town. Their friendship, tinged with experimentation, adventure and sensuality is precious to Hannah but it also accelerates her mounting emotional confusion. This semi-autobiographical film from writer/director Léa Pool shows us a young girl awkwardly stumbling towards womanhood with a stellar performance from Karine Vanasse as the endearing Hannah. Through the eyes of a young filmmaker-to-be, we see her negotiate her emotional and physical world with a sense of heightened reality that often extends into the world of dreams.
Enemies: A Love Story
USA, 1989, 119 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Paul Mazursky
Based on the brilliant, enigmatic novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, this is
a quietly haunting film about an aloof Jewish intellectual (Ron Silver)
who managed to hide from the Nazis during WWII and now, in 1949, leads a
double life in Coney Island, NY. He’s married to his wartime (non-Jewish)
protector (Margaret Sophie Stein) and fooling around with a sexy married
Jewish woman (Lena Olin). Things get even more complicated when his first
wife (Angelica Houston), thought dead in the Holocaust, returns.
Escape to the Rising Sun
Belgium, 1990, 95 minutes, color (16mm/video - 60 minute video version
also available)
English narration and subtitles
Director: Diane Perelsztejn
Prix de la Ville de Strasbourg, 19th Strasbourg Film Festival
1991
In 1939, Jews lucky enough to escape the Nazis’ reach in Europe had only
one place in the world to go that didn’t require an exit visa: Shanghai.
Escape to the Rising Sun tells the little-known and ironic story
of nearly 5,000 Jews who reached Shanghai through the USSR with the help
of the Japanese Consul in Lithuania and the Kobe (Japan) Jewish Committee.
In the slums of Hongkew, they lived in extreme poverty, battling disease
and malnutrition; still, they worked to reconstruct elements of their culture,
organizing literary, artistic, and educational programs. After the Japanese
occupation of Shanghai, conditions worsened until German pressure forced
the issue of a proclamation ordering all refugees into a ghetto covering
an area less than one square mile, where they remained until Shanghai was
liberated by the Americans at the end of the war. This documentary features
rare footage of the former ghetto of Hongkew, archival material, as well
as first-hand accounts from eyewitnesses. Nearly seventy survivors of this
amazing escape were interviewed, and fifteen of them were chosen to reveal
their story.
"... One of cinema’s finer achievements - a rare glimpse of compassion,
courage and survival." - P.G., Sunday Herald Sun, 1991
"In Escape to the Rising Sun , Belgian filmmaker Diane Perelsztejn
has added an authoritative visual essay to the small body of work on the
mid-century Shanghai Jews..." - Peter Kohn, Australian Jewish News, Oct.
4, 1991
Everlasting Joy, or the Life And Adventures of B. Spinoza As Reported
By His Vigilant Neighbors
Israel, 1996, 90 minutes, color (35mm)
Hebrew with English Subtitles
Director: Igal Bursztyn
Best Script, Jerusalem Film Festival; Israeli Academy Award
What would happen if philosopher Baruch Spinoza were to live in an apartment
house in Hulon? Confronting the great rationalist philosopher and excommunicated
Jew with the vicissitudes of modern Jewish life in Israel, Bursztyn’s film
is an inventive, darkly comic and distinctly Israeli exercise in post-modern
cinema.
"Provocative comedy…There is much of the title joy in Bursztyn’s comedy."
- Jules Becker, The Jewish Advocate
Everything’s For You
USA, 1989, 58 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
Yiddish and English
Director: Abraham Ravett
Filmmaker Abraham Ravett attempts to reconcile issues in his life as the
child of a Holocaust survivor in this experimental non-narrative film. Ravett
reflects upon his relationships with his family, from his now-deceased father
(who survived both the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz) to his own young children.
He utilizes family photographs and footage, archival footage from the Ghetto
Fighters’ House in Israel, cel animation by Emily Hubley, and computer graphics,
to create a film about memory, death, and what critic Bruce Jenkins calls
"the power of the photographic image and sound to resurrect the past."
Exodus
USA, 1960, 212 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Otto Preminger
Academy Award Winner, Best Original Score
Few motion pictures can approach the grandeur of this classic Hollywood
epic adapted from Leon Uris’ best-selling novel about the rebirth of a people
and a nation. The story takes place during the turbulent year of 1947, when
the British government blocked the way of desperate emigres who sought to
reach the Promised Land, and the Israeli underground battled British and
Arabs alike in their struggle to create the state of Israel. Preminger’s
film, starring Paul Newman, Eva-Marie Saint and Sal Mineo, was shot on location
in Galilee, Haifa, Jerusalem, and other parts of Israel.
Exodus 1947
USA, 1996, 60 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Directors: Elizabeth Rodgers and Robby Henson
Narrator: Morley Safer
CINE Golden Eagle Award; Silver Apple Award, NEMN 1997; Gabriel Award; David
Wolper Award, Best Documentary, Wine Country Film Festival
This documentary examines the history and impact of the Exodus 1947,
the most infamous of the Aliyah Bet ships that tried to run the British
blockade of Palestine. In the summer of 1947, the aging Baltimore steamer,
crewed by former Jewish-American GIs, took on a cargo of Holocaust survivors
in France and headed for Palestine. After a bloody battle on the high
seas with the British, the "illegal" immigrants were sent back to displaced
persons camps in the British Zone of Germany. The newsreel and print media
seized upon the Exodus 1947 as a symbol of the Jewish struggle for statehood.
This aborted voyage galvanized international support for the creation
of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Interviews with scholars and eye-witness
testimonies are incorporated with newsreel footage, photographs and information
from formerly classified documents to examine the tactical evolution of
Ben-Gurion’s Haganah and the clandestine American role in supplying dollars
and manpower for Aliyah Bet ("illegal" immigration to Palestine), although
such involvement was contrary to U.S. Government policy.
"’Exodus 1947’ is the very model of a meticulous yet exciting step-by-step
account of a major historical event.... This splendid, carefully researched
and assembled documentary is chock-full of fascinating details as it recalls
a courageous, complex and dangerous mission with immense consequences."-
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, 11/96
Expulsion and Memory
Canada, 1996, color, 60 minutes (video)
Directors: Simcha Jacobovici and Roger Pyke
Shot on location in Spain, Portugal, Israel, Canada and the United States,
this documentary traces the descendants of Spanish Jews who were forced
to either flee or convert to Catholicism after Queen Isabella's edict of
1492. Many of these Jews had to practice their religion in secret, passing
their furtively-recalled customs down through the generations. Exploring
the history and culture of these 'conversos', the film celebrates an eduring
spiritual legacy which has survived centuries of persecution. Through extensive
interviews with the children of secret believers, the film captures the
modern resurrection of something ethereal: the ghost of a people. Beautifully
photographed and edited, the films features a lyrical Spanish/Sephardic
soundtrack by some of the world's leading artists including Placido Domingo.
"A beautiful-looking film... an original and informative look at a remarkably
rich and universal human story." - John Haslett Cuff, The Globe and Mail
"A vibrant and up-to-date examination of the timeless search cfor religious
identity." - Henry Mietkiewicz, The Toronto Star
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Farewell
Russia, 1992, 27 minutes, B&W (35mm; call for video availability)
Director: Arkadiy Yakhnis
Russian with English subtitles
Jurors’ Choice Award, 1998 Jewish video Competition, Judah L. Magnes Museum
This short documentary chronicles a 90 year old man’s emigration to Israel
from his native shtetl in Bessabaria. Yakhnis’ beautifully photographed
film poetically captures the end of a rich Jewish heritage in Russia.
"... each exquisitely-composed shot creates a world of haunting loss,
unsurpassed faith and human dignity." - San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Fiddler on the Roof
USA, 1971, 181 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Norman Jewison
Winner of two Academy Awards
This classic Hollywood musical is a rousing, colorful adaptation of Joseph
Stein’s hit play based on Sholem Aleichem’s novel, "Tevye the Dairyman."
Topol plays Tevye, ever struggling to preserve Jewish heritage for his five
daughters against growing odds. Starring Chaim Topol, Norma Crane, Molly
Picon, Paul Michael Glaser, Leonard Frey, and Michele Marsh. (See also Tevye,
1939 Yiddish version, in Yiddish section)
The Fifth Horseman is Fear
Czechoslovakia, 1964, 100 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Czech with English subtitles
Director: Zbynek Brynych
In Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia a Jewish doctor, forbidden to practice,
has to remove a bullet from a wounded Resistance fighter. He roams Prague
streets in a desperate search for morphine while hiding his patient from
the Nazis.
Flames in the Ashes
Israel, 1985, 90 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Yiddish and Hebrew with English subtitles
Directors: Haim Gouri and Jacquot Erlich
"Who is more heroic, one who goes in the woods to fight with a gun or one
who decides to go that last road and die with his family?" This film, the
third in a trilogy (The Eighty-First Blow ,The Last Sea )
examines Jewish resistance during World War II. Against a background of
archival film footage and still photographs, the voices of 120 survivors
tell their stories, which include first-hand accounts of Sobibor and the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
"The film is especially successful in bringing home the human cost of
this unimaginable horror… turning the faceless, numberless victims into
neighbors, relatives and friends." Janet Maslin, New York Times,
September 2, 1987
"The film has a quiet and profound strength, an extraordinary voice that
rises above what we see and hear. It resonates with power and the spirit
of redemption… an enduring legacy of Jewish resistance that will touch
every viewer." F.E. Siegel, New York City Tribune, September 2,
1987
Force of Evil
USA, 1989, 60 minutes, color (video)
Producer: Steven Schlow
Winner, Northeast Regional Emmy Award for Writing
This television documentary traces the rise of Nazism with emphasis on the
career of Adolf Eichmann . The program examines the small incremental
steps the Nazis took to introduce their ideology of antisemitism in Germany
and Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. As his early years are chronicled
and examined, Eichmann becomes the personification of hate and prejudice.
By skillfully interweaving the reminiscences of eyewitnesses (both Jews
and non-Jews) with archival footage, Force of Evil questions how
a nation can slaughter millions of innocent people while the world watches
in silence and indifference.
Forever Activists!: Stories from the Veterans of Abraham Lincoln Brigade
USA, 1991, 60 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Judith Montell
Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary Feature; Special Jury Award,
San Francisco International Film Festival
The Spanish Civil War and the October 1986 reunion of the Abraham Lincoln
Brigade serve as the backdrop to Judith Montell’s documentary on these
heroic veterans and their fifty years of activism. The members, many of
whom are Jewish and now in their seventies and eighties, were filmed and
interviewed as they retraced their steps on the old battlefields of Spain.
The group’s journey through Spain becomes a metaphor for their lives of
ongoing commitment to social justice.
"... a visually powerful film that helps us understand the meaning of
citizenship in 20th century America. Through the prism of the
Abraham Lincoln Brigade, by following the lives of these remarkable individuals
through 50 years of struggle, we gain a deep insight into American history,
society and politics." - Robert N. Bellah, Professor of Sociology, University
of California/Berkeley
Freud Leaving Home
Sweden, 1991, 35mm, 100 minutes
Swedish with English subtitles
Director: Susanne Bier
"Freud" is the nickname of Rosha and Ruben Cohen’s youngest daughter, a 25 year-old who still lives with them in Stockholm. Freud is contrary, intellectually precocious and despite feeling smothered by living at home, unable to leave her Holocaust survivor mother. In the summer of 1990 Freud is joined at home by her gay brother from Miami and her Orthodox sister from Israel to celebrate their mother’s 60th birthday. But when Freud falls in love and Rosha falls ill, the family finds itself coping with a crisis everyone is ill-equipped to handle. A bittersweet romantic comedy.
Free Voice of Labor - The Jewish Anarchists
USA, 1980, 60 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
Directors: Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher
This film dramatically portrays immigrant life in the United States as seen
through the eyes of the sweatshop workers who made up the Jewish anarchist
movement. This movement was dedicated to freedom-freedom for the individual,
freedom from the Church, the State, and economic exploitation-and it reached
its greatest influence between 1880 and World War I. Through interviews
with actual participants in the Jewish anarchist movement, the film documents
their contributions to the fledging US labor movement and developing Yiddish
culture. Also featured are stills, newsreel footage, selections from old
motion pictures, and Yiddish songs of work and struggle.
"Free Voice of Labor - The Jewish Anarchists... is a wonderful
evocation of the radical political past and what has become of its activists
in their old age.... They have aged gracefully, with their sentiments
unchanged, but with their world different in ways they would never have
dreamed of years ago...." - Richard F. Shepard, The New York Times
The Front
USA, 1976, 94 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Woody Allen
A classic Woody Allen comedy with a serious theme. Allen is a nebbishy
guy enlisted by blacklisted writers to put his name on their scripts
during the 1950s McCarthy era, leading to various hilarious complications.
The movie’s original screenplay was written by blacklisted writer Walter
Bernstein and many of the stars (Martin Ritt, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi,
Joshua Shelley, and Lloyd Gough) were also blacklisted in real life.
The Führer Gives a City to the Jews
Germany, 1944, 23 minutes -incomplete, B&W (16mm/video) (study
guide)
German with English subtitles
Produced by the Ministry of Propaganda of the Third Reich
This is the only film known to be made by the Nazis inside an operating
concentration camp. This insidious propaganda film was produced in 1944
in Theresienstadt, the "model" ghetto established by the Nazis in 1941 in
Terezin, a town in the former Czechoslovakia. Goebbels intended to use the
film to prove to the International Red Cross and the world that Jews were
being well-treated in the camps. The film is an elaborately staged hoax
presenting a completely false picture of camp life. Upon completion, the
director and most of the cast of prisoners were shipped to Auschwitz. Only
a few survived to attest to the falsity of the film.
Funny Girl
USA, 1968, 155 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: William Wyler
Academy Award for Best Actress
Barbra Streisand made her Oscar-winning film debut in this classic musical
based on the life of Jewish singer-comedienne Fanny Brice, who rose to fame
with New York’s Ziegfeld Follies despite an unhappy private life. Featuring
a fine Bob Merrill-Jule Styne score, including the memorable finale "Don’t
Rain on My Parade," the film co-stars Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis,
and Walter Pidgeon.
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Genocide
England, 1975, 52 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
Produced by Thames Television as part of the "World at War" series
Narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, this documentary is one of the best comprehensive
overviews of the Holocaust and is an excellent tool for teacher training.
Organized chronologically from the exposition of the "master race" theory
in the early 1930s, through the persecution, ghettoization, deportation
and mass murder of European Jewry, this film is so painfully brutal and
explicit that it is recommended for mature audiences only.
Gentleman’s Agreement
USA, 1947, 118 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Elia Kazan
Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Director
This classic film adapts Laura Z. Hobson’s novel about a writer (Gregory
Peck) who is assigned to write an article on antisemitism in America and
decides to pretend he is a Jew. He discovers, to his surprise and confusion,
that antisemitism is rampant in postwar America. Stars Gregory Peck, Dorothy
McGuire, Celeste Holm, John Garfield, Jane Wyatt, and Dean Stockwell.
Germany Awake
Germany, 1968, 90 minutes, B&W (16mm)
German with English narration and subtitles
Director: Erwin Leiser
This compilation film examines the use of feature films as a political weapon
in the Third Reich. Among the numerous works excerpted are: Bismark,
Venus on Trial, Victory in the West, Jud Suss, I Accuse!, The Rothchilds,
and The Great King.
Girona: The Mother of Israel, The Jews of Catalonia
USA, 1989, 30 minutes, color (video)
Director: Patricia Giniger Snyder
This video documents Jewish daily life in Girona, a city in the northeastern
Spanish region of Catalonia, from its "Golden Age" in the middle ages through
the expulsion of Spanish Jewry in 1492 and up to the present day. Recognized
as the "Mother of Israel," a name given to just a few sites in the world
considered Jewish spiritual resting places, Girona was once home to an important
school of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) and has a significant place in Jewish
history. In addition to interviews with historians, highlights of the program
include Catalan-Ladino folk music and footage of Girona’s Jewish quarter
as it appears today.
"Captivating... tells a story that needs to be told." - Gabe Levinson,
The Jewish Week
"A moving and insightful program for Sephardim and Ashkenazim everywhere."
- Suri Kaserir, Executive Director, The American Sephardi Foundation
The Giraffe
Germany, 1998, 35mm, 107 minutes
German and English with English subtitles
Director: Dani Levy
From Germany’s X-Filme Creative Pool (Run Lola Run) comes a thriller that brings the ghosts of the past into a mystery of the present. In Germany, an anti-Semitic attack against a Jewish-owned factory makes headlines around the world, as speculation grows about the power of resurgent Nazi nationalism. In New York, David Fish’s mother sees the owner of the factory on television and believes he is her long-lost father whom she was separated from when she was smuggled out of Germany before the war. David hires Charles Kaminski (David Straithairn) to investigate the claim. When a horrible crime brings David and Lena Katz (the daughter of the factory owner) together, the stage is set for even more disturbing revelations which embroil a new generation of Germans and Jews in the traumas of the past. Maria Schrader, one of Germany’s most popular actresses, co-stars with director Dani Levy (Without Me, WJFF ‘94) in a script they co-wrote.
The Giving Tree
USA, 1971, 10 minutes, color (16mm)
From the story by Shel Silverstein
This animated short tells the story of the relationship between a little
boy and the tree which lovingly and unstintingly provides for his needs
at each stage of his life, asking nothing in return. Simple and low-key,
this film raises profound questions about parental and filial love, and
about the need to give and the need to repay.
Golda Meir
UK, 1971, 52 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
A film report by Alan Hart for the BBC
A close-up portrait of one of the century’s outstanding women and an illustrated
account of the dramatic events in which she has been a leading protagonist.
Narrated mostly by Golda herself, the film utilizes early stills and film
footage of the Yishuv and the State of Israel and conveys Meir’s own special
strength of character and style-that curious combination of grandmotherly
humanity and hard-nosed realism that has made her a legend in her own time.
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Half Sister
USA, 1985, 22 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Abraham Ravett
At 26, Abraham Ravett learned that his mother had previously been married
and lost her family at Auschwitz, including his half-sister, Toncia, who
was killed when she was 6 years old. At 36, Ravett saw a photograph of his
half-sister for the first time. Half Sister is a cinematic amalgam
of memory and imagination, inspired by Ravett’s conception of a life that
would have been.
The Hangman
USA, 1964, 12 minutes, color (16mm)
Directors: Paul Julian and Les Goldman
In this allegorical animated short based on the poem by Maurice Ogden, the
people of a town are condemned to die one by one by a mysterious stranger
who erects a gallows in the town square. The remaining townspeople create
a rationale for each hanging, until only one person is left. But the hangman’s
rope is really intended for "he who serves me best:" the last survivor,
he who has failed all along to raise his voice in protest and now shudders
to find no one left to protest on his behalf. Narrated by Herschel Bernardi.
Harold and Maude
USA, 1972, 90 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Hal Ashby
Classic cult comedy focusing on the loving relationship between a 20-year-old
(Bud Cort) obsessed with death and a 79-year-old swinger and Holocaust survivor
(Ruth Gordon).
Harry Weinberg's Notebook
USA, 1991, 25 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Yariv Kohn
Lawrence Kasdan Award, Best Narrative Film, Ann Arbor Film Festival
Based on Leslea Newman's story "A Letter to Harvey Milk," this award-winning
short examines the sensitive issues that surface when Harry Weinberg, an
older Jewish man, enrolls in a creative writing class taught by a lesbian.
For one assignment, Harry writes a letter to his former customer and friend,
the slain political activist, Harvey Milk. The letter unleashes a series
of events which impel Marvin, Harry's best friend, to painfully recall and
reveal a tragic incident that occurred in a concentration camp forty years
earlier.
"Yariv Kohn's film is quietly powerful... a touching work told with sensitivity,
humanity, and surprises." - Richard Friedman, University of California,
San Diego
Hatikvah: The Hope
Germany, 1936, 48 minutes, B&W (video)
Silent with German and English intertitles
Produced by the German Zionist Union
Created in 1936 in an effort to inspire German Jews under Nazi rule to make
Aliyah, Hatikvah: The Hope is a documentary about the earliest period
of Zionist history and a singular celluloid artifact. The film was made
three years after the Nazi rise to power, at the narrow juncture in history
when flight from Germany was both imperative and still possible. The unique
footage focuses on some major personalities in the Zionist movement, the
constructive work carried out in Palestine by the first waves of immigration,
and the religious life of Jews from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds. Palestine
is portrayed here as a land where ideologies are challenged only by physical
tasks such as land clearing and swamp draining. Omitted, however, are the
political challenges posed by the British Mandate and growing tensions between
Jewish immigrants and the indigenous Arab population.
Himmo, King of Jerusalem
Israel, 1987, 82 Minutes, color (35mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Amos Gutman
Adapted from Yoram Kaniuk’s best-selling novel, this deeply moving love
story takes place during the 1948 siege of Jerusalem in an ancient monastery
which has been temporarily converted into a military hospital. Bereaved
at the loss of her own love in the war, young and beautiful volunteer nurse
Hamutal (Alona Kimhi) is drawn to the enigmatic Himmo, a mortally wounded
and mutilated soldier who cannot speak or move. The doomed relationship
between Hamutal and Himmo becomes a source of bitter conflict among the
struggling, battle-scarred patients. In the tradition of The English
Patient and Johnny Got His Gun, this is a dark and profoundly
tragic study of war, suffering, love and redemption.
"At the center of Gutman’s film is impossible love, forbidden love..."
- Yediot Aharonoth
"Yoram Kaniuk’s best seller of 20 years ago, now in film form, transcending
the bounds of time and place." - Maariv
His Excellency (aka Seeds of Freedom/Yevo Prevoshoditelstvo)
USSR 1928 76 minutes B&W Silent with English intertitles (Incomplete:
missing one reel)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: Grigori Roshal
According to director Roshal, the subject matter of this film was so delicate
that the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment oversaw production of this film
personally. The film is based on the life of Hirsch Lekert, a shoemaker
and militant Jewish Labor Bund member, who attempted to assassinate the
Vilna governor in 1902 to avenge the flogging of workers who participated
in a May Day rally. Although the film was intended "as a tract against individualism,...
a greater emphasis is placed on class stuggle within the Jewish community."
Bourgeois Jewish Zionists find themselves pitted against fellow Jewish proletariats
and the government. This was the first Soviet-Jewish film to be produced
after a demand by the Central Committee's Department for Agitprop that fictional
films be made "... in a way that an be appreciated by millions." In the
tradition of brilliant Soviet directors Eisenstein and Pudovkin, His Excellency
features stylized cinematography and stars Leonid Leonidov, a star of the
Moscow Art Theater, and in a small part, Nikolai Cherkasov, who would later
play the lead roles in Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky and Ivan
the Terrible.
His People
USA, 1925, 91 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Edward Sloman
Silent with English intertitles
Restoration by the National Center for Jewish Film with permission
of Universal City Studios, Inc.
This restored early American feature starring Rudolph Schildraut is a nostalgic
melodrama centered on two sons of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family: Morris,
a lawyer, and Sammy, a prizefighter. As Morris and Sammy stray from traditions
cherished by their parents, each generation learns to accept change in order
to preserve the family as a source of love and respect. Director Sloman’s
images of New York’s Lower East Side are so evocative that the viewer can
almost hear the hustle and bustle of that thriving neighborhood during the
1920s.
"... Few silent films give so thorough a picture of Jewish home life
in the American ghetto." - Tom Gunning, Outisders as Insiders: Jews
and the History of the American Silent Film
"Sloman's compelling vision of the painful depths and joyous heights
of immigrant life endow the film with an exuberant vitality that captivates
modern filmgoers and enlightens film historians." - Lester B. Friedman,
Hollywood's Image of the Jew
Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American
Dream(video title: "Hollywood: An Empire of Their Own")
USA, 1997, 100 minutes, color/B&W (16mm, video)
Director: Simcha Jacobovici
Best Jewish Experience Documentary, 1998 Jerusalem Film Festival
Based on Neal Gabler’s best-selling book An Empire of Their Own, this
feature-length documentary tells the story of the men who founded Hollywood.
Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount; Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal;
the Warner brothers; Louis B. Mayer, founder of MGM; William Fox of 20th
Century Fox; and Harry Cohn, head of Columbia-all were immigrants, or children
of immigrants, who wanted to reinvent themselves as Americans. In the process,
they reinvented America. First hand accounts of the movie moguls’ lives
are told through a series of original interviews with their children and
grandchildren, and with comments by film historians, critics, actors and
producers.
"From Neal Gabler’s brilliant and bristling best-seller... Simcha Jacobovici
has made an equally impressive documentary... guaranteed to raise both
consciousness and hackles... provocative and engaging... "- John Leonard,
New York Magazine
"Stunning... a lucid, inviting work of social history... shrewdly on
target." - Caryn James, The New York Times
Holy For Me
Israel, 1995, 34 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Assaf Bernstein
Best Short Film, Jerusalem Film Festival, 1995
This spoof on tours, guides, and the "holy" sites of Israel concerns thirty
year old Jonah Sidas, who had a typical Jewish-Israeli upbringing; he was
born and raised in Jaffa, graduated from high school and served as a paratrooper
in the army. One day, Jonah donned the cross and black gown of the priesthood;
now he guides pilgrims around Tel Aviv, which he believes is a holy city
for the Christian faith. Join Jonah and his unwitting group of tourists
on an insane two-day tour of Tel Aviv.
Homicide
USA, 1991, 102 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: David Mamet
Tough homicide detective Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna) is torn between his loyalty
to the police force and his rediscovered Jewish identity in writer-director
David Mamet’s tense and gritty police thriller. Gold is caught between two
dangerous worlds when he’s pulled off a drug case and assigned to the murder
of an elderly Jewish woman who runs a pawn shop in the ghetto. Was her death
a simple homicide, or was it related to an antisemitic plot? Suddenly, what
appeared to be a routine investigation becomes Gold’s line to the conspiracy
of death and destruction that has plagued the Jewish people for centuries.
Horodok
Poland, 1930, 11 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
While visiting relatives in Horodok, a Polish shtetl located between
Minsk and Vilna, American Joseph Shapiro recorded his impressions with a
16mm hand-held camera. This home movie of relatives and friends provides
a rare glimpse into a destroyed world. Scenes of the market place, horse-drawn
carts, wooden houses with thatched roofs, and farm animals depict a poor
but pious way of life in this Jewish village.
House of Rothschild
USA, 1934, 88 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Alfred L. Werker
George Arliss stars as Nathan Rothschild in this chronicle of the famed
banking family at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Loretta Young plays his
daughter and Robert Young as her suitor. Boris Karloff also stars as the
villain. The finale was originally shot in color.
The House on Chelouche Street
Israel, 1973, 115 minutes, color (16mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Moshe Mizrahi
Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Film
This award-winning feature from one of Israel’s leading directors presents
a vivid picture of family and community during a period of political oppression
and national struggle for independence. The film focuses on Sami, a teenager
from a newly-arrived and poor Sephardic family growing up in the slums during
the turbulent last days of the British Mandate in Palestine, from the summer
of 1946 to the War of Independence in 1948.
How Moshe Came Back
USA, 1914, 10 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm)
Produced by Crystal Films
This short provides an interesting early example of a Jewish screen character:
the nebbish who dreams of physical prowess. The character, Moshe, is sad
about not winning the heavyweight championship and decides on a rematch.
Introduced at the fight as weighing 98 pounds, Moshe is afraid when the
"champ" is introduced at 240 pounds. When his "second" administers dope
via a syringe, Moshe, who had been losing up to that point, defeats the
champ and is the hero. Then, he wakes up and realizes it was all a dream.
Hungry Hearts
USA, 1922, 80 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: E. Mason Hopper
Restoration by the National Center for Jewish Film with the cooperation
of Samuel Goldwyn Pictures and the British Film Institute
Based on the short stories of Anzia Yezierska, the first writer to bring
stories of American Jewish women to a mainstream audience, Hungry Hearts
focuses on the members of the Levin family who emigrate from Eastern Europe
to New York City’s Lower East Side. Abraham, the pious father learned in
religion but uninterested in business, has difficulty making a living and
adjusting to life in America. The daughter Sara scrubs floors in the tenement
in order to earn money and "become a somebody." The mother Hannah, a noble
matriarch, scrimps and saves to paint her dingy kitchen white only to have
her landlord raise the rent because of the improvements. Filmed on location
on the Lower East Side, this bittersweet classic captures the hopes and
hardships of Jewish immigrants in the New World.
"Hungry Hearts may be more of an entertainment than a social film,
but its slice-of-life approach gives it unusual value. The picture of
downtrodden Jews may border on the sentimental, but the feeling is right."
- Kevin Brownlow, Behind the Mask of Innocence
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I Accuse!
USA, 1958, 99 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Jose Ferrer
Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay for this Hollywood version of the 1894 treason
trial of Alfred Dreyfus in France. Dreyfus, a captain on the French general
staff, was accused-partly from motives of antisemitism-of having sold secret
documents to Germany, and was condemned to life imprisonment. Dreyfus was
finally exonerated, but not before his case caused a furor in France that
contributed to the separation of the Church and the State of France, the
rise of the Socialist Party, and-by its influence on Herzl-to the development
of Zionism. Jose Ferrer plays Dreyfus and Emlyn Williams plays his defender,
Emile Zola. (See also The Life of Emile Zola)
I Love You, Rosa
Israel, 1972, 84 minutes, color (16mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Moshe Mizrachi
Academy Award nominee, Best Foreign Film
Jerusalem’s Orthodox community at the turn of the century is the setting
for this now-classic film about the life of a young Sephardic widow. Levirate
law, as delineated in the Book of Deuteronomy, requires Rosa to marry her
late husband’s only brother, Nissim-but Nissim is only eleven years old.
Having no children of her own, Rosa becomes Nissim’s guardian, and over
the years the pair’s relationship matures from affection to desire. Based
on the life of director Mizrachi’s mother, the film addresses the implications
of ancient religious tradition on modern life, particularly for women’s
rights.
"I highly recommend this tender, exquisitely sensitive love fable, the
best Israeli film I have ever seen... Mizrahi achieves a rare purity."
- Donald Mayerson, Cue
" ... Mr. Mizrahi's polished handling of his cast and subject
makes them come alive in a simple, subdued, and knowledgeable portrait."
- A.H. Weiler, New York Times
I Miss the Sun
USA, 1984, 20 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Mary Halawani
Best Documentary Short, Sinking Creek Film Festival 1984
In I Miss the Sun , filmmaker Mary Halawani profiles her grandmother,
Rosette Hakim, who left Egypt for the United States in 1962. The Halawanis,
a prominent Egyptian-Jewish family, fled their homeland in 1959 when Egyptian
anti-Zionist sentiments increased and hundreds of Jews, suspected of pro-Communist
activities, were interned in detention camps. Rosette, the family matriarch,
chose to remain in Egypt until every member of the large family was free
to leave. Using the Passover seder as a backdrop, Rosette (who now lives
in Brooklyn) discusses life in Egypt and the contrasts between the values
and textures of life there and in America.
"I Miss the Sun is a unique and important contribution to the
profile of contemporary Jewish life, exploring an area where there is
so little known about the community."- Julius Schatz, former President,
National Council on Art in Jewish Life
"The Passover Seder is important to the family... the family reenacts
the Exodus in a visual way, with ritual movements and demonstrative Arab
hand gestures." - Hadassah Magazine, 1984
If You Make it Possible: Documentary Portraits of Middle East Peacemakers
USA, 1996, 75 minutes, color (video)
Director: Lynn Feinerman
Cert. of Merit, 1996 Chicago Int'l Film Festival; Lindheim Prize, 1997 Jewish
Video Competition, San Francisco
Profiling Israelis and Palestinians who have devoted their lives to achieving
non-violence and coexistence in the Middle East, this film presents a
perspective not seen in television news. The title of the program derives
from an aphorism in the Koran: "If you make it possible, it is possible."
Many Israelis who have seen the documentary suggest a companion title
drawn from the words of 20th century Zionist Theodor Herzl:
"If you will it, it is no dream." Examining the unique lives, viewpoints,
and character traits of these Middle East peacemakers, the film is a study
of heroism and strength.
I’m Alive and I Love You
France/Belgium/Hungary, 1998, 35mm, 95 minutes
French with English subtitles
Director: Roger Kahane
In Nazi-occupied France, Julien (Jerome Deschamps), a French railroad worker finds a scrap of paper bearing the words, "I’m alive and I love you" underneath a sealed boxcar filled with Jews being deported to a concentration camp. He follows the vaguely worded address on the back of the paper to discover the elderly parents of Sarah, who wrote the note, and her 4-year-old son Thibaut, who have been hiding from the Nazis. Julien, who has up to this point avoided getting himself involved with the Resistance, finds himself feeling responsible for the family. He returns again to find the grandparents gone and the child alone. He takes responsibility for the boy in a heartwarming story about moral responsibility and the power of love during war.
The Imported Bridegroom
USA, 1990, 93 minutes, color (35mm)
Director: Pamela Berger
Based on a story by Jewish Daily Forward editor Abraham Cahan, The Imported
Bridegroom is a nostalgic Jewish romance about Asriel, a turn-of-the-century
rich Boston widower who returns to the old country looking for spiritual
nourishment. Instead, he "bags" who he thinks is the perfect son-in-law
for his daughter. But when the two meet, his thoroughly modern daughter
is appalled by this pious old world scholar-or is she? A sentimental comedy
of assimilation ensues, with some surprising twists along the way.
The Impossible Spy
UK, 1987, 96 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Jim Goddard
This riveting film tells the incredible but true story of Elie Cohen, an
Egyptian-born Jew and top Israeli intelligence recruit whose obsession with
his mission as a double agent drove him to his death. Cohen, an accountant
with a photographic memory, left his pregnant wife to join the Mossad’s
Syrian section in 1959 and quickly infiltrated the highest ranks of the
ruling Syrian Baath party. On the eve of his nomination as Syria’s Deputy
Minister of Defense, Cohen was uncovered and executed in Damascus in 1965.
Two years later, Israel achieved victory in the Six Day War, defeating the
Syrian Army as a direct result of the information Cohen provided.
"A marvelous film told in the grand tradition of a John Le Carré
novel. Shea is simply terrific in the role of Elie Cohen... a top-notch
thriller made all the more so by its factual basis." - Chicago Sun-Times
"A portrait of spies and spying that is as chilling as it is compelling."
- New York Times
In Memory
USA, 1993, 13 minutes, B&W (video)
Director: Abraham Ravett
In this non-narrative short, footage of life from the Lodz Ghetto is juxtaposed
against the chanting of "Kel Maleh Rachamim," a plea to God to let the souls
of those "slaughtered and burned" find peace. Images include winter street
scenes, women drawing water from a well, men breaking up ice, a Nazi roundup
and a mass hanging. The message of this tribute to members of Ravett’s family
(and to all those who perished under Nazi occupation) is "may their memory
endure."
In Search of Jewish Amsterdam
Denmark, 1975, 70 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Philo Bregstein
Historian and filmmaker Bregstein set out to discover what Jewish life was
like in Amsterdam before the virtual annihilation of the city’s Jewish population
during the war. Through interviews with survivors, Bregstein traces the
development of socialism and the cultural life of Amsterdam; the film creates
a continuous interplay between past and present, following the destruction
of the Jewish Quarter and exploring the few remnants of what had been an
intense, unique collaboration in all fields between Jews and Gentiles.
Inside Out
South Africa, 1998, 35mm, 104 minutes
English
Director: Neal Sundström
This South African Waiting for Guffman features comedian Gilda Blacher as Hazel Levin, a young Jewish comic from Johannesburg who gets stranded in a small, conservative town where circumstance conspires to place her in charge of directing the annual Christmas nativity pageant.
More than a "fish out of water" story, the film is also a heartfelt satire of the quirks of small towns and the eccentrics who often thrive there despite expectations to the contrary. While Hazel is welcomed by many of the townspeople, and even begins a tentative love affair with the rugged Boer farmer Tertius, others are suspicious of her, not only because she is Jewish, but also because she wants to involve the black community in the Christmas pageant. Filmed on location in the Mpumlanga Province, Inside Out is a lighthearted look at the new South Africa.
The Inheritance
USA, 1964, 58 minutes, B&W (video)
Producer: Harold Mayer
A portrait of 20th century America as seen through the eyes of
its working people. Opening with the flood of immigrants that poured through
Ellis Island in the early 1900s, the film goes on to unveil dim Lower East
Side sweatshops, coal mines and textile mills filled with children, the
battlefields of World War I, and the anxious years of the Depression. In
this setting we see the immigrants struggle to become part of their new
country and labor’s brutal battle to organize into a united movement during
the 1930s. Actual footage of the Memorial Day Massacre at Republic Steel
brings the power of authenticity to these scenes. The film moves through
World War II and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, as each generation
fights to preserve and expand its freedom.
Is There Poetry After Auschwitz?
USA, 1992, 60 minutes, color (video)
Producers: Vivienne Hermann and Dale Sonnenberg
At the age of nine, artist Vivienne Hermann was caught in a mass arrest
on the streets of Prague and subsequently spent five years in forced labor
camps in Czechoslovakia and Poland before being liberated by the Russians
in 1945. "The Holocaust didn’t stop when I was liberated," says Hermann,
whose art aims to show the "longevity of the Holocaust." Through interviews
with Hermann and her son, family photographs and letters, and images of
Hermann’s work, the film responds to its eponymous question with a resounding
"Yes!" As Hermann says in one scene: "I am the poem. I may be a tragic poem.
I may be an irritating poem. But I am the poem."
"A revealing look at a woman who has come to terms with her tormentors..."
- Rick Nathanson, The Albequerque Journal, April 26, 1992
Island of Roses: The Jews of Rhodes in Los Angeles
USA, 1995, 55 minutes, color (video)
English, Italian, French & Ladino with English subtitles
Director: Gregori Viens
1995 Silver Screen Award, US International Film and Video Festival
This film visits Los Angeles community of "Rhodeslis," Jews who lived on
the Mediterranean island of Rhodes from 1492 to World War II. It shows how
the immigrants settled in Los Angeles during World War II and passed down
their traditions, food, songs, rituals, and their medieval Ladino Spanish
dialect to their American-born children and grandchildren. Informative and
entertaining, this program is an excellent opportunity to experience
a little-known area of Jewish culture and history. Interviews with some
of the last surviving Rhodeslis, footage of traditional food preparation
and ceremonies (including a faith healing), and the impressions of second
and third generation Rhodesli descendants are included in this charming
documentary exploring how a transplanted culture is both preserved and transformed
in a new land.
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Jack Levine: Feast of Pure Reason
USA, 1986, 58 minutes, color (video)
Director: David Sutherland
CINE Golden Eagle; Gold Plaque, Chicago International Film Festival
This bold and unconventional cinematic portrait reveals America’s foremost
Social Realist painter doing what he does best: skewering corrupt politicians
and police, raging over social injustices, and satirizing petty human foibles.
Jack Levine got his professional start during the Federal Art Projects of
the WPA, and quickly became world famous for his brilliantly painted, brutally
ironic vision of America and the world. Levine stands as the only American
artist who never stopped painting as a Social Realist, even after the style
went out of vogue during the 1950s and ‘60s. Director Sutherland’s innovative
approach to documentary filmmaking-making the artist both subject and host
without the intervention of a narrator/interviewer-is eminently suited to
this articulate, iconoclastic individual who speaks with a charming mix
of erudition and the street lingo picked up during his childhood on the
streets of Boston’s South End.
Jakob the Liar (Jakob der Lügner)
GDR/East Germany, 1975, 95 minutes, color (35mm/16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Frank Beyer
Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film; Best Actor, 1975
Berlin Film Festival
Jakob Heym, a Jew trapped in a Polish ghetto, overhears news of a nearby
Russian victory on a Gestapo radio. Pretending to have heard the good news
on his own clandestine radio, Jakob passes the word on to his neighbors.
Clinging to this newfound hope of deliverance, Jakob’s friends anxiously
ask him for regular reports of the Red Army’s advance. A reluctant Jakob
feels obligated to invent more "good news" in order to provide his doomed
community with the courage to endure. This story was adapted for the screen
by Holocaust survivor Jurek Becker from his novel.
"... forceful, funny, and poignant... a heartwarming saga ..." - A.H.
Weiler, New York Times
The Jazz Singer
USA, 1927, 90 minutes, B&W (16mm)
silent with some sound
Director: Alan Crosland
This landmark of modern cinema, the first ‘talking picture,’ is also a pro-assimilationist
story focusing on the conflicts between generations and between the old
and new worlds. Al Jolson plays Jakie, a cantor’s son who rejects his family’s
tradition and wish for him to follow in his father’s footsteps by heading
for Jazz and Broadway. The film emphasizes Jakie’s new world rebellion against
the loss of his father’s old world values, a topic no less relevant for
today’s audiences than it was for moviegoers in the 1920s. Cast: Al Jolson,
May McAvoy, Warner Oland, Eugenie Besserer, Myrna Loy.
Jew Boy Levi
Germany, 1998, 35mm, 97 minutes
German with English subtitles
Director: Didi Danquart
In a small town in Germany’s Black Forest, little has changed for centuries. Levi, a tradesman and cattle dealer, has been coming to the town for years to buy and sell with the local farmers, just as his father and grandfather before him. Levi feels such a part of the town that he plans to propose to Lisbeth Horger, the Catholic daughter of one of his clients. But in 1935 disturbing changes begin to take place with the arrival in town of a Nazi bureaucrat Fabian Kohler (Ulrich Noethen, The Harmonists). Slowly, the townspeople begin to change their attitudes toward Levi. Director Didi Danquart has constructed a film with a complicated moral terrain set against the pristine Black Forest, where an ominous and seemingly unstoppable railroad is being constructed.
Jews of the Spanish Homeland (Los Judios de Patria Espana)
Spain, 1929, 13 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Produced by Ernesto Giménez Caballero
This short, unusual film addresses the expulsion of the Jews from Spain
in 1492. The documentary provides a rare glimpse of Sephardic communities
in Salonika, Constantinople, Yugoslavia, and Romania as well as former centers
of Jewish life in Spain.
Jews Under the Red Star - Birobidzhan
USSR/West Germany, 1989, 56 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
Russian with English narration
Director: Irmgard von zur Mühlen
This documentary tells the astonishing story of Jewish life in Birobidzhan,
a region located in the far eastern region of Siberia, near the Manchurian
border. Birobidzhan was the capital of the "Jewish Autonomous Region," an
area so designated by Stalin in 1928 in an attempt to oppose Zionism and
as a point of military strategy. In the early 1930s, Jews from the US, South
America, and Palestine joined the community, which was centered in Birobidzhan.
Many of the pioneers could not adapt to the harsh climate and rural life
and quickly departed; the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and 1940s devastated
the community. This documentary, which was filmed during 1988-89, examines
the problems facing the Jews of this region, including the questioning of
their religious activities under a communist regime. Footage from American
and Russian sources, from 1928 to the present, appears here for the first
time.
Joshua Then and Now
Canada, 1985, 127 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Ted Kotcheff
James Woods stars in this feature based on Mordecai Richler’s semi-autobiographical
novel about the unorthodox life and times of a Jewish writer in Canada.
Also stars Alan Arkin, Gabrielle Lazure and Michael Sarazin.
Journey Into Life: Aftermath of a Childhood in Auschwitz
Germany, 1996, 130 minutes, color (16mm/video)
German with English subtitles
Director: Thomas Mitscherlich
Premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival, 1996
Journey into Life follows the struggles of three concentration camp
survivors (Yehuda Bacon of Israel, Gerhard Durlacher of the Netherlands,
and Ruth Kluger of the United States) to rebuild their lives after World
War II. In on-camera interviews, these extraordinary individuals discuss
their childhood memories of Auschwitz, internment in Displaced Persons camps,
and their search for a new homeland after World War II. Using U.S. Army
archival footage to illustrate these powerful stories, Mitscherlich’s film
focuses on the subjects’ attempts to cope with the psychological trauma
of their experiences and to comprehend the meaning of the Holocaust.
Judgment at Nuremberg
USA, 1961, 186 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Winner of two Academy Awards
In this epic Hollywood dramatization of the Nuremberg trials, director
Kramer assembled one of the most powerful casts of any day, including
Spencer Tracy, Richard Widmark, Burt Lancaster, Marlene Dietrich, Montgomery
Clift, Judy Garland, and Maximilian Schell (who won an Oscar for his performance
as a defense attorney.)
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Kazablan
Israel, 1973, 95 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Menahem Golan
This IsraeliWest Side Story unfolds when Kazablan, a dark Sephardic
Jew, takes time out from hassling the poverty-stricken tenants of the Jaffa
ghetto to court the fair-skinned Rachel, an Ashkenazic Jew. As their cultures
clash, Kazablan’s passion gives way to pride when Rachel’s father reveals
his prejudice against the Sephardim. Enhanced by enthusiastic dancing and
singing, this colorful, exuberant modern-day Romeo and Juliet remains
Israel’s best and most beloved musical.
A Kiss To This Land (Una Beso A Esta Tiera)
Mexico, 1995, 93 minutes, color (35mm/16mm/video)
Spanish with English subtitles (also available in Spanish and French
versions)
Director: Daniel Goldberg
Golden Gate Award,1995 San Francisco International Film Festival; Gold
Award 1995 Worldfest Houston; Prize of the Austrian Public 1995 American
Film Festival, Innsbruck
This fascinating documentary recounts the unique experiences of Jews
who immigrated to Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s. Director Goldberg
interviewed seven of these iconoclastic immigrants, who share their memories
and observations on leaving their homes and adapting to life in a new
land. The oral histories of the highly engaging, diverse interviewees,
enhanced with archival footage and still photographs, form a vivid portrait
of Mexican-Jewish life past and present.
Krasnodar- The Trial of 1943
Germany, 1987, 55 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
English and German with English subtitles
Directors: Irmgard and Bengt von Zur Mühlen
Krasnodar was the site of the first World War II war crimes trial, convened
by Soviet authorities in July 1943. A Russian city of 500,000 inhabitants,
Krasnodar was occupied by the Germans on August 8, 1942 and liberated February
13, 1943. During the six months of German occupation, thousands of the city’s
inhabitants were murdered, beginning with and including every member of
the Jewish community. Meticulously combining German and Soviet newsreel
footage with the testimony of eyewitnesses and war crimes defendants, this
landmark film tells the story of the six month Nazi reign of terror, the
trial against eleven Russian collaborators and their public execution on
July 18, 1943.
Kurow
Poland, 1932, (silent at sound speed- 16mm)10 minutes, B&W
Cinematographer: Jack Weisbord
This fascinating portrait of shtetl life was made by Jack Weisbord,
an American whose father-in-law had emigrated from Kurow, a Polish town
not far from Lublin. At the time, the Jewish population of Kurow comprised
over 50% of the approximately 4,000 persons in the shtetl. The film
shows the villagers of Kurow immersed in animated conversation; the streets
and shops of a typical Polish town; a latter-day Tevye with his horse; a
weary pauper resting on a curbside; several family portraits; the ancient
cemetery; as well as the contrast between the local church and the old synagogue
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L'Chaim
USSR, 1910, B&W
Silent with English intertitles
Directors: Andre Metre, Kaj Hansen
Among the first Jewish-themed films to be produced in Russia, this short
depicts shtetl life by means of a typically-melodramatic silent movie
plot "based on a folk song." Although the film's Judaic content is far from
authentic (most of its cast came from the Russian Pathe Studio's stock company
of non-Jewish actors) it played successful runs in France and the United
States and was highly touted by the Tsarist press.
L'Chaim: To Life!
USA, 1973, 80 minutes, B&W and color (video)
Director: Harold Mayer
CINE Golden Eagle, 1973; Blue Ribbon First Prize, American Film Festival,
1974; Silver Plaque, Chicago International Film Festival, 1974; Honors,
1973 Festival di Populi, Florence
Produced for the Women's American ORT and narrated by Eli Wallach, this
highly acclaimed documentary describes more than a century of Jewish life
in Russia. Stills and archival footage recreate the life of the Russian-Jewish
community from the shtetl through the first World War, the Holocaust, the
Warsaw Ghetto, the displaced persons camps and the establishment of the
State of Israel. The film also examines the origins and activities of the
ORT, a movement dedicated to the vocational training and education of the
Jewish people.
"The inescapable fact of man's inhumanity to man and his will to survive
is brought into soberingly sharp focus... these are pointed and artistic
documentations of a shocking past that deserves to be kept vividly alive."
- A.H. Weber, The New York Times, February 7, 1975
Labyrinth
Czechoslovakia, 1991, 90 Minutes, color (35mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Jaromil Jires
Critics’ Choice, AFI International Film Festival 1992
Labyrinth is an intellectually-bracing investigation of the connection
between the fictional world of Franz Kafka and the historical persecution
of the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Framing his intense drama
with recitations of the human rights denied to Jews under the Third Reich,
veteran Czech director Jires creates his alter ego in Maximilian Schell,
who plays a director taking up residence in Prague to prepare a film about
Kafka. Christopher Chaplin, son of the late Charlie Chaplin, plays Kafka.
"Riveting… an excellent performance from Maximilian Schell." - Harriet
Robbins, La Opinion
"Beautifully made." Todd McCarthy, Variety
Ladies’ Tailor
USSR, 1990, 92 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Russian with English subtitles
Director: Leonid Gorovets
This powerful Holocaust drama takes place in Kiev, Russia on September 29,
1941. Chronicling the last twenty-four hours in the lives of a Jewish tailor
(renowned Soviet actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky) and his family just prior
to their deportation and execution at Babi Yar. Director Gorovets uses the
simple human drama of his characters to raise complex and terrifying questions
about the fate of the Jews under Nazi and Soviet tyranny.
"Impressive and affecting... the violence is never fully depicted, but
Ladies' Tailor is as disturbing as many far more explicit films
about the Nazi genocide." - Mark Jenkins, Washington City Paper
"A brilliant film." - Leonid Anninskij, Soviet Culture
Land of Promise
Palestine, 1935, 57 minutes, B&W (video)
English and Hebrew
Director: Juda Leman
One of Palestine’s earliest sound films and part of a campaign to encourage
settlement and investment in "the Jewish homeland," this striking documentary
emphasizes secular accomplishments and portrays Zionist settlers with considerable
cinematographic and editorial skill. Preserved by and made available in
cooperation with the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman
House.
The Land Was Theirs
USA, 1993, 55 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Director: Gertrude Dubrovsky
An absorbing documentary about Farmingdale, New Jersey, one of many Jewish
farming communities in the United States established with the help of the
Jewish Agricultural Society. Spanning more than fifty years, the history
of Farmingdale provides a perspective on the pressures, problems, and satisfactions
of rural Jewish life as experienced in one community.
"What a triumph! It’s a wonderful and provocative piece as important
as any I have seen on the American Jewish experience." - Abraham J. Peck,
American Jewish Archives
"… a fascinating presentation of a subject I had known only marginally...
a program that was charming and informative without falling into the clutches
of academe."- Richard Shepard, Critic (retired), The New York Times
The Last Marranos
France, 1990, 65 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Portuguese with English subtitles
Directors: Stan Neumann and Frederic Brenner
In 1497, five years after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Portuguese
Jews were forced to accept conversion to Catholicism. Dubbed ‘Marranos’
(swine) during the Inquisition, they practiced their religion in secret
for five centuries, fearing for their lives. Today, some 100 of these Jews
remain in the Portuguese village of Belmonte, where they clandestinely observe
the rituals of their hybrid Judaism while surrounded by largely antisemitic
Christian neighbors. The Last Marranos is a riveting and moving documentary,
composed primarily of interviews with the inhabitants of Belmonte. The local
priest reveals his ignorance and prejudice as he speaks about the physical
differences between the Christians and the Marranos; other Christians murmur
about their neighbors and their mysterious ceremonies; the Marranos themselves
continue to speak about their fear of Christians, a return to Judaism, and
about the difficulty of breaking with the old ways.
"... very informative, moving, and well done." - Jonathan Wasserman,
The Jewish Advocate
The Last Sea
Israel, 1979, 68 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles or dubbed English
Directors: Daniel Bergman, Jacquot Erlich, Haim Gouri, Benny Shilo
Silver Eagle, International Festival of Historic Films, 1983
In 1945, multitudes of liberated survivors of the death camps, finding themselves
homeless in Europe, sought to immigrate to Israel. This film recounts the
survivors’ journeys, including their danger-fraught passages through the
borders of Europe and across the Mediterranean, confrontations with the
British Navy, detention at camps on Cyprus, and their final, vindicating
arrival in the land of their forefathers. The second in an epic trilogy
of Israeli documentaries about the Holocaust and its aftermath, this film
was edited together from over 30 hours of archival footage; in lieu of narration.
These visuals are accompanied by the anonymous testimonials of witnesses,
forming what the film’s makers call "an historic poem." See also: The
Eighty First Blow and Flames in the Ashes.
"… I have no hesitation in recommending this film for its documentary
quality as well as its historical value… as I watched, it took my breath
away." Elie Wiesel
"… [The film’s] uninterrupted, barely mediated flow of voices and images
has a visionary immediacy…" J. Hoberman, Village Voice, July 10,
1984
The Legend of Mrs. Goldman and the Almighty God
Germany, 1996, 3 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Director: Michael Verhoeven
A short comic parable related on camera by writer George Tabori, this gem
provides an ideal introduction for the Verhoeven-Tabori feature "My Mother’s
Courage." (see below.)
Leon the Pig Farmer
UK, 1992, 98 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Directors: Vadim Jean and Gary Sinyor
International Critics’ Prize, 1992 Venice Film Festival; Best Film,
1992 Edinburgh Film Festival
An irreverent comedy from the production company of Monty Python’s Eric
Idle, Leon the Pig Farmer is considered a cult classic in Europe.
The movie’s zany story is set in motion when Leon Geller (the late Mark
Frankel), a sensitive Jewish boy from London, accidentally learns that he
is the product of artificial insemination. Leon’s search for his biological
parents leads him to the still more startling discovery of a sperm bank
mix-up proving that he is the son of a Yorkshire pig farmer (!) The inevitable
confusion results in a comic Jewish identity crisis.
"*** ... Fresh and vastly amusing." - Chicago Tribune
"Insightful and witty." - Village Voice
The Liberation of Auschwitz 1945
Germany, 1985, 55 minutes, B&W (35mm/16mm/video)
English and German (with English subtitles)
Director: Irmgard von zur Muhlen
This chilling, vitally important documentary was produced to mark the fortieth
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The film
contains unedited, previously-unavailable footage of Auschwitz shot by the
Soviet military forces between January 27 and February 28, 1945 and includes
an interview with Alexander Voronsov, the cameraman who shot the footage.
The horrifying images include: survivors; camp visit by Soviet investigation
commission; criminal experiments; forced laborers; evacuation of ill and
weak prisoners with the aid of Russian and Polish volunteers; aerial photos
of the IG Farben Works in Monowitz; and pictures of local people cleaning
up the camp under Soviet supervision.
"…a stark, shocking and unflinching testament… the film stands as a powerful
tool in efforts to never let the world forget what happened under Nazi
rule." - Variety
Lies My Father Told Me
Canada, 1975, 102 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Jan Kadar
Three generations of a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in 1920s Montreal
form the focus of this autobiographical tale by Ted Allen, which enjoyed
success in print, radio and television before its adaptation into this film
by Oscar-winning Czech director Kadar. David, a young boy, is caught between
the traditional Jewish values of his peddler grandfather (Yossi Yadin) and
the material ambitions of his parents, who are preoccupied with supporting
him and their new baby. When his father’s words don’t agree with his grandfather’s
teachings, David perceives them as lies. Gradually, however, as he moves
from innocence towards maturity, David begins to realize that his beloved
grandfather is also capable of invention and deception.
"A warm, funny and touching tale." - Judith Crist, Saturday Review
"Under Jan Kadar’s sensitive guidance, this journey back to lost youth
touchingly, modestly reveals people as authentic as the settings in which
they are captured." - A.H. Weiller, New York Times
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
USA, 1998, 16mm, 90 minutes
English
Director: Aviva Kempner
This prize-winning documentary tells the story of the Detroit Tigers slugger "Hammerin’" Hank Greenberg. More than simply the story of a sports hero, the film demonstrates how Greenberg, a Jew from the Bronx, became an American celebrity and an icon for American Jews during the 1930s – an era in which public displays of anti-Semitism were still considered acceptable by mainstream America. Greenberg is best known for challenging Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1938. Through interviews with fans like Walter Matthau, Senator Carl Levin and Alan Dershowitz, we see the enormous impact Greenberg had on a generation of Jews and the pride he inspired. Though made with an obvious affection for the game of baseball, the film, with its clips from vintage movies and newsreels, will be as meaningful for the non-sports fan as for a devotee of the game.
The Life of Emile Zola
USA, 1937, 116 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: William Dieterle
Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture
Paul Muni stars in this biography of the famed 19th century French
writer who defended Captain Dreyfus (see I Accuse! ).
"Rich, dignified, honest, and strong, it is at once the greatest historical
film ever made, and the greatest screen biography... Paul Muni’s portrayal
of Zola is, without doubt, the best thing he has ever done." - Frank S.
Nugent, New York Times, August 1937
Lissy
East Germany, 1957, 88 minutes, B&W (16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Konrad Wolf
Director Konrad Wolf’s interpretation of Franz Weiskopf’s anti-fascist novel
sheds light on the parallel and differing paths of the Nazis and socialists
in Germany between 1932 and 1934. The film follows Lissy, a young woman
raised in the socialist working class, who finds herself living the bourgeois
lifestyle of a Nazi stormtrooper’s wife when her husband joins the S.A.
Lissy must juggle her political and personal loyalties, until a final clash
of values forces her to make some very difficult and potentially dangerous
choices for her future.
Long Fliv the King
USA, 1926, 22 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
silent with English intertitles
Director: Leo McCarey
An offbeat comedy short from future Hollywood screwball director McCarey
about a princess (Martha Sleeper) who must find a husband in twenty-four
hours or forfeit her throne. Threatened by a greedy prime minister and his
henchman (Oliver Hardy), she quickly marries a condemned man (Charles Chase)
who is sentenced to die next weekend; she then returns home to rule her
country. When the man is pardoned, he enlists the aid of a Jewish speculator
(Max Davidson) to bankroll a journey to his new kingdom. Together, the two
partners battle court intrigue, murder plots, and strange customs to emerge
victorious.
Love at Second Sight
Israel, 1998, 35mm, 90 minutes
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Michal Bat-Adam
Nina (Michal Zuaratz) is a 20-something photojournalist in Tel Aviv whose life is changed suddenly while taking pictures of a suicide attempt. Captured in one of her crowd shots is the face of a stranger with whom Nina falls madly and inexplicably in love. She begins searching all over town, trying to identify him. This quest for the man to whom she feels irresistibly drawn is contrasted with her relationship with two elderly men who play important roles in her life – her grandfather (Yossi Yadin) who taught her photography and an old widower from whom she rents a room. This intimate film is both uniquely Israeli with its portrayal of a tight-knit society where any stranger can be no more than a few degrees of separation away, and universal in its message about the power of passion, love and the difference between the two.
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Majdanek 1944
West Germany, 1986, 65 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
English and German with English subtitles
Directors: Irmgard and Bengt von zur Mühlen
This documentary is the film record of one of the first Nazi war crimes
trials, conducted while the war was still raging. The concentration and
extermination camp Majdanek, near Lublin, erected in 1941, was liberated
in July 1944. When the Soviet and Polish troops drove the Nazis out of the
region, they uncovered the evidence of Nazi genocide. One month later, a
joint Soviet-Polish commission heard evidence from survivors and witnesses
as to the atrocities that took place, and their testimony is preserved in
this film. Bengt and Irmgard von zur Mühlen are German film archivists
who unearthed a wealth of material in various Eastern bloc archives of the
time. Majdanek 1944 includes documentary material made available
for the first time in the West.
Marriage in the Shadows
GDR/East Germany, 1947, 96 minutes, B&W(16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Kurt Maetzig
Based on a true story and adapted from the novel by Hans Schweikart, this
fiction feature marks the German cinema’s first attempt to address antisemitism
and the Holocaust. The film focuses on key events of the years 1933, 1938,
and 1943 and how the lives of a famous Jewish actress (whom the Nazis barred
from the stage) and her non-Jewish husband are affected by Hitler’s rise
to power.
Maytal
Israel, 1996, 51 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Yael Kipper Zarezhky
A 1996 terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv left 27 year old Maytal Lederman critically
injured and took the life of her brother Asaf. This documentary video follows
Maytal over a period of eight months in an Israeli rehabilitation hospital,
as she struggles to cope with her loss and rebuild her life with her husband
Steve. Emotionally affecting yet unsentimental, this program provides both
a portrait of one woman’s exceptional courage and an unforgettable human
perspective on the tragic consequences of Middle Eastern conflict.
Meet Me In Miami Beach
USA, 1994, 18 minutes (16mm/video)
Directed by Bonnie Cohen
This short documentary focuses on three elderly Jews living out their retirement
years in Miami Beach. They talk of searching for the fountain of youth,
about the Jewish community that has thrived in this unlikely setting, and
the inevitability of growing old and losing friends. Director Cohen poignantly
captures the subjects’ thoughts and memories, as well as the contrast between
the older and younger populations of modern Miami Beach.
Mendel
Norway, 1997, 35mm, 98 minutes
German and Norwegian with English subtitles
Director: Alexander Røsler
When Mendel and his family arrive in Norway in 1954, as displaced persons from Germany, the nine-year-old protagonist of this bittersweet drama is amazed that polar bears do not wander the streets. But as confusing as the move is, there are more disturbing questions facing Mendel. What exactly did his parents experience in the concentration camps? What nightmare wakes his father every night? Gradually, sometimes by stealth and sometimes by chance, he learns more about his parents’ experiences. Eventually, reacting to their seemingly passive response, Mendel develops an obsession with bravery. Based on the director’s own experience, Mendel is a classic second-generation story told with compassion and humor
A Musical Passage
USA, 1983, 73 minutes, color (16mm/35mm)
Director: Jim Brown
Since its first concert in 1978, the Soviet Emigre Orchestra was hailed
by critics and audiences as one of the best chamber music ensembles in America.
This "entertainment-documentary" combines superb performances (including
music by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Shostakovich) with an examination of the
lives of the orchestra members and their conductor, Lazar Gosman. Director
Brown expertly documents the struggles and triumphs of these Soviet Jewish
musicians who risked their futures to seek personal and artistic freedom
in the United States.
"An unqualified delight." - Vincent Canby, New York Times
"A tender and glowing story of artists who survive to share their music...
beautiful." - Judith Crist
My Knees Were Jumping: Remembering the Kindertransports
USA, 1996, 90 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Melissa Hacker
Narrated by: Joanne Woodward
Selected for the 1996 Sundance Film Festival; Certificate of Merit Award,1996
San Francisco International Film Festival
With tremendous courage and ingenuity, a group of British Jews and Quakers
conceived of a rescue mission that saved the lives of thousands of children
from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland between December 1938
and August 1939. Most of the children never saw their parents again. In
recording the story of her Viennese-born mother, Ruth Morley, filmmaker
Melissa Hacker reveals the isolation of the rescued and the way memories
and fears were transmitted to the next generation. The story of the Kindertransport
is an extraordinary piece of history- untold for too long. The Jewish
children who lived the trauma and terror of being uprooted and severed
from secure homes tell amazing stories. Into the darkness of the Holocaust,
it is important to add true tales that are life-affirming.
"[Hacker] approaches her poignant subject matter in a particularly earnest,
intimate way... heartfelt in its search for the lasting significance of
what these children and their parents went through." - Janet Maslin, New
York Times
"A stunning account of the campaign to evacuate Jewish children to Great
Britain before the outbreak of World War II. As Hacker makes painfully
clear through interviews with several survivors only a few thousand children
could be saved. If you have a tear left to shed, this film will wring
it from you." - Joe Leydon, Houston Press
"Surviving participants vividly recall the excitement and the downside
of this ‘adventure’... Editing weaves together interviews, newsreel footage,
old photos and other material to sketch far-reaching psychological and
historical reverberations." - Dennis Harvey, Variety
My Mother’s Courage
Germany, 1996, 92 minutes, color (35mm/video)
German with English subtitles
Director: Michael Verhoeven
Jewish Experience Prize, Jerusalem Film Festival; Best Film, Bavarian Film
Awards; Best Film, German Film Award 1996
From Michael Verhoeven, director of The White Rose andThe Nasty
Girl , comes this stunning cinematic version of Hungarian author George
Tabori’s play and novel. Shifting between Nazi-occupied Budapest and present-day
Berlin, the film artfully depicts the true story of what happened to Tabori’s
mother Elsa on a summer’s day in 1944. Pauline Collins’ stellar performance
as Elsa, plucked from her everyday life and thrown into the surreal nightmare
of mass deportation, affords an extraordinary account of one individual’s
escape from death juxtaposed with that of the millions who did not survive.
Verhoeven’s skillful adaptation of Tabori's satirical, dark tale about
fate and human cruelty forges new ground in cinematic portrayals of the
Holocaust.
"My Mother’s Courage shows that blue skies and sunshine can be
as devastating as night and fog." -J. Hoberman, Village Voice
"A film about the Holocaust that, after the few memorable films on the
subject and the flood of lesser ones, needs to be seen."- Stanley Kaufmann,
New Republic
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Nana: Un Portrait
USA, 1972, 23 minutes, color (16mm/video)
French with English subtitles
Director: Jamil Simon
From her apartment in New York, eighty-year-old Louise Zilkha reviews the
highlights of her life that began with a traditional Jewish upbringing in
Baghdad. Zilkha reminisces about her youth, of playing Queen Esther and
of her arranged courtship and marriage to a leading Middle Eastern banker.
She talks about the often turbulent coexistence of Iraqi Jews and Moslems,
and of the persecution and threats that led the family on a journey out
of Iraq to Beirut, Cairo, and finally, New York. The film is at once a very
personal portrait and a documentary tribute to a lost culture.
The Nasty Girl
Germany, 1990, 92 minutes, color (16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Michael Verhoeven
Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Film; Silver Bear Award, Berlin
Film Festival
Based on the true story of Ann Elisabeth Rosmus, Michael Verhoeven's award-winning
black comedy uses sharp wit and an intriguing post-modern style to explore
a serious subject: Germany's Nazi past. A determined student (Lena Stolze)
is dubbed "The Nasty Girl" when she embarks on an investigation of her hometown's
secret shame. She sets out to write an essay title "My Town During the Third
Reich," and outraged local citizens, intent on preserving their version
of history, go to violent lengths to stop her from exposing the truth.
Nazi Concentration Camps
USA, 1945, 59 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Produced by the U.S. Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality
This film is the official documentary report compiled from over 80,000
feet of film shot by Allied military photographers in the German concentration
camps immediately after liberation. The footage is a camp-by-camp record
taken in order to provide lasting objective proof of the horrors the liberators
witnessed there. Some emphasis is also placed on the humanitarian work
done in the camps by the liberators. Remarkably, the narration refers
to the camp victims according to their country of origin only, and no
mention of Jews is made.
Night and Fog
France, 1955, 31 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
French with English subtitles
Director: Alain Resnais
Night and Fog is a powerful, personal statement about the banality
of evil in our time. Brutally graphic, Resnais’ artistic depiction of life
and death in a Nazi extermination camp combines ghostly scenes of the abandoned
camp in the 1950s with Nazi and Allied stock footage and stills. The juxtaposition
between past and present is seen in the stark contrast between the more
contemporary color sequences and the black and white historical footage.
The film concludes with a subtle accusation against all who view the remaining
evidence today and assume the story to be a closed book.
Nightmare: The Immigration of Joachim and Rachel
USA, 1978, 24 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
Director: Tom Robertson
During the struggle to survive the Warsaw Ghetto, thirteen-year-old Joachim
and his little sister Rachel receive final instructions from their parents:
hide in an old cabinet. From their hiding place, the siblings hear soldiers
take their parents away and know they will never see them again. Left to
care for themselves, they must scrounge for food and sleep wherever and
whenever they find shelter. Many people refuse to help them for fear of
the Nazis. Facing starvation, they decide to try to escape the ghetto through
the sewers and embark on a journey leading them toward a new life.
Nize People
USA, 1927, 20 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: Sam Newfield
In this slapstick comedy in the immigrant/vaudeville genre, the Goldbergs
and the O’Connors have planned a big welcome home party for their children,
Izzie and Lizzie, who are coming home from college. During the party Lizzie
discovers her necklace is missing and believes it stolen. This sets off
a whole series of literally crazy events when Mr. O’Connor hires the "world’s
greatest detective," who turns out be Lunatic Louie, an escapee from an
insane asylum!
None So Blind
USA, 1923, 66 minutes, B&W (16mm)
silent with English intertitles
Director: Burton King
A silent feature that shows how gingerly the Hollwood cinema of the 1920s
dealt with Jewish-Gentile conflicts.
Nowogrodek
Poland, ca. 1930, 26 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
silent with Yiddish and English intertitles
Produced by Zenith Film Productions, Ltd.
A visit by Yiddish lexicographer Alexander Harkavy provided the impetus
for this film of Nowogrodek, a lively, medium-sized, Lithuanian-Jewish community.
Scenes include: sporting events, a bustling marketplace, a crowded synagogue
courtyard just after Sabbath prayers, the town’s fire brigade at work, a
children’s summer camp, a vocational training class and a yeshiva in session,
as well as glimpses of the local theater, hospital, orphanage, and cemetery.
Nuremberg
USA, 1946, 76 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Compiled by Pare Lorentz and Stuart Schulberg, produced by the Civil
Affairs Division, US War Department
This US government film is a grim and unflinching documentary account
of the Nuremberg trials, told almost totally without editorial comment.
During the trials, the courtroom was dominated by a large motion picture
screen upon which the prosecution showed films of Nazi atrocities; much
of this footage was confiscated from the private libraries of high Nazi
officials and proved to be the most damning evidence against them. Excerpts
of these films are included with the trial sequences. Due to graphic footage,
this film is not recommended for viewing by young or impressionable audiences.
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Of Stars and Shamrocks: Boston’s Jews and Irish
USA, 1995, 55 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Director: John Michalczyk
Both Irish and Jewish immigrants settled in Protestant Brahmin Boston in
the late 19th century, where they found the myth of a land of
opportunity and acceptance shattered by bigotry, exploitation, exclusion
and discrimination. Even as both groups were victims of Brahmin discrimination,
each harbored prejudice against the other as they competed for jobs, housing,
and education. This provocative film chronicles the interaction between
the two ethnic communities over the last 100 years and discusses figures
such as the vicious antisemite Father Charles Coughlin, Boston’s "Rascal
King" Mayor James Michael Curly, and Cardinal Cushing (whose installation
in the 1950s gave Boston its first decidedly pro-Jewish leader). Michalczyk's
film provides a deep insight into the ties that have bound two underdog
communities together over a century of struggle; communities that one commentator
says "share profoundly ironic and droll ways of coping with existence."
Old Isaacs the Pawnbroker
USA, 1908, 10 minutes, silent, B&W (16mm/video)
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
Director: Wallace McCutcheon
Script: D.W. Griffith
A small girl in an urban slum goes out to seek aid for her sick and starving
mother. She goes first to the offices of the Amalgamated Association of
Charities, where she is caught up in red tape as the case workers ask questions
and offer no immediate aid. Desperate, the little girl then goes to a neighborhood
pawnshop hoping to get some money for food. She brings in a pair of old
shoes which the pawnbroker's assistant rejects. Then she returns with her
doll. This innocent gesture of selflessness attracts the attention of old
Isaac, who runs the shop. Hearing the little girl's story, he sets out for
her apartment where he stops the men who are trying to evict the sick woman.
He pays the rent, provides food and medical care, and even gives the girl
a big new doll.
Oliver Twist
UK, 1948, 105 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: David Lean
David Lean, award winning director of Lawrence of Arabia, had many
problems bringing this film version of the classic Dickens novel to America
due to antisemitic overtones in his portrayal of arch-fiend Fagin.
On My Way to Father’s Land
Israel, 1995, 98 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Aner Preminger
A moving documentary account of a son’s struggle to understand his father’s
past. The film takes us on two journeys: the first is to Vienna, where director
Preminger’s father returns to his childhood home to share stories of his
youth during the Nazi occupation. On the second journey, we follow Preminger’s
father as a young immigrant in Palestine where he became a member of the
first "Knesset," joined the Palestine Communist Party, and later resigned
to establish the Hebrew Communist Party. Through interviews and archival
material, the younger Preminger discovers his father’s role in the politics
and ideology debated in those days. The film ends as the father reviews
his life but still "continues to build, to dream and plan growth and renewal."
Operation Thunderbolt
Israel, 1977, 126 minutes, color (16mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Menahem Golan
This is the stunning retelling of the famed July 4, 1976 raid by Israeli
commandos to rescue 104 passengers from a hijacked plane at Entebbe, Uganda
in Africa. With a mostly Israeli cast and government cooperation, this film
details the dramatic events surrounding the incredible rescue, which took
only minutes with a minimum of casualties.
Our Time in the Garden
USA, 1981, 15 minutes, B&W (35mm/16mm/video)
Director: Ron Blau
Selected for 1981 Berlin Film Festival and Cinema du Reel Festival,
Paris
This moving experimental short uses rephotographed home movies and overlapping
soundtracks to relate one woman’s true memoir of growing up Jewish in 1930s
Berlin. She describes her family’s charmed and secure life, at the center
of which is a walled garden, leading up to their flight from Germany in
the face of Nazism and antisemitism.
"Haunting... this film gains its considerable power by our hindsight
knowledge of the impending Holocaust." - Gerald Peary, The Real Paper
Out of Bondage
USA, 1974, 23 minutes, color (16mm, video)
Produced by the United Jewish Appeal
Narrated by Theodore Bikel, this documentary is an excellent introduction
to the history of Soviet Jewry. Scenes and interviews with recent Jewish
emigrees, on their way across Europe to Israel, are interspersed with flashbacks
of Russian Jewish history related through paintings, still photographs,
film footage, and music. Topics include the history of Jewish settlement
in Russia; Jewish life under the tsars; and the religious, cultural, and
political movements (Hasidism, Haskalah, Zionism, Socialism, and Communism)
which transformed Russian/Soviet Jewish life.
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Papa’s Pest
USA, 1928, 20 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Silent with English intertitles
Director: Les Goodwins
Another in the Izzie and Lizzie series (seeNize People ) , this slapstick
comedy explodes into a frenzy of fast chases.
The Paper Bridge
Austria, 1987, 95 minutes, color (16mm/video)
German with English subtitles
Director: Ruth Beckermann
"I don’t know exactly why I traveled east this winter," filmmaker Ruth Beckermann
says of her documentary journey through Eastern Europe. "I think I was just
curious to know whether there was still any resemblance to the stories I
grew up with." Beckermann’s parents met in Vienna after the Holocaust; her
father was a war refugee from Romania and her mother was a native of Vienna
who settled in Palestine in 1938. Tracing the migratory paths of her family
before WWII, Beckermann returns to the European Jewish communities which
inspired her childhood stories-the small towns around Theresienstadt, the
remaining Jewish communities of Bucovnia, Romania, and Vienna.
Partisans of Vilna
USA, 1985, 130 minutes, color/B&W (35mm/16mm /video)
Director: Josh Waletzky
Anthropos First Prize, 1987
This extraordinary film tells the story of the men and women who formed
the Jewish partisan movement in Vilna, Lithuania during World War II. Using
rare archival footage dating from 1939-44 and contemporary interviews with
forty partisan survivors (including Abba Kovner, a founder of the partisan
movement and one of Israel’s leading poets) the film explores the difficulties
of organizing under the anarchic conditions of the ghetto.
"You’ll know you are watching heroes. Their courage is visible and unmistakable"
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"A movie that must be seen… Stirring… absorbing… incredible." Jeffery
Lyons, Sneak Previews
Passover: Traditions of Freedom
USA, 1994, 57 minutes, color (video)
Senior Producer: Joan Nathan
This educational video depicts varying interpretations and celebrations
of the seder by six different families in the United States and Israel.
Commentary by scholars, educators, and Jewish food experts explains the
historical and spiritual significance behind Passover symbols and rituals
including matzah, the seder plate, the ten plagues, the four cups of wine,
and the four questions.
The Past That Lives
Netherlands, 1970, 65 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Philo Bregstein
Silver Medal Winner, International Film & TV Festival of New York,
1985
The late Jewish historian and author Prof. Jacques Presser narrates and
appears in this documentary version of his life story. Presser begins at
the dawn of the twentieth century and describes his experiences during World
War I, the Russian Revolution, World War II , the Holocaust, and the post-war
years in Europe. The son of a diamond cutter, Presser rose from the poverty
of Amsterdam's Jewish ghetto and became enraptured by socialism. During
World War II, 100,000 Amsterdam Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis, including
Presser's wife. Struggling with this trauma, Presser took over fifteen years
to write his book "Ashes in the Wind: The Destruction of Dutch Jewry." The
book created a storm of controversy because it exposed many members of the
Dutch bourgeois who collaborated with the Nazis. Bregstein also directed
In Search of Jewish Amsterdam (see above.)
The Pawnbroker
USA, 1965, 114 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Rod Steiger stars in this somber portrait of a concentration camp survivor
struggling with the horrors of his past and the bleakness of his present
life as the owner of a Harlem pawnshop. Based on the novel by Edward Lewis
Wallant, Lumet’s film is a cinematic tour de force and a powerful character
study that makes a strong statement about the legacy of the Holocaust. Steiger
was nominated for an Oscar for his performance and won the Best Actor Award
at the Berlin Film Festival.
A People Chosen: Who Is a Jew?
Israel, 1976, 57 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Herb Krosney
This film remains an excellent vehicle to explore issues of Jewish identity.
It's a compelling look behind the issues concerning the controversial "who
is a Jew" debate. Orthodox, Jewish atheists, Russian immigrants and kibbutzniks
discuss their views on the subject. Interviews include Abba Eban, Rabbi
Goren, Yigal Alon, and David Ben-Gurion.
Pillar of Salt
Israel, 1980, 58 minutes, color (video)
Director: Chaim Shiran
Based on the autobiographical novel by sociologist Albert Memmi, Pillar
of Salt captures the cultural richness and social complexity of a
Jewish boy's life in Tunisia, North Africa. Alexander, age 13, is an expressive
and intelligent boy who sensitively responds to conflicting pressures
from surrounding French and Arab societies. A rare opportunity to see
the unique customs of Jewish life in Tunisia, including Sabbath dinner
and Alexander's bar mitzvah.
The Policeman (aka Policeman Azoulay)
Israel, 1971, 87 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ephraim Kishon
Golden Globe Award, Best Foreign Language Film; Academy Award Nominee
for Best Foreign Film 1972
This satirical film about the misadventures of an aging Tel Aviv policeman
shows Ephraim Kishon once again confronting social dilemmas from the perspective
of a good-hearted, beleaguered Israeli Everyman. On the eve of his retirement,
frustrated beat cop Avram Azoulay (Shaike Ophir) encounters religious zealots,
comes to the aid of a prostitute, and unwittingly solves a crime staged
for his benefit.
Positive Story
Israel, 1996, 47 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ran Kotzer
Wolgin Award, 1996 Jerusalem Film Festival
Avi grew up in Givatayim where he had a typical Israeli childhood-for a
homosexual: social ostracism, scorn, loneliness and a double-life. At 17,
he added nof (Hebrew for panorama) to his name and discovered gay
society in the big city. At 19, he tested positive for HIV. At 26, Avinof
became an active and vocal member of Israel’s gay community. Positive
Story is an intimate and personal film in which one man shares his story
of being gay, HIV+, and Israeli.
Private Benjamin
USA, 1980, 100 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Howard Zieff
Goldie Hawn produced and stars in this comedy as a Jewish American Princess
who enlists in the U.S. army.
Punch Me in the Stomach
New Zealand, 1996, 58 minutes, color (video)
Directed by Francine Zuckerman
Based on the stage play by Alison Summers and Deb Filler
Multi-talented performer-writer Deb Filler stars in this adaptation of her
autobiographical off-Broadway solo show about her life as the daughter of
a Holocaust survivor. Through facial expressions, accents, and mannerisms,
Filler transforms herself into character after character based on the various
members of her far-flung family. She recounts her experiences growing up
in white Anglo-Saxon New Zealand and tells of visiting the sites of Nazi
death camps with her father, Sol Filler. The film takes its audience from
laughter to sadness.... and back again.
"Jackie Mason meets Tracy Ullman." - Montreal Gazette
"Extraordinary work, an extraordinary storyteller... we laugh, we weep."
- Village Voice
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The Quarrel
Canada, 1992, 88 minutes, color (35mm/16mm/video)
Director: Eli Cohen
Screenplay: David Brandes
Producers: David Brandes and Kim Todd
Nominated for two Canadian Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay);
First Prize Jury Award for Best Feature Film - Santa Barbara International
Film Festival; Crystal Heart Award - Heartland Film Festival
"THE QUARREL brings to the screen one of the most powerful works
of modern literature - a haunting story by Yiddish writer Chaim Grade
that was written shortly after the Second World War. Two survivors of
the Holocaust, accidentally reunited in a park in Montreal in 1948, take
up their argument just where they left it nine years earlier: one of the
men is a pious Hasid who runs a yeshiva for Jewish orphans, the other
a secular writer who has long since lost his religious faith. The war
deprived them of everything, including all the members of their families;
yet, instead of deadening their appetite for life, the losses they suffered
and the brutalities they witnessed have only reinforced the Orthodox Jew's
trust in God and the secular skeptic's trust in himself. As they spend
the day together, the two men alternately cling together to recall their
common past, and lock horns in debate over their opposing views of God
and the world. For them and for the audience, the concentrated drama of
their encounter passes too quickly. " - Ruth Wisse, Chair in Yiddish Literature,
Harvard University
"... an immensely emotional work. Touchingly and even viscerally acted
by Saul Rubinek and R.H. Thomson, the production is exceptionally shaded
and orchestrated by Israeli director Eli Cohen... the talk in the well-crafted
script by co-producer David Brandes is riveting... This is television
so mature and so devoid of false sentiment, the achievement is dumbfounding."
- Ray Loynd, Los Angeles Times
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Rachel
USA, 1974, 3 minutes, color (16mm/video) (study guide)
This short film about intermarriage is recommended as a trigger for discussion
of Jewish assimilation and religious customs. In the film, a middle aged
Jewish man mourns for his daughter Rachel ; at the end of the piece, we
learn that Rachel was married in a church.
Radio Days
USA, 1987, 85 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Woody Allen
Woody Allen narrates his nostalgic look at growing up in Queens, NY in the
1940s, showing how memories of family life are intimately tied to the radio
performers of the day. Also stars Mia Farrow, Julie Kavner, Danny Aiello,
and Tony Roberts.
"Irresistible." - Jay Carr, Boston Globe
Raindrops (Regentropfen) aka If Only the Rain
West Germany, 1981, 90 minutes, B&W (16mm)
German with English subtitles
Directors: Michael Hoffman and Harry Raymon
Harry Raymon wrote the original screenplay for this feature based on his
own experiences as a young German-Jewish boy growing up amidst the rise
of the Third Reich. In response to mounting antisemitism and persecution,
the eight year old protagonist and his family move from their small town
to Cologne, preparing to emigrate to America. While learning English and
awaiting their visas, the family faces increasing social ostracism and restrictive
government policies. Told from the young boy’s point of view, the story
shows the painful, frightening plight of Jews trapped in the Nazi regime
and the difficulties they faced in attempting to escape.
"... one of the best feature films made to date on German Jews under
the Third Reich." - Variety
Rendevous with Freedom
USA, 1972, 56 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Marc Siegel
This documentary traces the development of American Jewry beginning with
the arrival of the first Jewish settlers in 1645 in New Amsterdam (New York).
Filmed in Holland, Germany, and throughout the United States, the film begins
with the Spanish Inquisition and follows the persecuted Jews in their flight
from Spain and Portugal to refuge in the Netherlands. The film examines
how Jews participated in major U.S. historical events including the Revolution,
the Civil War and the two World Wars. Vivid period paintings, engravings
and photographs further demonstrate how Jews helped shape the growing American
nation.
The Return of Nathan Becker (Nosn Becker Fort Aheym)
USSR, 1932, 72 minutes, B&W (35mm)
Russian with English subtitles
Directors: Boris Shpis and Mark Milman
This rare, newly restored feature was originally advertised as "the first
Yiddish talkie from Soviet Russia." The plot centers on Nathan Becker, a
Jewish bricklayer who returns to Russia after twenty-eight years in America.
After reuniting with his father (played with comic eccentricity by Solomon
Mikhoels) Nathan leaves the shtetl to work in the new industrial
center of Magnitogorsk. There, he soon finds that the work habits he acquired
in America conflict with the Soviet system. While the film's resolution
emphasizes the triumph of socialist productivity, the screenplay by Yiddish
author Peretz Markish reflects the warmth and humor of the Jewish spirit.
Return to Oulad Moumen (Retrouver Oulad Moumen)
France, 1994, 50 minutes, color, video
French with English subtitles
Director: Izza Genini
In south Marrakesh amidst the olive groves lies the village of Oulad Moumen
where Habiba and Yossef Edery began their family in the 1920s. Director
Genini, the youngest of the nine Edery children, organized a family reunion
in 1992 to bring her family (now dispersed geographically and culturally)
together in the place where is all began. 50 members of the family, came
from Morocco, France, America, Canada, Mexico, Italy, and Israel to Oulad
Moumen to learn of the dynasty’s origins.
Return to Vienna
Austria, 1983, 95 minutes, color (video)
German with English subtitles
Directors: Ruth Beckermann and Josef Aicholzer
In 1924, fourteen year old Franz Weintraub and his parents moved from Magdeburg,
Germany to Vienna, Austria. Joining some 60,000 other Jews who had migrated
from eastern areas of the defeated Hapsburg Empire, Weintraub’s family settled
in the Viennese Jewish community of Leopoldstadt, the so-called "Matzo Island."
In this illuminating documentary, Weintraub recalls his experiences as a
young Jew in inter-war Austria from 1924 to 1934. A journalist and gifted
storyteller, Weintraub reconstructs everyday life in Jewish Leopoldstadt
and in a Social Democratic milieu. Recalling in vivid detail his encounters
with anti-semitism, his involvement with the Labor movement and his membership
in the Communist Party, Weintraub’s oral history provides keen insight into
a community and era soon transformed by World War II.
Reunion (Le Retour)
France, 1946, 21 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Henri Cartier-Bresson for the United States Information Service
Acclaimed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York as "one of the greatest
human documents to come out of WWII," this is the moving story
of the liberation of French prisoners from Nazi concentration camps. It
is a quietly understated film, recorded by U.S. Army Signal Corps cameramen
and the great French still photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, himself
a prisoner in one of the camps. Scenes include the prisoners being removed
to temporary hospitals and their joyful reunions with family and friends
in Paris.
Rhapsody in Blue
USA, 1945, 139 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Irving Rapper
Biography of the brilliant American composer George Gershwin whose life
and music were cut short by a fatal brain tumor in 1937. "Rhapsody in Blue"
is performed almost in its entirety in this film by famed pianist and Gershwin
friend, Oscar Levant.
Rhodes Forever
Belgium, 1995, 60 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
Spanish, French, Italian and Greek with English subtitles
Director: Diane Perelsztejn
From the director of Escape to the Rising Sun comes this first-ever
documentary devoted to the Jews of Rhodes, whose ancestors found refuge
there after their expulsion from Spain in the 15th century. For
five centuries, the Juderiya, the Jewish quarter of Rhodes, rang with the
work, songs, and celebrations of Ladino-speaking Jews, many of whom traded
with Salonika, Alexandria, Cairo, and Palestine. Rhodes Forever is
a contemporary portrait that ties the Jews of Rhodes with their descendants.
It tells the remarkable but largely unknown story of these people who despite
the physical destruction of their community during WWII, managed to transplant
their unique Jewish culture elsewhere, notably in the Belgian Congo and
Europe.
"... an invaluable testimony to a once-proud community which was decimated
by the Nazi scourge." - Vic Alhadeff, Australian Jewish News, November
10, 1995
The Righteous Enemy
Italy & UK, 1987, 84 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video) (study
guide)
Italian and German with English subtitles
Director: Joseph Rochlitz
A documentary account of the non-Jewish Italian resistance to Hitler’s "Final
Solution." Director Rochlitz begins with the story of his father, who was
interned by the Italians during WWII, and then enlarges the film’s scope
to show how Italian officials saved some 40,000 Jews from deportation to
concentration camps. Unique interviews explore why these officials subverted
Mussolini’s orders to comply with German plans for Jewish annihilation and
how they created ingenious bureaucratic evasions and, when necessary, literal
roadblocks. Previously unseen Italian and German newsreel footage, archival
photos, and excerpts from Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem are also included.
"There have been so many books and films depicting the horrors of the
Nazi atrocities, that it is a welcome change to find one which can call
attention to decent, humanitarian people who, on a large scale, were willing
to challenge the Nazis... this is the first time that the Italian resistance
has been presented on film." - Carl Alpert, Jewish Advocate
"... thoughtful, carefully researched and in a way, warming...a compelling
piece of work." - John Corry, The New York Times
Robert Clary A5714: A Memoir of Liberation
USA, 1984, 57 minutes, color (video) (study guide)
English and French with English subtitles
Produced by Dr. Saul Friedman and Dr. Herbert Hochhauser (Kent State
University)
Director: Budd Margolis
Robert Clary, the French actor who portrayed Louis Lebeau in the long-running
American television series Hogan’s Heroes, is a Holocaust survivor
and the subject of this very personal, unpretentious documentary. Born Robert
Max Widerman in 1926 in France, Clary is one of 16 children whose Jewish
parents had emigrated from Poland. Clary returns to Europe in search of
his own story; he relives his happy childhood in the streets of Paris, his
incarceration at Drancy, and his horror at Buchenwald. The program includes
rare color footage of the liberation of Buchenwald.
Romance of a Jewess
1908, 10 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Director: D.W. Griffith
This early D.W. Griffith short shows the director's interest in Jewish ghetto
life, portrayed here with sympathy and sentimentality. The melodramatic
plot involves the conflict between generations that life in the New World
brought to the Jewish family. Lower East Side street scenes blend actors
from the Biograph Studios (such as the young Gladys Eagan) with actual street
vendors and passersby in such a natural way that it is obvious they were
shot candidly with a hidden camera. The film anticipates Jewish immigrant
dramas like The Jazz Singer and His People . Griffith explored
similar themes in Old Isaacs the Pawnbroker and A Child of the
Ghetto [see above].
Rope
USA, 1948, 80 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Inspired by the infamous Leopold-Loeb murder case, Hitchcock’s first color
film is about two young Jewish men who kill a school friend just to see
if they can get away with it, and then challenge themselves by inviting
friends and family to their apartment afterwards. Stars James Stewart, Farley
Granger, John Dall and Cedric Hardwicke.
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The Sabbath Bride
UK, 1987, 52 minutes, color (video)
Director: Naomi Gryn
Celebrate the excitement and diversity of Shabbat in London. This film follows
the order of a traditional Shabbat, from candle lighting on Friday evening
to the closing Havdalah service after dusk on Saturday night. Director Gryn
mixes chicken soup, cholent, and music with interviews with rabbis and members
of Orthodox, Reform, Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities.
"... a vivid celebration of the passion and humour, vigour and diversity
of Jewish life in Britain." -The Scotsman
Sallah Shabbati
Israel, 1963, 105 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ephraim Kishon
Academy Award Nominee, Best Foreign Film; Two Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco
Film Festival; Two Golden Globe Awards, Hollywood Press Association
Sallah, a North African Jew who finds himself in a transit camp after
immigrating to Israel in 1949, confronts the bureaucracy that stands in
the way of his family’s need for permanent housing. His recalcitrance
in the face of the prevailing European work ethic and the community’s
cooperative values places him at odds with government representatives
and kibbutz leaders, where he must learn to fight bureaucracy and corruption.
Kishon’s sharp, frequently hilarious satire stands as a watershed event
in Israeli cinema, highlighted by Topol’s classic performance as Sallah.
"It is to the everlasting credit of the Israelis, who have had precious
few laughs in their brief, strife-torn history, that they can kid themselves
with the light-hearted assurance of Sallah ... Topol plays the
seemingly cloddish patriarch, Sallah, as an inept, natural, and occasionally,
comic clown... Ephraim Kishon has poked fun at human inadequacies in a
courageous style..." - A.H. Weiler, New York Times
Second Watch
Israel, 1995, 14 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Udi Ben-Arie
Best Short Film, 1996 Dresden International Filmfest; Nominee for Best Foreign
Film, 1996 Student Academy Awards
Berkowitz, an Israeli Reserve soldier, is on watch at a remote post along
the Israeli-Jordanian border. Just a few yards away across the border,
he finds an equally bored Jordanian soldier. The interaction between the
two guards makes for an irresistible comic exercise and speaks volumes
about the simple human truths underlying the complexities of life in the
Middle East.
Scenes from Jewish Life
USSR, c.1912, 31 minutes, B&W (Silent)
Director: Unknown
This obscure Russian-Yiddish two-reeler is believed to feature actors from
a Warsaw theater. The plot concerns a young Jew seduced by a belly dancer
and subsequently scorned by his family and community. The film ends with
the man's suicide.
A Secret Space
USA, 1977, 80 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Roberta O. Hodes
A thirteen year old boy in New York City discovers an abandoned Lower East
Side synagogue and joins the motley congregation trying to rebuild it. His
hip, liberal parents freak out when they discover his involvement with 'Religion.'
The ensuing conflict in the family and its ultimate resolution is the subject
of this unique comedy-drama. Stars Jon Matthews, Robert Klein, Phyllis Newman,
and Virginia Graham. Recommended for teens and older.
Seekers of Happiness
USSR, 1934, 84 minutes, B&W (video) (aka: Birobidzhan, A Greater
Promise)
Russian with English subtitles
Director: Vladimir Korsh-Sablin
During the late 1920s, many impoverished Jews searching for a better life
made their way to Birobidzhan, the Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region on the
Chinese border. This melodrama tells the story of a Jewish family's immigration
to Birobidzhan and their experiences as settlers on a collective farm in
the area. While the family encounters hardships in adjusting to this new
way of life (including son-in-law Pinya's greedy, misguided search for gold)
their search for assimilation is ultimately shown as positive. While the
film is essentially a Soviet propaganda piece emphasizing the utopian dream
of Birobidzhan as a socialist Jewish homeland, the reality of the area was
harsh and inhospitable.
Sharing the Light
USA, 1994, 18 minutes, color (16mm/video)
English with Hebrew prayers
Director: Julie Gal
Sharing the Light documents the International Conference of Jewish
Women held in Kiev, Ukraine in 1994. Project Kesher, founded by Sallie Gratch
in 1989, organized this conference to "build a bridge between West and East,
a bridge between two Jewish worlds...." Participants came from around the
globe to share a common dream: to connect with each other as Jewish women,
and to help rebuild Jewish life in the former Soviet Union. Through workshops
and seminars, the women learned and explored their Judaism and Jewish culture
so that they could return to their own communities and begin building a
stronger sense of Judaism’s rich heritage.
The Shop on Main Street
Czechoslovakia, 1965, 128 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Czech with English subtitles
Director: Jan Kadar
Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film
This haunting tragicomedy takes place during the early days of the Nazi
occupation of Czechoslovakia. Britko (Josef Kroner), a simple, amiable carpenter,
is appointed "aryan controller" of a supposedly profitable Jewish shop.
The shop’s elderly proprietress (Ida Kaminska), a stubborn but lovable deaf
widow, is oblivious to the war, and incapable of understanding why Britko
is there. He tries to explain, but she doesn’t understand and puts him to
work as her assistant. When the Nazis begin deporting Jews, including the
old woman, Britko is forced into a confrontation between trying to save
the woman or passively complying with the policies of the Nazis.
"Brilliant in performance and extraordinary in accomplishment… one of
the fine films of our time, for all time." Judith Crist, New York
Herald Tribune
The Shower
Israel, 1997, 35 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Jorge Gurvich
Best Short Film, Jerusalem Film Festival; Best Short Film, Uruguay
International Film Festival
Hospitalized in a ward, a father (Yossi Yadin) pleads with his son to be
allowed to return home at least once for a shower. The elderly man’s anxiety
in the face of loneliness and death fades and the unresolved conflicts of
his family disappear for a few moments of grace as his son bathes him in
the shower.
Singing in the Dark
USA, 1956, 86 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Max Nosseck
This virtually unknown independent film is one of the very first American
features to focus on the Holocaust. Nosseck (well-known German silent director
of Buster Keaton inThe King of the Champs-Elysees ) dramatically
depicts the story of a concentration camp survivor (renowned cantor Moishe
Oysher ) who emigrates to the United States and suffers amnesia due
to the traumatic experiences he has endured. The film, which co-stars its
executive producer Joey Adams, contains important post-war footage of the
ruins of the Berlin Synagogue and the Rivington Street Synagogue.
‘66 Was a Good Year for Tourism
Israel, 1992, 66 minutes, color (16mm/video)
English and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Amit Goren
Best Documentary Award, Israel Film Academy, 1992
‘66 Was a Good Year for Tourism "tells of an Alexandrian-born Jew
who leaves Israel in 1966 for a business opportunity in New York as a travel
agent. Son and filmmaker Amit Goren, who now lives in Israel, interviews
his two brothers, his father, and his mother. The mother still yearns for
Israel while the brothers have inherited something of their father’s cosmopolitan
spirit. Yet they are all troubled by questions of identity and all feel
a loyalty to Israel. This film raises many questions of what it is to be
an immigrant in the United States and how one feels about the host culture."
- Library Journal
So Many Miracles
Canada, 1987/1993, 58 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Directors: Katherine Smalley and Vic Sarin
During the fall of 1942, in the Polish village of Pinczow, as the Germans
deported Jews to the gas chambers, the Banya family offered to hide Israel
and Frania Rubinek in their one room farmhouse. Despite enormous risk and
hardship, Zofia and Ludwig Banya, along with their young son Maniek, sheltered
the Rubineks for 28 months. Interweaving docu-drama sequences with archival
material, this film follows Israel and Frania Rubinek on their emotional
return journey to Poland, and documents their poignant reunion with Zofia
Banya, the peasant woman who saved their lives forty years ago. As a co-producer
of the film, actor Saul Rubinek (The Quarrel ) accompanies his parents
not only to achieve a better understanding of his family’s past, but also
to come to terms with his own identity.
"So Many Miracles is moving and uplifting, a story of love and
courage in a time of horror. It is surprisingly free of bitterness and
anger, and instead what comes through is a spirit and a will to live.
The [viewer] is left enriched by their story." - Gila Wertheimer, Chicago
Jewish Star
So We Said Goodbye
Israel, 1991, 26 minutes, color/B&W (35mm/video)
Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles
Director: Jorge Gurvich
Best Short Film, Jerusalem Film Festival
While saying goodbye to his son and grandchildren who are leaving Israel,
Yackov remembers when, as a child, he also said goodbye to his family in
Poland in 1937, not realizing that he would never see them again.
"This beautiful short film by the outstanding Israeli photographer Jorge
Gurvich moved me to tears. Do not miss it!" Nacham Ingbar, Yediot
Aharonot
Song of Radauti (aka The Jews of Radauti, The Last Jews of Radauti)
USA, 1978, 25 minutes, B&W (16mm/video)
Director: Laurence Salzmann
In the late 1930s, eight thousand Jews lived in Radauti, a small town in
the Bukovina region of Romania. Of this population, six thousand perished
during World War II; at the end of the war, a few came back to find their
homes gone and the life they had known swept away. During 1974-76, when
photographer/filmmaker Salzmann went to Radauti and shot this documentary,
there were only 240 Jews remaining in the community. Song of Radauti
makes a classic statement about a vanishing culture, documenting the lives
of a small number of East European Jews who survived the Holocaust and returned
to their home.
"Salzmann’s Song of Radauti is beautiful and full of life." -
Isaac Bashevis Singer
"When the last survivor will be gone-what will happen to his or her tale?
What will happen to the memories of the Jews of Radauti? Filled with fear
and anguish, these questions must have haunted Laurence Salzmann-they
keep on haunting his photographs and film: The viewer will see them and
remember a past he has not known and which he must know-share." - Elie
Wiesel
Songs for a Shabbat
France, 1991, 26 minutes, color (video)
French, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Izza Genini
Listen to and experience the beautiful Moroccan-Jewish songs of Shabbat
with Moroccan Rabbi Chaim Louk and his cantors in the Buffault Synagogue
in Paris.
Sophie’s Choice
USA, 1982, 157 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Alan J. Pakula
Academy Award Winner for Best Actress
Meryl Streep won an Oscar for her performance in this faithful adaptation
of William Styron’s novel about a Polish woman’s attempt to justify her
existence in America after the Holocaust and the mortifying choice she had
to make while a prisoner in Auschwitz. Also stars: Kevin Kline, Peter MacNikol,
Rita Karin and Josh Mostel.
"... deeply affecting... casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell." - Janet
Maslin, The New York Times
Stan Getz: A Musical Odyssey
USA, 1978, 60 minutes, color (video)
Director: Herbert Dorfman
Join jazz saxophone virtuoso Stan Getz on his 1977 three week tour of Israel.
Getz jams with local musicians, including a Kurdish drummer, an Arab quartet,
a Hassidic wedding band and a Yemenite dance troupe-adapting his unique
style to the various ethnic sounds of Israel.
"You know, when I’m playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing
Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I’m davening, I’m really
telling it to the Wall." - Stan Getz
The Star, the Castle and the Butterfly
UK, 1990, 25 minutes, color (video)
Director: Naomi Gryn
Tour Prague’s legendary Jewish quarter with Rabbi Hugo Gryn as he visits
some of its most evocative sites and recalls a world that is no more. Filmed
six months before Prague’s 1989 "Velvet revolution," this film highlights
a lasting legacy of spirituality and beauty.
The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz
Sweden, 1982, 55 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Peter Cohen
Best Documentary, Global Village Documentary Festival
In order to facilitate the destruction of Poland’s three million Jews, the
Nazis forced them to establish Jewish Councils responsible for administration
of the Polish ghettos. Through the use of terror, manipulation and humiliation,
the Germans forced the Jews to perform duties that would have otherwise
necessitated large numbers of German personnel. Chaim Rumkowski, appointed
by the Nazis as the Chairman of the Lodz Jewish Council, was responsible
for establishing a vast bureaucracy that administered all social services
within the ghetto. Rumkowski also attempted to turn the Lodz ghetto into
an industrial center that would become indispensable to the German war effort,
thus enabling the Jews of Lodz to survive the war. Unaware of Hitler’s determination
to realize his "final solution," Rumkowski’s strategy for survival was doomed
to failure. Utilizing hundreds of photographs taken by Jewish Council photographers
and other ghetto inhabitants, the film depicts the activities of the Jewish
Council, the conditions of daily life for ghetto inhabitants, Rumkowski’s
relationship to the Nazis, the gradual disintegration of the ghetto, and
final deportation to the death camps.
Surrender
USA, 1927, 77 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm)
Director: Edward Sloman
One of the few American silent feature films to deal with life in a European
Jewish shtetl .Based on "Lea Lyon" by Alexander Brody, the film’s
story unfolds on the eve of WWI in an Austrian village where the
Rabbi’s daughter falls in love with a Russian officer.
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To Brave a Dream
Israel, 1992, 27 minutes, color (video)
English and Hebrew Language Versions Available
Director: Yael Katzir
In 1866, a group of God-fearing Christians from Maine sailed to the Holy
Land in order to prepare for the second coming of Christ. Under the influence
of their charismatic leader, Reverend George Jones Adams, the group shipped
pre-fabricated wooden houses and modern farming equipment to Jaffa hoping
to establish an agricultural settlement. This documentary takes viewers
on a tour of the remains of this settlement and presents interviews with
ancestors of the original settlers. Life was hard and many pioneers either
died from disease and drought or returned to America shortly after their
arrival. Yet despite the difficulties, the wooden houses, some of which
remain standing in Tel Aviv, continue to symbolize the pioneers’ courage
"to brave a dream."
To Save A Life: Ending Domestic Violence in Jewish Families
USA, 1997, 35 minutes, color (video)
Written and Directed by Maria Gargiulo
Produced by Jean Anton, The Center for The Prevention of Sexual and
Domestic Violence
Emmy Nomination, The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Northwest
Regional Chapter; Silver Plaque, International Communications Film and Video
Competition; Cindy Award, International Association of Audio Visual Communications
An important new resource for abused women, Jewish communal leaders,
helping professionals, and all who seek to break the silence about domestic
violence in Jewish families.
"This video covers all the bases. It thoroughly explores all the aspects
of family violence amid an illumination and supportive discussion of Jewish
perspectives on the issue." -Rabbi Elliot Dorf, Rector, and Professor
of Philosophy, University of Judaism
"To Save A Life is the video we've been waiting for... an outstanding
resource for shelters and synagogues... sensitive, powerful, hopeful and
realistic." -Ellen Rubenstein Fisher, Director, National Domestic Violence
Hotline
Too Close To Home
Israel, 1995, 50 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ori Inbar
The future of the Golan remains a crucial issue for Israel’s future. This
documentary about the people who live in and protect the Golan provides
important insight into the political and social issues surrounding the territory.
In 1994, Israeli army officer and filmmaker Ori Inbar recorded his annual
reserve service in the Israeli-Syrian border patrol on the Golan Heights.
The resulting documentary follows five of the men of Inbar’s unit during
the 32 days of their yearly tour of duty, an experience they have been sharing
for nearly 20 years. The film then moves on to reveal the soldiers’ domestic
lives; all five of the men actually live in the Golan, and were among the
first to settle in the area after it changed from Syrian to Israeli hands.
Toward Jerusalem
Israel, 1990, 87 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Ruth Beckermann
In this documentary road movie, Austrian filmmaker Ruth Beckermann records
the diverse views and activities of Israelis and Arabs as she travels along
the route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Beckermann’s subjects offer a dramatic
range of candid opinions about Arab-Jewish relations, immigration, the intifada,
religion, and the economy. The film moves from the night lights of Tel Aviv
discos to the immigrant housing of Ethiopians to the burial site of Samuel
the Prophet, capturing the voices and vistas of contemporary Israeli politics
and culture.
Transnistria: The Hell
Israel, 1996, 40 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Zolton Terner
World Medal, 39th International Competition, The New York
Festivals
"I’ve been in Israel for 22 years, and every Holocaust Day is a day of death
for me. No one knew about our Holocaust. I’ve never heard it mentioned."
Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld (Badenheim 1939 ) is one of several
survivors of Transnistria featured in this emotional and hard-hitting Israel
Educational Television documentary. The film details an almost-forgotten
part of the Holocaust and presents the case of frustrated survivors whose
experience and suffering has gone mostly unrecognized in Israel. From 1941-1944
, 300,000 Jews were killed at the hands of Rumanian officials in Transnistria,
an area of southern Ukraine which bordered Rumania. Unlike the "killing
industry" of Auschwitz, Rumanian death camps used the "old methods" of "long
drawn-out deaths": shooting, starvation, freezing, and illness. Of those
who survived, only the children are left. Now adults living in Israel, these
orphans of Transnistria give testimony with their memories, paintings, letters,
and photographs. Scholars, including Drs. Dalia Ofer and Leon Wallovitz
from Hebrew University and Dr. Shmuel Ben-Tzion, discuss the history of
Transnistria and probe the reasons why this area has become known as the
"Forgotten Cemetery."
The Trial (Der Prozess) - An Account of the Majdanek Trial in Düsseldorf
West Germany, 1984, 270 minutes, color/B&W (16mm/video)
German with English subtitles
Director: Eberhard Fechner
Between 1941 and 1944, at least one quarter of a million people were murdered
in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Between 1975 and 1981, the longest
trial in German legal history took place in Düsseldorf. Fifteen men
and women, former camp guards, were accused of having participated in the
murder of thousands. Director Fechner worked eight years to complete this
three-part film which is composed of interviews with defendants, witnesses,
judges, prosecutors, defense councils, historians, criminals, and victims.
Filming was not permitted during the 474 days of the six-year trial, so
Fechner had to reconstruct the trial. The film is a kind of "counter" trial
and an interpretation of the original proceedings. The accused, who hardly
said a word during the original trial, eagerly volunteered in front of the
camera. Employing a mosaic-like technique and hard confrontational editing,
Fechner allowedboth criminals and victims to reveal themselves.
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Under the Domim Tree
Israel, 1995, 102 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Eli Cohen
Winner, Jerusalem Film Festival; Official Entry, Cannes Film Festival
Based on the autobiographical memoir by Gila Almagor, this award-winning
film tells the poignant story of a group of teenagers, many of them concentration
camp survivors, living in a youth village for orphans during the 1950s.
When their painful, horrifying memories of the Holocaust become unbearable,
the youths find refuge under the beautiful Domim Tree - the only place where
they feel at peace. Eli Cohen masterfully directs an outstanding ensemble
cast in this inspirational account of the hopes, dreams, and memories of
a unique group of young people.
"Touching... heartfelt, natural performances." - Stephen Holden, New
York Times
"Director Eli Cohen is a major cinematic talent. So beautifully shot
and so effectively edited that it can bring a lump to the throat and unstoppable
tears to the eyes." - Michael Medved, New York Post
Underdogs: A War Movie
Israel, 1996, 86 minutes, color (video)
Hebrew with English subtitles
Directors: Doron Tsabori and Rino Zror
1996 Israeli Academy Award, Best Documentary Film
A charming documentary about Beit She’an, a small working-class Israeli
town near the Jordanian border seized by soccer mania as the local team
prepares for their last crucial game of the season. Beit She’an’s team must
defeat the rich national champions from Haifa in order to remain in the
league; beyond the war on the soccer field, the film is about conflict between
rich and poor, small town and big city, and, ultimately, between minorities
and the ruling class.
Unknown Secrets: Art and the Rosenberg Era
USA, 1990, 30 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Produced and Directed by: Daniel Keller, Charles Light, Rob Okun
No story from the Cold War era provokes more debate than the arrest,
trial, and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on charges of espionage.
Convicted of conspiring to pass the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets,
the Rosenbergs were electrocuted on June 19, 1953. Based on a compelling
book and nationally touring art exhibit, this film shows the influence
of the Rosenberg case on the work of artists past and present including
Arthur Miller, poet Adrienne Rich, Picasso and many more. Dramatic readings
by Ed Asner, Ossie Davis, Tony Randall, Ruby Dee, and Tovah Feldshuh illuminate
the legacy of the Rosenberg case, while interviews with writers, painters,
sculptors and others address the relationship between art and politics.
The program concludes with brief on-camera commentary by Robert Meeropol,
one of the Rosenbergs’ sons, and Morton Sobell, their codefendant in the
espionage trial. See also: Daniel
"An important film for all those concerned with American history and
the arts." - Library Journal
"... revives the Rosenberg story with depth and insight. " - Valley Advocate
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The Vision of Chaim Weizmann
USA, 27 minutes, B&W, 16mm/video
Director: Lazar Dunner
This is a biography of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel,
incorporating film footage, sketches, and still photographs. The film
begins with Dr. Weizmann’s inauguration as President and then surveys
his life from childhood in Russia, to early adulthood in Germany and England,
and his eventual arrival in Palestine. The documentary then discusses
the rise of Hitler in Germany, the "White Paper," the effect of World
War II on European Jews and Palestine, and culminates with the proclamation
of the State of Israel with footage of Truman recognizing Israel and presenting
Weizmann with a Torah as a gift.
Voices from Sepharad
Spain-Israel-France, 1990, 364 minutes, color (video)
English or Spanish version on 3 videotapes
Director: Solly Wolodarsky
Premiered at the 1992 Berlin and London Film Festivals
Filmed on location at historic sites in Europe, North Africa, the Middle
East and the Americas, Voices from Sepharad documents and celebrates
the Sephardim. In this epic film, dozens of artists perform secular and
sacred music, while scholars and others provide historical context. "It
is impossible to understand Spain without proper knowledge of the contribution
of the Jews to its history, culture and national identity," says director
Wolodarsky, adding, "And the Sephardim would not exist without Spain." The
documentary, made up of seven 52-minute chapters, is accompanied by a book
which includes transcriptions of song lyrics, narration and commentaries.
Voyage of the St. Louis
Canada/France, 1994, 52 minutes, color/B&W (video)
English, German and French with English subtitles
Director: Maziar Bahari
This definitive documentary tells the story of the infamous St. Louis episode
as recalled by passengers who made the crossing as children and in readings
from the diary of the ship’s captain. In the summer of 1939, the German
luxury liner St. Louis sailed from Hamburg to Cuba carrying 937 German Jews.
Most had sold all their belongings to book passage, pay off corrupt German
officials, and buy visas to Cuba. But hope turned to despair when Havana
suddenly barred the ship’s entry. For thirty excruciating days the St. Louis
wandered the seas and was refused haven by every country in the Americas.
Finally, passengers were accepted by Holland, France, Belgium, and England.
Four months later, World War II began and many of the St. Louis passengers
perished in the Holocaust. (See also Bound for Nowhere: The St. Louis
Episode.)
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The Wandering Jew (aka The Life of Theodor Herzl)
Austria, 1921, 59 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Director: Otto Kreisler
This early film biography of the founder of modern Zionism depicts Herzl
learning in his youth about Jewish persecution throughout the ages and then
developing his theory of political Zionism as the only solution to antisemitism.
The film then follows Herzl’s efforts to implement his ideas by converting
European leaders and Jews to his cause.
The Wannsee Conference
West Germany, 1987, 85 minutes, color (35mm/16mm)
German with English subtitles
Director: Heinz Schirk
On January 20, 1942, 14 key representatives of the SS, Nazi Party and government
bureaucracy met secretly at a house in Wannsee, a quiet Berlin suburb. There,
the official decision was made to implement the Nazis’ "Final Solution"
of exterminating the Jewish people. This chilling film reenacts the historic
meeting minute-by-minute, based on the actual notes and letters written
by Hermann Goering and Adolf Eichmann, and testimony by Eichmann during
his 1961 trial in Israel.
The Way We Were
USA, 1973, 118 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Sydney Pollack
Winner of two Academy Awards
A love story between opposites spanning three decades: Katie, a Jewish political
activist (Barbra Streisand) and Hubbell, a New York WASP writer (Robert
Redford). Notable for its portrayal of a strong positive Jewish heroine
and also serves as one of the few films to portray Jewish participation
in the socialist movement of the ‘30s and the protests during the ‘50s.
Weapons of the Spirit
USA, 1989, 120 minutes, color (35mm, 16mm and video)
English and French with English subtitles
Director: Pierre Sauvage
Best Independent Documentary, DuPont-Columbia University Awards for
Broadcast Journalism
In the summer of 1942, the Protestant villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon
clandestinely sheltered their Jewish neighbors from Nazi deportation. Descendants
of the Huguenots, the residents of Le Chambon selflessly saved 5,000 Jewish
lives, among them director Sauvage and his parents. Returning to his birthplace
in 1982, Sauvage uncovers his own personal story and that of the Huguenots
who took it upon themselves to "love thy neighbor as thyself" despite tremendous
risk to their community. (Note: video version includes Bill Moyers' PBS
interview with Pierre Sauvage.)
"An inquiry into the nature of goodness and a personal odyssey. Moving
and provocative… Enormously uplifting
-David Ansen, Newsweek"
The White Rose
Germany, 1983, 108 minutes, color (35mm/video)
Director: Michael Verhoeven
Lena Stolze (The Nasty Girl) stars in this acclaimed feature based
on the true story of five German students and their professor who formed
a secret society dedicated to protesting the Nazi regime. Known collectively
as the "White Rose", the Munich-based group distributed anti-Hitler literature
in a resistance effort which cost them their lives. Initially, the German
government refused to allow the film to be shown abroad due to an epilogue
which pointedly observed that the legal judgment condemning the White Rose
society had never been rescinded. Ultimately, the political controversy
surrounding Verhoeven's film directly caused the German government to officially
invalidate the Nazi "People's Court" system that sentenced the group to
death.
"An extraordinary film! Quite simply the finest German movie since
'Das Boot'." - Newhouse Newspapers
"The White Rose is a great story and an important one." - The
Village Voice
"The White Rose has honesty, urgency, and emotional power." -
Janet Maslin, New York Times
The Wordmaker
Israel, 1991, 90 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Hebrew, English, French, and Russian with English subtitles
Director: Eli Cohen
Represented the Israel Broadcasting Authority in Prix-Italia, 1992
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a language war raged in Palestine.
The contenders: Yiddish, Russian, French, German, English… and Hebrew, a
language barely spoken for 2000 years. At stake: the national language of
the Jewish homeland-in-the-making. The Wordmaker tells the dramatic
life story of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda who championed the cause of modern Hebrew.
He was zealous and stubborn and had one driving passion-breathing life into
the ancient biblical tongue. Denounced as a heretic, dismissed as a dreamer,
this brilliant man pressed on tirelessly, often at the expense of family
and health.
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Yentl
USA, 1983, 134 minutes, color (16mm)
Director: Barbra Streisand
Streisand produced, directed, co-authored and stars in this landmark musical
based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story about a young woman who disguises
herself as a boy in order to study at a yeshiva in turn-of-the-century Eastern
Europe.
The Yiddisher Boy
USA, 1909, 3 minutes, B&W, silent (16mm/video)
Produced by the Lubin Company
This is one of the few surviving films made by the Sigmund Lubin Company
of Philadelphia. Lubin, who immigrated to the United States in the 1870s,
changed his name from Lubszynski and became the first Jewish-American filmmaker.
In the film, Moses lives on the Lower East Side and helps support his family
by selling papers. When one of the other newsboys tries to rob Moses, Ed
comes to his rescue. Moses invites Ed over for Shabbat dinner. When Ed is
run down by a passing bicycle, Moses visits his friend in the hospital and
uses his last pennies to help him. Twenty-five years later Moses is a successful
merchant, and Ed, down on his luck, comes looking for a job. Moses recognizes
his old friend and offers him the best job he has. This film, while somewhat
difficult to follow, is remarkable for portraying the religious tradition,
concern, and compassion that Jews maintained in the face of the oppressive
conditions they experienced in American slums.
The Yidishe Gauchos
USA, 1989, 28 minutes, color/B&W (video)
Spanish with English subtitles (Spanish language version also available)
Director: Mark Freeman
Gold Apple, National Educational Film and video Festival
Narrated by Eli Wallach,The Yidishe Gauchos is a story of immigration
and survival in the Argentinian pampas. At the end of the nineteenth century,
thousands of East European Jews fled from persecution and pogroms. With
the help of the Jewish Colonization Association, these Jews adapted to a
life on the pampas alongside the tough Argentine cowboys, the gauchos. The
immigrants became ranchers and farmers-professions unknown to shtetl
Jews from East Europe. The Jewish Gauchos, like their native counterparts,
dressed in black hats and wide belts. They adapted the local customs to
their new community: They built schools, libraries, theaters, hospitals,
and an agricultural cooperative that gave the pampas its own unique Jewish
character. Utilizing archival footage, commentary from scholars and interviews
with those who remember the earliest days of Jewish settlement in Argentina,
this lively documentary illuminates an unknown chapter of modern Jewish
history.
"A fascinating glimpse inside an Argentine reality few of us know." -
Richard Fagen, Professor Emeritus of Latin American Studies, Stanford
University
"There’s nothing like The Yidishe Gauchos... I enthusiastically
recommend it." - Deborah Kaufman, Founder, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
The Young Lions
USA, 1958, 167 minutes, B&W (16mm)
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Adapted from the Irwin Shaw novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter Edward Anhalt,
The Young Lions (starring Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin, and Marlon
Brando) is a study of war and antisemitism both in America and abroad. On
the eve of WWII, Noah, a young Jew, meets Hope (Hope Lange), a non-Jew,
and they fall in love. While her family struggles to get used to the idea
that Noah is a Jew, Noah enters the army and experiences brutal antisemitism
in his company. The war continues and Noah and his company are sent to Germany
where he faces combat and the realization of the Holocaust when the army
liberates concentration camps. Brando plays the disillusioned German soldier
who is a man of good conscience deceived by Nazi propaganda.
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Zegota - A Time to Remember
USA, 1992, 52 minutes, color (video)
Producers: Sy Rotter and Andrzej Sikora
Filmed in Poland, Israel and London, Zegota - A Time to Remember
documents the clandestine efforts of diverse Polish groups-Catholics, socialists,
independents and others-to save Jewish lives despite great personal risks.
The London-based Polish Government-in-Exile was probably the first allied
government to realize Hitler’s intention to annihilate the Jews of Europe.
They urged the leaders of the United States and Great Britain to aid the
Jews. Frustrated by the Allied Governments’ rejection of active intervention,
the exiled Polish leaders encouraged an effort to save Jewish lives by utilizing
elements of the Polish Underground Home Army and civilian participation.
They formed an organization called "Council to Aid the Jews," code-named
"Zegota." This was the only government-sponsored social welfare agency established
to rescue Jews in German-occupied Europe. This documentary’s positive reference
to Polish assistance to Jews makes it an ideal supplement to high school
and college-level Holocaust studies, and adult interfaith discussion groups.
Zelig
USA, 1983, 79 minutes, color/B&W (16mm)
Director: Woody Allen
Allen’s faux documentary about Leonard Zelig (Allen), a chameleon-like man
who became a celebrity in the fad-crazy 1920s. Also stars Mia Farrow, Garrett
Brown, Stephanie Farrow, and Will Holt.
Zlateh the Goat
USA, 1973, 20 minutes, color (16mm/video)
Director: Gene Deitch
Gold Medal, Atlanta Film Festival; Silver Plaque, Chicago Film Festival;
Bronze Plaque, Columbus Film Festival; Silver Award, International Film
& TV Festival
This heartwarming and uplifting tale is based on the book of the same
name by Isaac Bashevis Singer. A family decides they must sacrifice their
beloved goat to buy Hanukkah candles, potatoes, oil, and other household
necessities and they send their oldest son to sell the goat to the butcher
in town. The son and goat set off for town, but soon find themselves stranded
in a snow storm. The film then unfolds without words, through poetic imagery,
natural sounds, and music, as the boy and the goat help each other to
survive. Recommended for children of all ages.
Jewish Film and Video Directory is brought to you in association with a number of resources including The National Center for Jewish Film, and Washington Jewish Film Festival.
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