Heartbreaking story of an elderly Jewish couple, Job and Roza, who adopt an 8-year-old gentile boy in Hungary right before the Nazis take over. Job is a prosperous farmer, and he and Roza have lost all of their seven children (primarily to illness). The couple knows what will happen when the Nazis invade. They wish to keep their heritage and memory alive, and to pass on their possessions to someone they love. Most of the film follows their relationship with Jacko, the young and rebellious boy they adopt who learns to love and trust them. Inevitably, the Nazis invade at the end of the film and the three must face what fate has dealt them. Note: Contains two brief scenes with partial nudity.

In Hungarian with subtitles.  1 hr. 36 min.  AGE:  17 to Adult

973

THE ROAD TO NEW YORK FROM EASTERN EUROPE: JEWISH

Roa

IMMIGRATION AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY(1998)

Suitable for classroom use, this video traces the path of Jews who left Europe from 1880 to 1914 for a new life in the United States. It looks at what life was like in the European shtetls and explains the reasons Jews left for America. Using photos and narration, the film then illustrates what life was like when these Jews arrived at Ellis Island and settled on New York’s Lower East Side. Note: Although narration is somewhat stilted at times, this video provides very clear, organized and detailed information to introduce students to the subject of Jewish immigration to the U.S.

B&W. 17 min.  AGE: 10 to Adult

943.8

ROUTES TO ROOTS: A TIME TO GATHER STONES TOGETHER  (1994)

Rou

We follow a group of Holocaust survivors and genealogists—led by genealogist Miriam Weiner—who return to Poland and the Ukraine in 1992 to search for their roots. The group is on a 10-day visit touring towns of family origin, synagogues and cemeteries. They search for family records in state and local archives and are granted access to previously inaccessible materials. Note: Useful for individuals interested in genealogy as well as those who wish to see what has become of some of the previously Jewish areas of Poland and Russia.

29 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

940.53

SHTETL  (1996)

Sht

A Frontline presentation of director Marian Marzynski’s affecting look at how the Holocaust erased Jewish culture from the shtetls of Poland. A Polish Gentile researcher, a Chicago Jew and a Polish-born American Jewish translator join forces in Bransk, Poland, to uncover the story of what happened to this shtetl during the Holocaust. They discover much remaining Polish anti-Semitism and denial of what happened through many interviews with current Bransk inhabitants. They also talk to Bransk survivors in Israel and America, and at the end we follow another Bransk-born American Jew who returns to talk with people from his home village. Study guide available.

In English with some Polish subtitles and translations. 3 hrs.  AGE: 14 to Adult

947

THE SHTETL: A VIDEO MINI COURSE  (1994)

Sht

This film introduces the world of the shtetl—the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry—through shtetl life photos and narration with musical background. Viewers will learn of the daily life, education and Jewish life in the shtetl. Very complete study guide available with follow up activity sheets to reproduce for the classroom.

B&W. 16 min.  AGE: 11 to Adult

940.53

SO WE SAID GOODBYE  (1991)

So

Short Israeli drama in which Yackov watches as his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren gather their things and prepare to leave Israel for a new home in Madrid. As he watches his grandson at the airport, Yackov has a flashback of his own childhood in Poland—where he left his mother and siblings in 1937 to join his father and older brother in Argentina. That was the last time Yackov saw his mother and younger siblings—they perished in the Holocaust. The film ends with Yackov’s grandson waving from the escalator and then switches to a scene of Yackov’s mother and siblings walking away from the boat dock.

In Hebrew and Yiddish with subtitles. 26 min. AGE: 12 to Adult

943.8

THE STAR, THE CASTLE AND THE BUTTERFLY  (1990)

Sta

Explores the history of the Jewish community in Prague from the first settlement of its Jews through the Holocaust. Narrator Hugo Gryn takes viewers to visit Prague’s Altneushul synagogue, one of the oldest and most beautiful in the world, as well as to a Jewish cemetery. He discusses the time of Rabbi Loew, the Maharal of Prague, and tells the Rabbi’s famous legend of the Golem of Prague. Gryn also visits the area near the castle where Kafka lived and wrote about the loss of rights of the individual. Camera shots of Prague, narrated with the chronology of the Jews there, give viewers a picture of what life was once like for Jews in this city.

25 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

947.93

THERE ONCE WAS A TOWN (2000)

Yaffa Eliach’s remarkable film which chronicles the journey of four Holocaust survivors who return to their small town of Eishyshok, Poland where almost all of its 3,500 Jews were massacred in 1941. Professor Eliach, a well-known Holocaust historian, leads the trip. She is accompanied by her family as well as family members of the other survivors. Documentary footage and photos bring alive the world of the shtetl as the survivors recall life in Eishyshok. They describe their life before the war as well as how they escaped and survived the massacre. One survivor was an eyewitness to the massacre, surviving in the pit amid the dead bodies of his family and friends. Eliach tells her incredible personal story which will bring most viewers to tears. Viewers watch as the survivors search in modern day Eishyshok for remnants of their life and neighbors they had known. Professor Eliach’s companion book of the same title provides a detailed history of 900 years of Eishyshok and its inhabitants. Note: The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has a “Tower of Life” exhibit which displays photographs of Eishyshok life from ground floor to ceiling - photographs which Yaffa Eliach has collected over the years of life in her shtetl. Teacher may wish to use this film as a follow-up to class trips to the Museum.

AGE:  13 to Adult

JHVC

F

To Be or Not To Be  (1942)

To

To Be or Not To Be prompted many critics to attack director Ernst Lubitsch for what they deemed a callous insensitivity to the plight of the Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Lubitsch pointed out that his black comedy included footage of the devastated city, reflecting his personal horror and repulsion. "What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology," insisted Lubitsch. Jack Benny and Carole Lombard star as a husband and wife acting team who perform with a Warsaw company. After a dashing Polish pilot falls for Lombard, he then leaves for England where he meets a mysterious man who will soon return to Poland. Could he be a Nazi spy? In a wacky series of events, Benny, Lombard, and the company assume clever disguises to outwit the Germans and foil their plot.

B&W. 1 hr. 39 min.  AGE: 13 to Adult

F

YENTL  (1983)

Yen

Dramatization of a short novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Yentl, a smart and independent young Jewish woman in 1904 Eastern Europe, wants to study Talmud and Jewish law. Since this study was restricted to boys, Yentl masquerades as a boy and enters the Yeshiva. There she falls in love and gets involved in the middle of an impossible love triangle. This musical stars Barbra Streisand (who sings all songs), Mandy Patinkin and Amy Irving.

2 hrs. 14 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

791.43

THE YIDDISH CINEMA  (1991)

Yid

Produced by the National Center for Jewish Film, this documentary traces the history of Yiddish film. It begins by providing a brief history of the Yiddish language, as well as Yiddish literature and theater. The documentary uses film clips, photographs and interviews to present the ascent and then the decline, after World War II, of Yiddish film in both Eastern Europe and the United States. Includes clips of some of the most popular Yiddish films. Narrated by playwright David Mamet. Note: This video serves well as an introduction to a Yiddish Film Series, as does the video Yiddish: The Mame-Loshn.

Film clips in Yiddish with subtitles. Color/B&W. 1 hr.  AGE: 14 to Adult

492.49

YIDDISH: THE MAME-LOSHN (Yiddish: The Mother Tongue)  (1979)

Yid

Well-produced, made-for-television documentary by filmmaker Pierre Sauvage (Weapons of the Spirit) about the Yiddish language and its importance to American Jews today. Includes interviews with comedian David Steinberg, actor Herschel Bernardi, writer Leo Rosten (The Joys of Yiddish), Daily Forward editor Simon Weber, and Yiddish scholars. Film clips highlight performances by Molly Picon, Maurice Schwartz and Isaac Bashevis Singer. A fascinating and well-researched look at a language that has survived for generations.

58 min.  AGE: 12 to Adult

Outstanding Emmy Award winning documentary about Jewish life in Eastern Europe including interviews, archival films, vintage photographs and traditional Jewish music. The film covers multiple aspects of Eastern European Jewish life, listed in order of their coverage in the film:

• A brief background of Jewish life in Eastern Europe

• Organization of the shtetl

• Schools – cheders and gymnasium

• The role of girls

• Clothing

• Kehillah – The Jewish Councils

• Professions of Jews

• Anti-Semitism

• Shabbat

• Jewish foods

• Yiddish language

• Yiddish entertainment – theater and music

• Chassidism, Bundism and Zionism

Narrated by Elliot Gould. Note: This film can be broken up into sections by classroom teachers to examine specific topics of shtetl or Eastern European Jewish life. Segments are lively and interesting.

1 hr. 19 min.  AGE:  12 to Adult

F

YIDL MITN FIDL (Yidl With A Fiddle)

Yid

The classic Yiddish language musical comedy. Molly Picon plays a shtetl girl who, disguised as a boy, goes off with her father and a band of traveling musicians into the Polish countryside. Made in pre-war Poland, the film provides a warm rendering of Eastern European Jewish life.

Yiddish with subtitles. B&W. 1 hr. 32 min.  AGE: All Ages