THE ROBERT & DOROTHY LUDWIG SCHENECTADY JCC

JEWISH INTEREST

51 Birch Street

Do we ever really know our parents? Filmmaker Doug Block had every reason to believe that his parents’ 50-year marriage was a good one, but after his mother dies, he’s shocked to find his father marrying his secretary from 40 years ago. Funny and heartbreaking.

USA 2005 88 minutes DVD

888-Go-Kosher

A day in the life of New York City's only rapid-response kitchen koshering service. Follow Rabbi Sholtiel Lebovic as he helps clients go kosher from scratch. A humorous and enlightening documentary look at the Jewish Orthodox world.

United States 2007 Color 10 min DVD

American Lives, Jewish Stories

This is a documentary with personal stories that explore the challenges and joys of being Jewish in America. The film opens in a scenic Jewish summer camp in upper Wisconsin. Three teens contrast their diverse Jewish home lives with the unique “community in the woods”. Next, is a twenty three year-old Boston woman’s raw account of tension between her solid Jewish upbringing and her love for a Catholic man. Finally, a Baltimore mother recounts her journey back to Judaism.

USA Color 2000 46 min. VHS

America’s Synagogue

The video portrait of Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.

USA Color 1974 12 min. VHS

Annie Hall

Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is one of Manhattan’s most brilliant comedians, but when it comes to romance, his delivery needs a little work. Introduced by his best friend, Rob (Tony Roberts), Alvy falls in love with the ditzy but delightful nightclub singer Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). When his own insecurities sabotage the affair, Annie is forced to leave Alvy for a new life – and lover (Paul Simon) – in Los Angeles. Knowing he may have lost Annie forever, Alvy’s willing to go to any lengths – even driving L.A.’s freeways – to recapture the only thing that ever mattered…true love.

USA Color 1977 93 min. DVD

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss is irresistible as a young man trying to make a name for himself in 1948 Montreal. Driven by an insatiable desire to be a "somebody", he uses the girl who loves him, forges checks, and lies...but somehow still manages to work his way into our hearts. Perhaps there's a little bit of Duddy Kravitz in everyone...

USA Color 1974 121 min. PG-13 VHS

Autumn Sun

A beautiful love story set in Buenos Aires. It is a mid-life romance that speaks directly to the heart and mind without gimmicks, tricks, or compromise. Clara Goldstein is a lovely, middle-aged Jewish woman who, because of an impending visit from her American brother, is forced to create a contrived, relationship with a man of her own faith. She places an ad in the personals column and meets Raul. He is a well-spoken, handsome, and charming man whom she soon discovers is a Gentile and does not fulfill her reason for placing the ad. Clara realizes she has no alternative and proceeds to instruct Raul in an intensive course in Judaism. Their journey is humorous and captivating, but not one without pitfalls.

USA Color 1999 103 min. With Subtitles - not rated VHS

Avalon

Film maker, Barry Levinson returns to his hometown of Baltimore to tell the fictionalized story of how his family came to America and settled in a section of the city known as Avalon. This multi-generational, episodic drama features Lou Jacobi as the brother who was gravely insulted when the family didn't wait to cut the Thanksgiving turkey. An affectionate salute to the American immigrant, Barry Levinson.

USA Color 1990 126 min. VHS

Be Fruitful & Multiply

How does it feel to have been pregnant or breastfeeding for 25 of the 26 years of your married life? This and other questions are posed openly and directly for the first time in this film and they expose the consequences of the commandment “be fruitful and multiply” – the mother of all mitzvot. The director talks with a few ultra-orthodox women in Brooklyn and Jerusalem.

Israel 2005 52 minutes English with Hebrew & English subtitles DVD

Biloxi Blues

The year is 1943 and Eugene Morris Jerome finds himself far from the comforts of his Brooklyn home when he is sent to basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi. Matthew Broderick stars as the naïve recruit in Neil Simon’s hilarious comedy about boot camp during World War II. Expecting the Army to be doughnuts and USO dances, he instead encounters a tough and sadistic drill sergeant (Christopher Walken) and a platoon of often hostile recruits. Armed with only his sense of humor, Eugene is determined to leave camp with everything he came in with…except his virginity! Directed by Mike Nichols.

USA Color 1991 105 min. PG-13 VHS

Bubbeh Lee & Me

Both personal and universal, Bubbeh Lee & Me is a humorous portrait of an extraordinary, ordinary Jewish grandmother and a touching account of her gay grandson’s search for his place in the world. As the two of them share daily trips to the supermarket, kibbitz over blintzes on Rosh Hashanah, and avoid meddlesome matchmakers, the strength of their relationship emerges. A spirited reflection on family, culture, and identity, Bubbeh Lee & Me examines the legacies passed on through generations and shows that the journey of self-discovery can begin at any age. An enormously funny and poignant documentary.

USA Color 1996 35min. VHS

Capturing the Friedmans

One Thanksgiving, as the Friedman family gathers at home for a quiet holiday dinner, their front door explodes, splintered by a police battering ram. Officers rush into the house, accusing Arnold Friedman and his youngest son Jesse of hundreds of shocking crimes. The film follows their story from the public’s perspective and through unique real footage of the family in crisis, shot inside the Friedman house. As the police investigate, and the community reacts, the fabric of the family begins to disintegrate, revealing provocative questions about justice, family, and – ultimately – truth.

USA Color 2003 235 min. DVD

Casablanca

Casablanca is perhaps the most legendary movie in Hollywood history. This film takes place in World War II, Morocco, seething with European refugees desperate for passage to neutral Lisbon. Bogart is Rick, a world weary nightclub owner who claims, "I stick my neck out for nobody." Bergman is Ilsa, fleeing the Nazis with her Resistance-hero husband. Only Rick can help the pair escape, but he refuses...until Ilsa reawakens his idealism. Suspenseful, gloriously romantic, and filled with crackling dialogue. Casablanca is the winner of three Oscars.

USA Black & White 1943 104 min. VHS

Cemetery Club, The

Once a week, a circle of lifelong friends meet to pay tribute to the past. But when life throws them a few unexpected curves, they happily discover the best times are still ahead! Academy Award winners Olympia Dukakis and Ellen Burstyn, plus nominees Diane Ladd and Danny Aiello team up to deliver genuinely delightful performances in this enchanting comedy treat! Based on the stage play by Ivan Menchell.

USA Color 1993 107 min. VHS

Chariots of Fire

It’s 1924 and Britain’s finest athletes have begun their quest for glory in the Olympic Games. Their success will win honor for their nation – but for two champion runners, the honor at stake is a personal honor…and their challenge one from within. Chariots of Fire tells the exciting, inspiring true story of Harold Abrahams, Eric Liddell and the dedicated team of competitors who brought Britain one of her most legendary victories in international sports. It won four 1981 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

USA Color 1981 124 min. VHS

Commissar

In this extraordinary human drama set against the Russian Civil War, a tough Red Army Commander’s military career is disrupted by an unwanted pregnancy. Forced to stay with a poor Jewish family until her child is born, she comes face to face with the realities of different cultures, and finds herself transformed by the warmth and compassion of her hosts. Ultimately, she is forced to make the most difficult decision of her life: to rejoin her troops at the front, or stay with her child. This film was banned by the Soviet Government for 21 years. Glasnost gave a new life to Commissar. Winner of the Silver Bear, Berlin Film Festival. International Critics Prize Best Film.

Russia Black & White 105 min. Russian w/English subtitles VHS

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is an idealistic filmmaker…until he’s offered a lucrative job shooting a flattering profile of a pompous TV producer (Alan Alda). Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau) is the pillar of his community…until he learns that his ex-mistress (Angelica Huston) plans to expose his financial and extramarital misdeeds. As Cliff chooses between integrity and selling out, and Judah decides between the counsel of his rabbi (Sam Waterston) and the murderous advice of his mobster brother (Jerry Orbach), each man must examine his own mortality, and make an irrevocable decision – that will change everyone’s lives forever.

USA Color 1989 104 min. PG-13 VHS

Crossing Delancey

A funny movie about getting serious. Amy Irving (Yentl, Micki & Maude) stars as Izzy in this glowing, feel-good comedy. "What particularly fascinated me," Irving says about the role, "is the plight of the independent, single woman of the '80's in contrast with the accepted family traditions that have come down through the generations". Crossing Delancey is the giddy romantic charmer you've been waiting for.

USA Color 1989 97 min. VHS

Dancing With My Father

Dancing With My Father is an intimate portrait grounded in a recognizable emotional reality that will touch anyone who has thought about fathers and daughters, marriage, and divorce. Director Marcia Rock travels to her grandmother’s home in Slovakia to begin a personal journey. During her voyage she gains insight into growth that comes through understanding others’ harsh realities.

USA Color 2002 54 min. VHS

Daughter of the Bride

Director Terri Randall’s Oscar-nominated personal documentary takes a gentle look at how three grown-up siblings deal with their mother’s remarriage soon after the death of their beloved father.

USA Color 30 min. 1997 VHS

Dirty Dancing

It’s the summer of 1963 and Baby is stuck at the Catskills with her parents. Attempting to make the best of the situation, Baby attends the organized classes on merengue dancing and wig demonstration. Suddenly, all of that changes when she meets Johnny Castle, the resort's dance instructor. With Johnny, Baby learns the steps to a new dance--a dirty dance--that allows her to discover new strengths and new talents in order to define her place in a rapidly changing world. Under the influence of Rhythm and Blues, Baby can now express herself and her love for Johnny.

USA Color 105 min. 1987 DVD

Divan

As a teenager, filmmaker Pearl Gluck left her Orthodox Jewish clan in Brooklyn for secular life in Manhattan. Years later, Pearl’s father has one wish; that she marry and return to the community. Pearl, however, takes a more creative approach to mend the breach. She travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom; a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept. En route for the ancestral divan, Pearl encounters a colorful cast of characters who provide guidance and inspiration.

USA Color 77 min. 2004 In English, Hungarian, and Yiddish w/ English subtitles VHS

Driving Miss Daisy

They couldn’t agree. They wouldn’t give in. They thought they had nothing in common. But in the years they spent together they built the friendship of a lifetime. Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, and Dan Aykroyd star in this joyous comedy about a head-strong Southern lady and her ever-patient chauffeur that won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Tandy), Adaptation Screenplay and Makeup.

USA Color 99 min. 1989 VHS

Ellis Island: Island of Hope, Island of Tears

This is the story of Ellis Island and the immigrants who were processed there. Between 1890 and 1924, more than twelve million men, women, and children passed through the great immigration station at Ellis. Fleeing persecution and poverty, immigrants arrived from every country in Europe and the Caribbean. All of this is dramatically told in Island of Hope from the time the immigrants left Europe to the moment the doors of Ellis opened to reveal the great promise of America.

USA Black and White 1990 30 min. PG-13 VHS

Enemies, A Love Story

Ron Silver plays a holocaust survivor with a serious problem. Three women are in love with him and he is already married to two of them. Paul Mazursky directs this appealing translation of an Isaac Bashevis Singer story set in the boroughs of post-war New York. The film received two Oscar nominations, Anjelica Huston and Lena Olin both for Best Supporting Actress. With Alan King, Margaret Sophis Stein, and Paul Mazursky.

USA Color 1989 123 min. VHS

Esther Kahn

Summer Phoenix delivers a moving performance as Esther Kahn, a young Jewish migrant living in London at the end of the 19^th century. The family works together in a sweatshop, but Esther is the weak link in the operation. She is slow and stubborn, she never has an opinion on anything and never feels anything for anyone – she is like a stone. She decides to become an actress, because it is only in the theater that she awakens. It is on the stage that, one evening, she breaks through twenty years of suppressed life, and really begins to live.

USA Color 2000 142 min. DVD

Exodus I, II ( * Israeli )

Paul Newman stars as an idealistic freedom fighter in this sweeping saga depicting the struggle of postwar Jews in establishing the modern state of Israel. Based on the international bestseller by Leon Uris. Directed by Otto Preminger.

USA Color 1960 208 min. (2 Videos) VHS

Exodus 1947 ( * Israeli )

Exodus 1947 is the true story of how American Jews secretly financed and crewed Exodus 1947, the most infamous of the Aliyah Bet ships that tried to run the British blockade of Palestine. Recently declassified documents, eyewitness accounts, and scholars reveal how American ships, crews and financiers played a vital role in undermining British control of Palestine even though such involvement was contrary to U.S. Government policy. In the summer of 1947, this aging Chesapeake Bay steamer, with a crew made up of an odd assortment of former Jewish-American GIS, took on a cargo of 4,500 Holocaust survivors and steamed for Palestine. After a bloody battle with the British, the immigrants were sent back to Displaced Persons camps in Germany. The newsreel and print media seized on Exodus 1947 as a symbol of Jewish struggle and the aborted voyage galvanized international support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

USA Color 1996 60 min. VHS

Fiddler on the Roof I & II

Academy Award winning musical starring Topol as Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five unmarried daughters to support in the village of Anatevka in Czarist Russia. With a sharp-tongued wife at home and growing anti-Semitism in

the village, Tevye talks to God about his troubles. His people's traditions keep Tevye strong when his existence is balanced as precariously as a fiddler on the roof.

USA Color 1971 169 min. VHS

The Fixer

Bernard Malamud's Pulitzer Prize Award-winning novel comes to the screen as a drama that is "thoroughly absorbing, extremely well-crafted, historically important." Alan Bates received a 1968 Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role as Yakov Bok, a young Jewish handyman unjustly accused of the savage murder of a small boy. Innocent of everything, except being a Jew in a hysterically anti-Semitic Russia, Bok's imprisonment leads to an ordeal of incredible torture and deprivation. Starring Dirk Bogarde, Elizabeth Hartman, Ian Holm, and David Warner.

USA Color 1968 132 min. VHS

Focus

Set in New York during the height of World War II, Focus recounts the unraveling of an American community when the identity of a man (William H. Macy) and his wife (Laura Dern) are mistaken. Slowly ostracized at home and work, they learn the value of self and solidarity as they struggle to maintain dignity and find happiness. Focus is adapted by Kendrew Lascelles from the Arthur Miller novel of the same name.

USA Color 2001 106 min. VHS

The Frisco Kid

Gene Wilder is an inexperienced Polish Rabbi traveling West in the America of the 1850's to join a waiting congregation in San Francisco. Harrison Ford is the reluctant gun slinger who helps the calamity-prone teacher from the Old Country to adjust and survive in the New World. Directed by Robert Aldrich.

USA Color 1979 119 min. VHS

From Swastika to Jim Crow

This movie tells the little known story of two different cultures sharing a common burden of oppression. In the 1930’s, Jewish intellectuals who escaped Nazi Germany and immigrated to the USA faced an uncertain future. Confronted with anti-Semitism at American universities and a public distrust of foreigners, many sought refuge in the traditionally black colleges of the South. Securing teaching positions, these scholars came to form lasting relationships with their students, and made significant contributions to the communities in which they lived and worked.

USA Color 2000 60 min. VHS

Gefilte Fish

This film shows three generations of women sharing their individual methods for making Gefilte Fish. In the course of their preparations, they discuss commitment to family, tradition, and its place in contemporary society. “Humorous, yet poignant. Director (Karen) Silverstein has an arch sense of humor, perfect for handling so slippery an issue." - San Francisco Examiner. American Video Conference Award Finalist.

USA Color 1987 15 min. VHS

La Genese (Genesis)

Director Cheick Oumar Sissoko marks the coming of the 21st Century with a film set at the beginning of time. He discovers insights into one of the most urgent problems facing Africa and indeed the world - fratricidal strife - by returning to its locus classicus, the story of Jacob and Esau. By translating this archetypal story into a distinctively West African context, Sissoko helps us see Africans not as exotic others, but as representatives of a universal humanity.

Mali Color 1999 102 min. Bambara with English subtitles VHS

Gentleman's Agreement

This is the 1947 Academy Award-winning motion picture about anti-Semitism in post-World War II suburban America. The film stars Gregory Peck and John Garfield. It was adapted by Moss Hart from Laura Z. Hobson's novel.

USA Black & White 1947 118 min. VHS

Go For Zucker

First-class pool shark and all-around hustler, Jaeckie Zucker is up to his ears in debt, again. He faces jail, divorce and general ruin. When word comes that his mother has died, leaving an inheritance, it’s a stroke of luck. But according to his mother’s will, before he can cash in Zucker must first reconcile with his long-estranged, Orthodox brother Samuel, who is arriving the next day, family in tow, expecting to sit shiva for seven days. Can Zucker, who has forsaken his religion, and his non-Jewish wife pass as observant? And can he sneak away to compete in a high-stakes pool tournament?

Germany Color 2006 91 min. In German with English subtitles DVD

The Golem

Based on ancient Jewish mysticism, this is one of the first sci-fi films about Robotics. A rabbi saves his people from a program by summoning forth a man-made creature, the Golem. This film is famous for its impressionistic, creative sets.

Germany Black & White 1920 118 min. Silent VHS

The Golem of L.A.

Ed Asner stars as Rabbi Judah Lowenstein, the elderly Rabbi of Los Angeles' oldest remaining synagogue, In Lewis Schoenbrun's contemporary version of "The Golem". Twenty one year-old David cannot fully comprehend his grandfather's love for the Rabbi's congregation. When the 75 year-old house of worship is about to be demolished, Grandpa, in a final dramatic act of desperation, enlists the aid of the supernatural in resolving the crisis. Set against the background of urban 1990's America, the story provides keen insight into the modern-day Jewish generation gap.

USA Color 1994 25 min. VHS

Le Grand Role

Imagine an adaptation of the Merchant of Venice given in Yiddish, directed by an American and presented in France! A character is given the role of his life playing Shylock. How he copes with this stroke of luck and the news that his wife is seriously ill – both coming at the same time – makes for a touching and beautiful performance.

France Color 2003 89 min. French with English subtitles VHS

The Great Dictator

Chaplin's first film with dialogue displays his boundless talent for both comedy and drama. This film features Chaplin in two roles, one of a little Jewish barber facing the constant threat of religious persecution, the second is a devastating lampoon of Hitler.

Black & White 1940 126 min. French w/ English subtitles VHS

Great Figures of the Bible

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel explores the human condition as revealed by the extraordinary tales of key biblical figures: Moses, David, Cain & Abel, Job, Abraham & Isaac, and Adam & Eve. With the presence of a master storyteller and the keen insights of a noted historian, Wiesel brings a fresh relevance to these stories --tales that recall our heritage and apply their lessons to the challenges of today. The series includes portraits by Rembrandt, illuminated manuscripts from centuries-old Hagaddahs, and Persian art that dates back to the 11th Century.

VHS

TITLES IN THE SERIES:

1. About Fathers and Sons, Abraham and the Binding of Isaac

2. The Agony of Power, the Story of Moses

3. The First Murder, the Story of Cain and Abel

4. Greatness and Passion, the Story of David

5. The Story of Temptation, Adam and Eve and After

6. Suffering and Sacrifice, the Story of Job

Hanan Harchol: Artwork

Harchol is an artist who uses family narratives as a springboard for addressing larger psychological and social themes of empowerment and disempowerment pertaining to the human condition. The narratives take their form in paintings, drawings, animations, videos, and multimedia installations. At the heart of his narratives is a character, ‘The Nuclear Physicist’, based on Harchol’s father, an Israeli nuclear physicist of Eastern-European Jewish heritage. In the animations and videos, Harchol impersonates his parents’ voices.

USA Color/Black & White Animation 2003 30 min. DVD

Hebrew Hammer, The

Meet Semitic Super Stud, Mordechai Jefferson Carver, a.k.a. The Hebrew Hammer (Adam Goldberg). When a psychotic Santa (Andy Dick) tries to destroy Chanukah by hypnotizing Jewish children with bootlegged copies of the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” it’s up to the Hebrew Hammer to save the day. Together with Mohammed (Mario Van Peebles), head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, the Hammer takes no prisoners in his quest to hunt down the renegade Santa and make the holiday season safe for all.

USA Color 2003 85 min. Rated R DVD

Hester Street

Set in the Lower East Side of 1896, this endearing comedy traces the Americanization of Gitl, a pious Russian-Jewish woman who comes from the Old Country to join her husband, only to find he has turned his back on his traditions and on her. Although she is hurt and bewildered by his rejection, Gitl gradually learns English, wins the love of a gentle Talmudic scholar, and finds her place in the New World. Set against a backdrop of sweatshops, pushcarts, and crowded tenements, her struggle demonstrates the difficulties and triumphs of assimilation.

USA Black & White 1974 89 min. VHS

Homage to Chagall

This film is a celebration and sensitive portrait of the Russian painter Marc Chagall and his devotion to art, Jewish history, and love. Over 300 of Chagall's paintings, murals, and stained-glass windows are featured. These lovely images are interwoven with an extensive interview with the artist and his wife. Narrated by James Mason and Joseph Wiseman. Award winning Best Documentary Film.

Canada Color 1977 90 min. VHS

Hot Bagels: The Hole Story

A personable young bagel baker takes us on a guided tour through the bagel-making process, from its origins to contemporary methods. This lively, informative, and tantalizing video illuminates the mysterious history of the chewy, doughnut-shaped roll through rare archival footage and stills and through an explanation of the curious hole's purpose. "All that's missing is the aroma and a sample of the goods to complete this delectable and nutritious treat." - Booklist

USA Color 1994 12 min. VHS

How to Read Hebrew (and love it!)

This complete 2 hour program is designed for students of all ages who want to learn how to read the Hebrew alphabet and vowels, review Hebrew reading skills, build reading accuracy and fluency, or review for Bar/Bat Mitzvah. The video includes oral reading exercises, review sections and charming animations.

USA Color 120 min. English VHS

Image Before My Eyes

Award winning Image Before My Eyes is a brilliant 90 minute video about Polish Jewry before the War. Josh Waletzky's remarkable documentary utilizes a skillful mixture of rare film footage, memorabilia, photographs, music, and interviews to portray a rich and varied way of life.

USA Black & White 1980 90 min. VHS

The Imported Bridegroom

Asriel Stroon is a widowed landlord who has amassed a fortune in turn-of-the-century America. Fearful that his actions have lost him a chance to get into heaven, Asriel returns to the "Old Country" and prays at his father's grave for the Almighty to wipe away a few of his sins. While there, he comes across an old Jewish custom, the richest men in town are "bidding" for Shaya, the most brilliant student, to secure him as a bridegroom for their daughters. Asriel discovers that to support such a scholar is a sure ticket to heaven. He shrewdly enters and wins the bidding war and brings this "perfect" bridegroom home for Flora, his "American" daughter, who really wants to marry an American doctor. They all get more than they bargained for in this romantic comedy.

USA Color 1992 93 min. VHS

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Isaac in America

This film brings the wisdom and wonderful wit that makes Isaac Bashevis Singer so unique and special. This film is not just a journey through his life and words (narrated by Judd Hirsch), but also offers the candid and thoroughly entertaining Isaac Bashevis Singer himself to observe. "How many Nobel Prize winning authors now in their 80's can justifiably be called laugh riots? Probably only: Isaac Bashevis Singer." This film received the Academy Award Nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

USA Color 1994 60 min. VHS

Jackie Mason on Broadway

With flawless timing, Mason proceeds to dissect, bisect, and tear apart the Reagan administration, the rituals of dating, Jews versus Gentiles and much, much more. His rapid-fire humor ricochets through the world's targets -- Italy, Poland and the Middle East - in a comic onslaught which knows no boundaries. And heaven forbid you should be seated in his line of fire! "Very, very funny" - New York Times

USA Color 1988 60 min. VHS

The Jazz Singer

This is more than a movie, it's history’s first feature-length film with spoken dialog. Audiences at the October 6, 1927 premiere were electrified by what they could now see and hear when star Al Jolson, in the film's best-remembered line, proclaimed: "Wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet!" This film includes Jolson's famous renditions of "Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye" and "Mammy". Directed by Alan Crosland.

USA Black & White 1927 89 min. VHS

The Jew in the Lotus

In 1990, eight Jewish delegates traveled to Dharamsala, India to meet with the XTV Dalai Lama of Tibet and share the “secret of spiritual survival in exile.” Inspired by Kamenetz’s best-selling book, The Jew in the Lotus, this documentary chronicles his own personal search for his Jewish roots and also tells the story of a historic meeting between two spiritual traditions.

USA Color 1998 60 min. VHS

Jewish Life Cycle Series:

1) The Discovery: Bar Mitzvah

Josh Saviano (The Wonder Years) plays twelve year-old Davis, who is in the midst of preparing for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. Plagued by concerns about the impending celebration, as well as doubts about his own Jewish identity, playing baseball seems to David a lot more worthy of his time and energy. As the story unfolds, teachers, friends, and family members try to tackle David's many questions as he comes to better understand his Jewish heritage and what it means to him. Along the way, we, too, find answers to many of our own questions about Judaism.

USA Color 1988 58 min. VHS

2) The Eighth Day: Circumcision

In this film, the conflict between the Greeks and the Maccabees is at its peak. A young Jewish couple is faced with the decision of whether or not to circumcise their newborn son. Will the child's life be spared by breaking with the tradition of his forefathers? This moving account not only portrays an important moment in Jewish history, but raises a variety of questions relevant to our day.

USA Color 1989 25 min. VHS

3) A Seal Upon Thy Heart, A Portrait of Jewish Marriage

An inspiring portrait of a young Jewish couple's approaching marriage. The film documents a traditional Jewish wedding, placing special emphasis on the Biblical and Talmudic sources of the wedding ceremony. Also explored are the couple's personal reflections several months after their wedding.

USA Color 1975 30 min. VHS

The Jewish Mother's Video Cookbook

The secrets of traditional Jewish cooking, previously passed only from mother to daughter, are revealed for all to enjoy. This cassette will lead you step by step through 16 delicious kosher recipes including appetizers, side dishes, main courses and desserts. With Mackie Frazin and Joanne Pepper. American Video Conference Award Finalist.

USA Color 90 min. VHS

Jewish Soul, American Beat

Will Jews as a viable community disappear in the next century because of assimilation and intermarriage? Or, is there a return to Jewish identity and tradition among young people that portends a future of viability and strength? Featuring interviews with Arthur Hertzberg, Tony Kushner, Cynthia Ozick, Elizabeth Swados, and John Zorn and scenes of a synagogue service with standing room only, a Yiddish cabaret, jazz club, feminist seder and a gathering for inter-marrieds and converts. Jewish Soul, American Beat explores the new Jewish landscape in America. With insight, humor and special attention to the role of the artist, this provocative and important film asks if the renaissance is compatible with Jewish tradition and if it will endure.

USA Color 1997 60 min. VHS

Jewish Soul Music (The Art of Giora Feidman)

Giora's life is the story of the Jewish soul music revival in our times. For eighteen years, he played the best of the classical repertoire with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Then he decided to return to his roots to become a "klezmer," a Jewish soul musician. Ubi Barbash's video provides a wonderful visit with Giora Feidman, one of the great Jewish musicians, as well as, a voyage into the world of klezmer music, a musical know-how based on improvisation and personal skill, that for generations was passed on from father to son.

USA Color 1988 50 min. VHS

Jewish Symbols

This film explains Judaism’s concept of One God – Sh’mah Yisrael, The Lord is God, the Lord is One. It describes the holiness of prayer, Jewish ethics, the 613 mitzvot, the bris, the talis, the tefilin, the Sabbath services, and many other Judaic laws and customs.

USA Color 1973 25 min. VHS

A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden

For nearly a millennium, vigorous and soulful klezmer music was part of the celebration of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and in the early decades of this century the music continued to flourish in America. Assimilated and commercialized, this quintessential expression of Yiddish culture was virtually extinct until a mid-1970's revival. "A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden" traces the efforts of two contemporary groups, Kapelye and Klezmer Conservatory Band, to recover lost history. Making the past live in the present is at the heart of the Klezmer revival, and this film shows three generations of musicians involved in this process.

USA Color 1987 80 min. English & Yiddish w/English Subtitles VHS

Kaddish

This film is a riveting profile of a young Jewish activist coming to terms with his father's traumatic past during the Holocaust and the legacy of the struggle passed on to him. Yossi Klein is the young man who brings back the memory of his father Zoltan, a radiant and charming Hungarian Jew who escaped the round-up of Jews, hid out, and was spared the horrors of the Holocaust.

USA Color 1985 92 min. VHS

Kissing Jessica Stein

Fed up with her fruitless search for “Mr. Right” and tired of blind dates from hell, attractive journalist Jessica Stein whimsically responds to a classified ad – from Helen! Making and breaking new rules of dating as they go, the two women muddle through an earnest but hilarious courtship that blurs the lines between friendship and romantic love in this “smashing romantic comedy” (ROLLING STONE).

USA Color 2001 97 min. VHS

The Last Journey, The Lost Jews of Russia

Before Nodar Djindjihashvili, a Soviet Jew, left his homeland for the final time, he made a secret odyssey that took him into forty communities spanning 10,000 miles. He recorded Jewish life wherever he found Jews in the street, in synagogues, and even in cemeteries. The photographer looked for an answer to the question of Jewish identity by stretching his vision from the Jews massacred at Babi Yar to those surviving day-to-day in remote parts of the Soviet Union.

USA Color 1995 24 min. VHS

Life Apart: Hasidim in America

Hasidim often provoke controversy among outsiders with their insularity, strict division of gender roles and refusal to Americanize. A Life Apart relates the absorbing, dramatic story of the creation of the post-Holocaust communities in the U.S. “I found it instructive and entertaining and deeply moving. I hope the film will bring Jews closer to the fervor and the beauty of Hasidism.” -- Elie Wiesel

USA Color 1997 95 min. VHS

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg

As baseball’s first Jewish star, “Hammerin’ Hank” Greenberg’s career contains all the makings of a true American success story. An extraordinary ball player notorious for his hours of daily practice, Greenberg’s career is an inspiration to all and captured the headlines and admiration of sportswriters and fans alike. This is the story of how Hank became an American hero.

USA Color 1999 95 min. VHS

Lost Embrace

Ariel is a recent college dropout with hopes of escaping a career at his mother’s lingerie store in a multi-cultural shopping mall. The job comes with its perks, but as tantalizing as helping beautiful women slip in and out of lingerie can be, Ariel seeks a more fulfilling life. Dressing-room trysts with sexy vixen Rita can’t go on forever; and Estela, his now pregnant ex-girlfriend, no longer needs him. While hoping to secure a European passport, which will allow him to travel the world, Ariel first has to shake a head-spinning dose of reality; his long-lost father is about to return, forcing Ariel to accept a long-overdue reunion with the father he has been running away from his whole life.

Argentina Color 2003 100 min. Spanish w/ English Subtitles DVD

The Lost Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe

Before World War II, more than a thousand wooden synagogues dotted the shtetls of Eastern Europe. Many had stood for centuries, testaments to the craftsmanship and faith of the Jewish communities in the region. For decades the world believed all these structures was lost. Then, a few years ago, a team from Hebrew University discovered six of these structures in Lithuania. This film tells the story of the synagogues, the life that surrounded them before the war and what has happened to them in the last fifty years. Narrated by Theodore Bikel.

USA Color/Black & White 48 min. VHS

The Man Who Cried

Today’s most dazzling stars soar in this alluring tale of passion, intrigue, and betrayal. Set against a romantic Parisian backdrop, the lives of four strangers – an innocent young woman with a dangerous secret (Christina Ricci), a seductive cabaret dancer (Cate Blanchett), a mysterious stranger (Johnny Depp), and an unscrupulous operatic tenor (John Turturro) – collide on one fateful evening when secrecy is a matter of survival!

USA Color 2001 100 min. DVD

Me & My Matchmaker

Irene, a Chicago matchmaker in her 60's, has an uncanny eye for people’s strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps this is her most effective tool as she seeks to marry each of her cadre of Jewish clients to the perfect Jewish mate. A provocative documentary with a twist. Directed by Mark Wexler.

USA Color 1996 55 min. VHS

The Miracle of Intervale Avenue

This sensitive exploration searches for the secrets of a once thriving Jewish community in the South Bronx that somehow continues, despite the decay that surrounds it. The film provides a warm nostalgic sense of the vitality of what was the Jewish Bronx, while at the same time portraying the remarkable reality of today’s Jews, African-Americans, and Puerto Ricans interacting and helping each other. What makes this film so moving is the cast of expressive, complex and moving characters. Winner of the American Video Conference Award for Best Documentary.

USA Color 1987 65 min. VHS

Monsieur Ibrahim

Screen legend Omar Sharif is Monsieur Ibrahim, an elderly widower who owns a grocery store in a shabby, working-class section of Paris. His life takes on new meaning when he befriends Momo, a lonely teenage boy. In Ibrahim, Momo finds the father he never had, a patient man infused with kindness and a wisdom that he freely shares. And Momo awakens within Ibrihim a taste for grand adventure, which takes them on a journey that will change their lives forever.

France Color 2003 95 min. DVD

Mr. Saturday Night

Billy Crystal shines in his directorial debut as the legendary comedian Buddy Young Jr. - the most famous comic nobody's ever heard of. From his earliest days headlining in his parents' living room, to the golden days as America's favorite television comic, Buddy remains in a class by himself. Buddy's hilarious back-stage climb-to-the-middle is studded with witty one-liners and rapid-fire routines that will always leave you laughing - even as they touch your heart. Co-written by Billy Crystal, along with the writers of A League Of Their Own, City Slickers, and Parenthood. This is an hysterically comic and poignant look at what makes us laugh.

USA Color 1992 119 min. VHS

No One Will Know

This heart-warming documentary tells the story of children at the Jewish Orphanage in Moscow in 1932. Now elderly, they try to preserve the memory of their beloved director, and those among them who have perished during the Stalin purges and WWII. Directed by Galina Evtushenko.

Russia Color 2001 60 min. Russian w/ English Subtitles VHS

The Outside Chance of Maximillian Glick *

A quiet, affirmative, and heart warming work about a 12 year-old boy growing up in a small Canadian town trying to reconcile his fantasies and dreams with his family's orthodox Jewish customs. The film stars Saul Rubinek. "This intelligent little comedy-drama is perfect for preteens." - Leonard Martin.

Canada Color 1988 96 min. VHS

Paperclips

When the students of Tennessee’s Whitwell Middle School began studying the Holocaust as a way to learn about intolerance and diversity, nobody could have predicted the results. In 2001, the Paper Clip Project culminated in a unique memorial that changed the lives of those who created it, as well as touching Holocaust survivors and countless communities. Because Norwegians invented the paper clip and used it as a symbol of solidarity against the Nazis, students started collecting them to help visualize such vast numbers of victims. This award-winning documentary shows how even small-town students and educators can teach the world powerful lessons.

USA Color 84 min. 2003 DVD

The Personals

On stage, a group of seniors perform their roles with energy and laughter. Off stage, they conduct their everyday lives alone in silence. The Personals follows a drama group for senior citizens, as they rehearse and perform an original play at a community theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Drawn from the comedy and drama of the senior’s lives, the play features elderly people looking for dates through the personal ads. As the rehearsals progress, the camera turns to the individual members of the group at their homes, in the attempt to uncover both the joys and sorrows of growing old in America. With longing for love, sex, and relationships as its theme, The Personals depicts a surprisingly humorous and in-depth portrait of a not-often-seen segment of our society. Directed by Keiko Ibi. 1999 Academy Award Winner, Documentary short category.

USA Color 37 min. 1998 VHS

Play It Again, Sam

Woody Allen plays Allen, a fanatical movie buff with an outrageous recurring hallucination: Humphrey Bogart offering tips on how to make it with the ladies. His married friends Dick and Linda (Tony Roberts and Diane Keaton) fix him up with several eligible young ladies, but his self-confidence is so weak that he’s a total failure with them all. Eventually, Allen discovers that there is one woman he’s himself with: Linda, his best friend’s wife. The final scene is a terrific takeoff on “Casablanca’s’ classic ending, complete with roaring plane propellers, heavy fog and Bogart-style trenchcoats.

USA Color 85 min. 1972 DVD

Profile of an Artist: Moriziu Gottlieb

Polish Jewish artist, Moriziu Gottlieb (1856-1879) died tragically at the age of 23, over one hundred years ago. During his brief career, the man regarded as "the Jewish Rembrandt" attained lofty heights in the art world. Through a detailed and vivid description of Gottlieb's paintings, the atmosphere of life in 19th Century Central and Eastern Europe are masterfully captured.

USA Color 1979 40 min. VHS

Punch Me in the Stomach

Deb Filler gives a virtuoso comedic performance. She magically transforms herself into various members of her extended family. Her family is our family. There is something strangely familiar about all of them. Through her uncanny gift of mimicry, she expresses humor, love, passion and pathos, in character after character. Punch Me In The Stomach travels to New Zealand, New York, and with utmost poignancy, journeys back to Poland to visit Auschwitz,

where father and daughter revisit the camps together. It is a voyage as filled with love as it is with pain - a voyage that ends miraculously in healing laughter; not just for them, but for the audience as well.

USA Color 1997 58 min. VHS

Refusenik

Refusenik chronicles the thirty-year international movement to free Soviet Jews. The first retrospective film about the movement, it has been called a “seminal” work on the subject. Told through the eyes of activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain – many of whom survived punishment in Soviet Gulag labor camps – the film is a tapestry of the first person accounts of heroism, sacrifice, and ultimately, liberation.

USA 2007 117 min. English/Russian/Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

Red Kiss

Nadia (Charlotte Valandrey) is fifteen, full of life, and loves the poet Apollinaire, cemeteries, Scarlett O'Hara, and Stalin. Her parents are Jewish immigrants from Poland. Nadia and her parents believe that the revolution is imminent, that the best doctors come from the USSR, and that Soviet children are paid to go to school. At a demonstration, Nadia meets Stephanie (French heartthrob Lambert Wilson) and through him discovers another life, another world. Fresh and original, involving and sexy, Red Kiss is a bright film by Vera Bailment, a very talented French filmmaker and the producer of Quest for Fire.

France Color 1985 110 min. French with English Subtitles VHS

Relentless

“Relentless” is an eye-opening documentary which unravels the myths, and exposes the obstacles to achieving peace in the Middle East. Using primary source video clips, “Relentless” examines the history of the Middle East conflict and how the Peace Process unraveled in a surge of violence.

USA Color 2003 60 min. VHS

Sephard: Judeo-Spanish Music

Over 500 years have passed since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. But despite having been scattered to the far corners of the globe, Sephardic Jewry has managed to preserve its rich musical heritage. This unusual video enables the viewer to hear and learn about the rich tradition and beautiful music of the romanceros (Sephardic singers of the Middle Ages) as well as lullabies, wedding tunes, songs of mourning and synagogue melodies. The music deals with one's eternal quest for love, harmony, peace, religion, and even Paradise. Finalist Award, The New York Festivals.

Israel Color 1993 27 min. VHS

The Shvitz

A film about sweating it out. The story of the Jewish Steambaths in America - a vanishing piece of Judaica. The New York Post called the video "A mechiah, a real joy!"

USA Black & White 1993 47 min. VHS

Sixty Six

Co-sponsored by Hadassah Capital District

Bernie Rubens can’t wait for his bar mitzvah day to arrive: for once he will be the center of attention! Who knew that on Bernie’s big day, in the summer of 1966, all of England would be consumed by soccer’s World Cup Final fever? This riotous British coming-of age comedy stars Helena Bonham Carter and features Stephen Rea.

UK, 2006, 90 Minutes, English DVD

Skokie (* Holocaust)

Based on the actual events that shook this nation's history, Skokie is the powerful story of a contemporary small American town confronted with neo-Nazism and its own harrowing memories of war. Driven by outstanding dramatic performances to a riveting and surprising climax, Skokie is at once a haunting reminder of the delicacy of freedom and a passionate tale of the triumph of the human spirit. With Danny Kaye, Brian Dennehy, and Eli Wallach.

USA Color 1991 121min. PG VHS

Solomon & Gaenor

A timeless story of young love between two star-crossed lovers. It is 1913 in Wales when we meet Solomon, a young, handsome, Jewish peddler. He falls for Gaenor, the daughter of a strict, chapel going family, and racial and economic realities come to the fore. Passion blossoms, with hope and happiness achingly near, until Solomon’s secret is revealed.

UK Color 1998 102 min. English, Welsh-Yiddish VHS

Strange Fruit

Strange Fruit explores the origins and legacy of Billie Holiday’s haunting classic, one of the most influential protest songs ever written. The saga brings viewers face-to-face with the terror of lynching even as it spotlights the courage of those who fought for racial justice. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labor, and the left, and popular culture that gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement. While many people assume the song “Strange Fruit” was written by Holiday herself, it was actually conceived as a poem by a Jewish-American schoolteacher from the Bronx. Disturbed by a photograph of lynching, the teacher wrote the stark verse and brooding melody. It was first put to music at a meeting of his New York teachers union. But it was when Billie Holiday began performing the song at New York’s Café Society and then later recorded it that “Strange Fruit” began to gain notoriety.

USA Black & White 2002 57 min. VHS

A Stranger Among Us

Academy Award nominated star, Melanie Griffith (Best Actress nominee - Working Girl) turns in a winning performance as detective Emily Eden, a tough New York City cop forced to go undercover to solve a puzzling murder. Her search for the truth takes her into a secret world where the only way out is deeper in! Delivering edge-of-your-seat excitement, this action-packed thriller is sure to entertain you with its sizzling star power, electrifying story and non-stop surprises!

USA Color 1992 109 min. VHS

A Summer in La Goulette

Set in 1967, this heart-warming comedy examines a time when Muslims, Jews and Catholics lived together in harmony as neighbors. Youssef (a Muslim), Jojo (a Jew), and Giuseppe (a Catholic) are best friends until each of their daughters swears to lose their virginity by a certain date. To make matters worse, each daughter sets her sights on a boy of a different religion, thus challenging an inviolable taboo and causing a rift between their fathers. As the families resolve their differences, the Six Day War breaks out in the Middle East, which will divide Jews and Arabs the world over.

Tunisia Color 1996 100 min. VHS

Tickle in the Heart

This enchanting documentary charts one of music’s most unlikely comeback tours: The Epstein Brothers. Years ago, Max, Julie, and Willie Epstein were the kings of Klezmer music. Now retired in Florida and in their eighties, the Epstein brothers embark on a European tour. The brothers are stunned by the reception their “real Yiddish music” gets from these youthful and largely non-Jewish audiences.

German/USA Black & White 1996 84 min. In English VHS

Tijuana Jews

Throughout the early twentieth century thousands of European Jews sailed to Mexico looking for opportunity and escaping increasing persecution at home. A small group made their way north to the border town of Tijuana. Tijuana Jews is a documentary and a personal exploration of this community that blended Jewish and Mexican cultures and customs in an unlikely place and time.

USA Color 2005 52 min. English and Spanish w/ English Subtitles DVD

Toots

A fascinating biography of Toots Shor, a popular NYC bar and restaurant owner from the 1940s on, who developed his legendary following as a NYC bouncer for speakeasies during prohibition. His popular restaurant became a celebrity hangout that attracted a wide range of customers, including mobsters and presidents.

USA Color & Black and White 2006 84 min. DVD

Watermarks

This film narrates the story of the champion women swimmers of the legendary Vienna sports club Hakoah. Founded in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade most Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes, Hakoah rapidly grew into one of Europe’s biggest athletic organizations – and its women’s swim team virtually dominated national competitions in the 1930s. Watermarks focuses on the stories of the club’s surviving members, while also faithfully recounting a historical period where prejudice and violence forced these brave women into exile. Now sixty-five years after their escape, seven of Hakoah’s female swim team athletes leave their respective homes across the globe and re-unite for the first time at their old Vienna swimming pool.

Israel Color 2004 77 min. In English, Hebrew and German with optional English and Spanish Subtitles DVD

West of Hester Street

By 1906, the Jewish population of America was one and a half million, with almost one million living in New York. The poverty-ridden ghettos of the East coast became an excuse for increased anti-foreign sentiment. Concerned that the government would restrict immigration completely, American Jewish leaders devised a plan to settle immigrants in America's heartland. Galveston, Texas was chosen as a port of entry. In this moving docudrama, we are introduced to this unknown and controversial chapter in American Jewish history. It is narrated by Sam Jaffe. The film makers bring history to life in a most delightful way. Through artful use of archival footage, photographs, voice-over narration, and dramatic recreations, this sensitive, often humorous film is a wonderful look into the past. Medium Red Ribbon Winner, American Film Festival.

USA Color 1983 58 min. VHS

Yentl

Not only does Barbra Streisand star as the unusual heroine of the film, she also directed, produced, and co-wrote the screenplay. Yentl is the daughter of a kindly scholar, a man able to instill in his daughter a love of learning as deep as his own. But, in the world of Eastern Europe at the turn of the century, higher education is denied to women. So Yentl disguises herself as a young man in order to gain entrance to a yeshiva, an orthodox Jewish school. Woven into the fabric of this engaging story are some of the most dramatic, beautifully crafted songs Streisand has ever sung. Yentl is a story of a woman’s search for freedom – and her discovery not only of love but of herself.

USA Color 1983 134 min. VHS

Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks’ monstrously crazy tribute to Mary Shelley’s classic pokes hilarious fun at just about every Frankenstein movie ever made. Summoned by a will to his late grandfather’s castle in Transylvania, young Dr. Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) soon discovers the scientist’s step-by-step manual explaining how to bring a corpse to life. Assisted by the hunchbacked Igor (Marty Feldman) and the curvaceous Inga (Teri Garr), he creates a monster (Peter Boyle) who only wants to be loved.

USA Black & White 1974 106 min. DVD

The Young Lions

Who but Brando could capture all the complexity, all the contradictions of a decent man who happens to be a Nazi officer? The Young Lions tells the story of World War II from both sides: The American, represented by Montgomery Cliff and Dean Martin. And the German, made tragically vivid by Brando. Based on the novel by Irwin Shaw, The Young Lions is a provocative, insightful movie. It is also one of Brando’s all-time best.

USA Black & White 1958 167 min. VHS

ISRAELI FILMS

39 Pounds of Love

Thirty-four-year old Ami Ankilewitz, a Texas-born Israeli artist born with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, has defied an American doctor’s prediction that he would not live past age sex. Weighing a scant 39 pounds, wheelchair-bound, Ankilewitz nonetheless lives a productive life. He comes to America to show the doctor how wrong he was. His cartoon characters grace this moving and delightful film.

Israel Color 2005 70 min. DVD

Adventure Travel in Israel

This movie is for the person who has already visited Israel and is looking for a different experience. This film introduces five exciting adventures readily available to the sophisticated traveler: hiking in the Judean desert; an archaeological dig in Jerusalem; diving and snorkeling in the Red Sea; horseback riding while rediscovering history; and cliff rappelling into the salt caves near Massada. Israel has so much to offer. As seen on Tower Air.

Israel Color 1988 40 min. VHS

Agam: Light and Shape

This video covers the retrospective Tel Aviv exhibition of the work of the world renowned kinetic artist Yaacov Agam, who also offers commentary and ideas.

Israel Color 17 min. English VHS

Another Road Home

This film explores the 20-year relationship between two families, one Israeli and one Palestinian. A deeply moving story of an Israeli woman’s quest to find the Palestinian man who helped raise her from the time she was a baby until she joined the Israeli army. This poignant exploration of two intertwined families moves far beyond politics to bring a much-needed humanity to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel Color 80 min. English DVD

Alila

Against the backdrop of a crowded apartment block in a working-class Tel Aviv neighborhood, the turbulent and often poignant lives of twelve characters converge: a pair of illicit lovers, a divorced couple whose son has gone AWOL from the army, the ex-wife’s younger boyfriend, an elderly Holocaust survivor, illegal foreign workers, a half-crazed policewoman, and a rather strange man with a dog. Renowned Israeli director Amos Gitai brings us a microcosm of Israeli society in unusually intimate - nearly claustrophobic – details. This film contains some sexual situations.

Israel Color 123 min. Hebrew with English subtitles VHS

Ashkenazim

In this Israeli documentary, the director interviews many young Israeli Ashkenazim, who explore their Eastern European heritage through the Yiddish language, music, and food. Can the Yiddish culture be revived in Israel?

Israel 2006 Color 60 min Hebrew & Yiddish with English subtitles DVD

Atalia

It’s 1972 and Israel on the eve of the war. On an agricultural kibbutz, Atalia, widowed in a war twenty years earlier, is rejected and alienated from the society. In her small, tight community, all the women hate her and the men love her. She loves only one, an 18 year-old soldier boy. Their love for each other gives them the strength to escape the society which, without pity, excludes them.

Israel Color 1985 90 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Avanim

Michal works at her father’s Tel Aviv accounting firm – some of whose clients are shady religious institutions. Her life is split between her work, her husband and child…and her l over. When he is killed in a suicide bombing, her supposed emotions suddenly surface and her fragile lifestyle is shattered.

Israel Color 2004 109 min. Hebrew with English subtitles DVD

Aventi Popalo

This highly praised film depicts the Six Day War from the point of view of Rasa and Halad, two Egyptian soldiers who find themselves behind the enemy lines when the war was over. On their way back to the Canal, they meet a foreign camera crew and a group of Israeli soldiers whom they try to join. The result is a series of comic surrealistic situations.

Israel Color 1987 90 min. Hebrew and Arabic only VHS

Aviva My Love

The big dream of Aviva, a poor cook at a local hotel, is about to come true. Through her sister, Anita, she meets Oded, a famous writer who promises he’ll make Aviva a great writer too. But Aviva’s big break starts to affect her family – and not necessarily in a good way. Aviva’s future alternate between despair and hope in this sensitive drama peppered with humor and charm.

Israel Color 2006 107 min. Hebrew with English subtitles DVD

The Band’s Visit

A fading Egyptian police band arrives in Israel to play at the Arab Cultural Center. When they take the wrong bus, the band members find themselves in a desolate Israeli village. With no other option than to spend the night with the local townspeople, the two distinctively different cultures realize the universal bonds of love, music and life. Set against a breathtaking desert landscape, this cross-cultural comedy proves that getting lost is sometimes the best way to find yourself.

Israel Color 2007 87 min. Rated PG-13 English/Hebrew/Arabic w/ English Subtitles DVD

Beyond the Walls

Israel's nominee for Best Foreign Film of 1984 is set within the confines of an overcrowded Israeli prison where hatred and conflicting ideologies come into sharp focus. When a prison official kills a Jew and blames the Arabs, the stage is set. Directed by Uri Barash.

Israel Color 1984 103 min. English version VHS

Big Dig (Hebrew – The Blaumlich’s Channel)

Ephraim Kishon’s movie. In this hilarious comedy, Blaumlich, an inmate from an insane asylum, escapes with a stolen jack hammer and starts to dig a channel in the center of Tel Aviv. Heavy traffic and complaints don’t even stop him from his digging. The Mayor, the police, and the city administration can’t solve the mystery: who authorized this action? Meanwhile, Blaumlich’s channel reaches the Mediterranean shore and turns Tel Aviv into Venice.

Israel Color 1969 Hebrew with English & French subtitles DVD

Black Over White

Journeying back to Ethiopia, the homeland of two of The Idan Raichel Project's lead singers, Cabra Casay and Avi Vograss Vesa, director Tomer Heymann seeks to rekindle the musician's deep-rooted connection to their native land.

Israel 2007 54 min. In Amharic, English & Hebrew, with English subtitles DVD

Blind Man's Bluff

Micki Stave, an introspective and restrained pianist, is trapped in demanding relationships, each representing conflicting aspects of her own personality. Through this intimate tale of lost opportunity, estrangement, and rebirth, Micki is forced to confront issues with her family and lover to emerge as an independent and mature woman. Filmed in the soft winter light of Tel Aviv. Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amnitai. Best Picture, Jerusalem Film Festival 1993.

Israel Color 1993 93 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi

16 year old Shlomi is keeping the peace in his turbulent and dysfunctional, working-class family. He lives with his restless mother, his soldier brother and their ill grandfather. Although not doing well in school, Shlomi is a gifted cook and takes care of most household chores. One day, the school’s principal finds out Shlomi is actually a genius and tries to get him into a more suitable curriculum. However, Shlomi is more interested in taking care of his family and his new love interest, the beautiful girl next door. This Israeli comedy directed by Shemi Zarhin explores why many adolescents have trouble seeing their true worth.

Israel Color 2004 94 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

But Where is Daniel Wax?

After many years of separation, two men, a successful doctor and a popular singing star who return to Israel from abroad, meet at a high school reunion. Both men fantasize about their youth and the hero worship they once shared for Daniel Wax, the popular hero of their school class. A telling commentary on Israeli society.

Israel Color 1974 58 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Campfire

The year is 1981. Rachel Gerlik, a 42 year-old widowed mother of two teenage daughters, wants to join the founding group of a new settlement in the West Bank. The settlement’s acceptance committee won’t approve her unless she demonstrates that she and her daughters can meet the group’s religious and ideological standards. When her youngest daughter is accused of seducing some boys from her youth movement, Rachel is forced to weigh her allegiances. Only Yossi, a lonely bachelor, can show Rachel that living as an outcast is not as bad as it seems.

Israel 2005 96 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

Caravan 841

Moshe, an 11 year-old Ethiopian boy, lives in the temporary caravan site of “Atidim” in the western Galilee, which is slowly being evacuated. He has been waiting for four years for his mother to join him, but her immigration is constantly deferred. Moshe is torn between the worlds of Aharon, a sixty-year old Rabbi who teaches Torah at the site, and Walter, an African-American saxophone player who has a jazz club near the site. Aharon teaches Moshe to do good deeds, follow religious lore, and have faith in God. Walter gives Moshe the strength to believe in himself.

Israel Color 2001 50 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Catching The Sky

(Israeli TV Series. The two DVDs have 2 episodes each. Episodes 1-2, 4-5.)

The story of a regular Israeli family until the father turns to religion and becomes an orthodox Jew, the series bring the family's attempts to come to terms with the father's new found faith and the fathers conflict between his desire to live as an orthodox Jew and the desire to live with his secular family.

Israel 2000 Hebrew w/ English subtitles DVD

Chava Alberstein in Song

There is only one Chava Alberstein! In this wonderful music video she presents a beautiful mixture of her songs. She sings songs of love, songs of yearning, a lullaby and even of homage to Edith Piaf. Chava is joined by pantomimes, clowns, and actors on a variety of colorful sets. A must for lovers of Israeli music.

Israel Color 1987 36 min. Sung in Hebrew, Subtitles in English VHS

Children of the Sun

An unconventional history of the kibbutz movement that inspired so many of the original settlers in Israel. Director Ran Tal, who himself grew up on a kibbutz, turns to other members of his generation to reveal an authentic portrait of a disappearing world. This is a story of a unique childhood, touching, warm, and revealing. Winner of the 2008 Israeli Academy Best Documentary Award

Israel, 2007, 70 Minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles DVD

The Children of Teheran

The Children of Teheran was the first large group of Holocaust survivors to reach Palestine from occupied Europe. Youth Immigration activists, headed by Henrietta Szold and Hans Bate, welcomed the children at the camp established in Atlit. The story of the Children of Teheran was branded in the history of early statehood as a demonstration of the heroic spirit of survival of the Jewish people during WWII. Many generations of Israeli natives were educated on this ethos, exemplifying the perseverance and tenacity of heroic rescue operations during the Holocaust.

Israel 2007 63 min. Hebrew w/ English subtitles DVD

Circus Palestina

Once upon a time (and this really happened) a small circus troupe from Eastern Europe came to the Holy Land. Touring the country, they decided to make a stop at a tiny village on the edge of the West Bank. It was a momentous event for those who lived there for until that day the main activity for most of the villagers was scavenging spare parts from the steady stream of stolen autos that were arriving everyday. On the circus’s opening night, Schweik, the lion, runs away. A search party forms, bringing together the unlikely trio of a beautiful Russian lion tamer, a powerful Israeli Army Sergeant, and a small Arab boy named “Dayan”. Their simple mission is quickly complicated by the tumultuous events of their everyday lives and the plot thickens with surprising twists and turns. An intriguing tale of loyalty, love, and freedom, Circus Palestina is a stunning spectacle that will have you roaring with laughter.

Israel Color 1998 In Hebrew, Russian, English, and Arabic, with English Subtitles VHS

Cup Final

This film takes place in June, 1982 and Israel has just invaded Lebanon. Unfortunately, this action is taking place in the middle of soccer's World Cup tournament. Cohen, an Israeli soldier, has tickets for the games in Barcelona, but he is stuck in the desert, seeking out the enemy. Things go from bad to worse for him when he is captured by a band of retreating PLO soldiers en route to Beirut. Cohen's only solace is that the PLO leader, Zias, shares his passion for the Italian national soccer team. Laced with humor, wit, and violence, Cup Final is a subtle tale of shared humanity

Israel Color 1993 107 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Dreamers and Builders

With incredible footage of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Director Ya’akov Gross has created a vital and accessible look at a formative period in Israeli history whose legacy continues to influence Israeli politics even today. Dreamers and Builders examines the history of Palestine during the tumultuous period of the 1920's. These early builders of the Zionist vision, pioneers of the Third Aliyah and the Fourth Aliyah, were captured on film by Ya’akov ben Dov, the father of Hebrew film. Now three of Ben Dov’s historic films, Return to Zion, The Rebirth of a Nation and Romance of Palestine, considered lost for more than 70 years, have been rediscovered and preserved jointly by the Israel Film Archive and the National Center for Jewish Film.

Israel Black & White 1997 60 min. English VHS

Enigma of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Shrouded in mystery, intrigue, and scandal since their discovery in 1947, these ancient manuscripts of the secret Essene sect are a missing link in the history of Christianity and modern Judaism -- yet many remain unpublished. This film finally unravels the mysteries surrounding material that shed new light on the origins of Western civilization.

USA Color 58 min. English VHS

Ervinka

Ephraim Kishon’s movie. Ervinka, (played by Haim Topol), is a rascal who jokes around and likes to annoy the town officials and make fun of the town inspectors. He also laughs at politicians and at policemen. Ervinka makes fun of different minority groups, even the underworld criminals. Ervinka’s dream is to win the lotto, and he decides to recruit the police to be on his side. Along the way he captures the heart of a beautiful policewoman (Gila Almagor).

Israel Black & White 1967 95 min. Hebrew with English & French subtitles DVD

Fictitious Marriage

Eldad Ilan is a high school teacher in Jerusalem who leaves his family, ostensibly for a trip to New York, but never boards the plane. In the midst of a mid-life crisis, he goes to Tel Aviv, where he takes a room in a hotel in order to ponder his life. In a nearby park, he is mistaken for an Arab laborer and is asked to join an Arab work force on a construction job. A powerful study of contemporary Israel; piercing yet humorous. With Shlomo BarAba, Irit Sheleg and Ofra Veingarten.

Israel Color 1988 90 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs I, II

Two years in the making, The 50 Years War was filmed in Israel, the Palestinian autonomous areas, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the U.S., and Russia. The first episode covers Israel’s struggle for statehood, including the surprising victories against Arab armies in 1948 and 1967. The film also traces the history of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The concluding program features a fresh, behind-the-scenes, history of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Camp David peace accord in 1978, the start of the Palestinian “Intifada” uprising in 1987, the Oslo agreement in 1993, and the current attempts to consolidate a shaky reconciliation.

USA Color 1999 Two, 150 minute tapes English VHS

Four Friends

Four Friends is the documentary of two Israelis and two Palestinians who were former roommates at an Anglican boarding school in Jerusalem in 1939. Fifty years later they meet again. For Olga and Sharona, the establishment of the state of Israel was the fulfillment of a dream, but for Selma and Wadad, it spelled the beginning of a life long tragedy.

Israel Color 2000 60 min. Hebrew and English with English Subtitles VHS

The Fox (Hebrew - The Fox in the Chicken Scoop)

Ephraim Kishon’s movie. In this satiric comedy, Parliament member Dolinker is having heart pain, and as he waits for treatment, he has a sweet democratic dream. In his dream he arrives with his flattering secretary to a remote village, Ain-Cemonim, away from civilization and devoid of any politics. Dolinker, who is incapable of living without politics, calls immediately for mayoral elections. The new campaign turns into a real democratic process with politicians.

Israel Color 1978 90 min. Hebrew with English & French subtitles DVD

From Toledo to Jerusalem

Join Yehoram Gaon, one of Israel's foremost male vocalists, as he takes us on a magical musical voyage through 500 years of Sephardic history. Following their expulsion from Spain in 1492, the Jews of Sepharad (most of whom spoke Ladino-Judeo-Spanish) were dispersed to the far corners of the world. Gaon explains in vivid detail, on location, the course of Sephardic Jewry - from Toledo to Jerusalem; from Salonika to Sarajevo to Istanbul; from Amsterdam to New York. The majestic scenery, as well as fascinating historical facts and landmarks are woven together into a rich tapestry of Sephardic culture by Mr. Gaon's warm rendering of melodic Ladino songs.

Israel Color 1990 60 min. Ladino with English Subtitles VHS

Georgia My Love

This is a story of two Georgians sisters Maya and Manana, poor young women working in a bridal salon from dawn until darkness. Like many of their fellow Georgians, they have been rejected and humiliated by the Israeli society. But today they are proud of their roots and have one desire - to revive the Georgian culture. Maya, a singer, has committed herself to produce a program of Georgian songs. She records an album and rehearses the show with her sister Manana and a group of dancers. Will she succeed?

2007 Israel Color 53 min. Hebrew w/ English subtitles

Girlfriends ( * Holocaust)

They call themselves "the girls." Their lifetime friendship is rooted in pre-war youth in Libau, a small resort town on the Baltic Sea. Their unique friendship was shaped by the horror of the Holocaust, the ordeals and trials of survivorship, their recovery, and new families after the war. Girlfriends shows the women in the present, playing cards, singing songs, and visiting each other. Yet the past always lurks in the background of their daily lives. Friends, family members, childhood memories, and their entire youth were destroyed. The film also focuses on the life-enhancing elements of deep friendship, humor, and singing which helped a group of women to survive, to preserve their self-respect, and to rebuild their lives after the war.

Israel Color/Black & White 1994 52 min. Hebrew & English Subtitles VHS

Graduate’s Films (Ma’Ale School: Jerusalem)

- Twenty-one year-old Ido has left his rock band to become observant, a “khozer bitshuva.” This award winning film follows Ido, his friends, and family, as he searches and delves deeper into religion.

- Fragments of A Dream - (19 min.) A futuristic drama in which a religious Zionist family residing in the West Bank faces their worst nightmare: eviction from their home by the Israeli Army.

- Pintele Yid - (20 min.) Chaim arrives on kibbutz to celebrate his grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. Devoutly Orthodox, Chaim is an African-American convert to Judaism with a unique story.

- Purim - (26 min.) After a chance meeting at a Jerusalem mall, Oded and Ruti begin to date. Torn between his religious convictions and his attraction to Ruti, Oded struggles.

- I Thee Wed - (16 min.) After thirty years of marriage, the filmmaker’s father decides to become an Orthodox Jew. Her mother decides not to go along with this new lifestyle.

Israel Color 109 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Green Chariot

Created by a graduate of Israel’s Orthodox Ma’ale film school, A Green Chariot narrates the story of a recent Russian immigrant to Israel who is thrown into anguish and obsession over his identity when he uncovers a troubling family secret.

Israel 2005 47 min. Russian with subtitles DVD

Hamsin

The seemingly eternal problem of Jewish-Arab relationships is portrayed in this powerful study of a Jewish landowner and his Arab worker. These two men work side by side to build a dream ranch in the Galilee. When it is learned that some Arab lands in the area are to be confiscated by the government, tensions flair up between Jews and Arabs. An effort at reconciliation is made, but it seems futile as the "Hamsin", the hot desert wind that sends temperatures and tempers soaring to explosive heights. For mature audiences. With Shlomo Tarshish, Yasin Shawap, Hemda Levy, and Ruth Geler. Directed by Daniel Wachsmann.

Israel Color 1983 90 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

The Heritage

Two extraordinary love stories unfold, 500 years apart, in this spellbinding drama of devotion, desire, and death. As modern lovers struggle against those who seek to separate them, a Christian soldier pursues a perilous romance with a young Jewish girl in the shadows of the Spanish Inquisition. With the two tales of passion and pursuit, The Heritage weaves a breathtaking and beautiful story. A truly one-of-a-kind work!

Israel Color 1994 85 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Hide and Seek

This film takes place in the late 1940's, the crucial years before the birth of the State of Israel. Children play the games they always play, but the world around them makes it a bit harder. This film deals with the youth who are to be the backbone of the new Israel. This study of adolescence in the crisis of self-discovery, delves into the values and contradictions that are to affect Israel's first generation, its "sabras." With Gila Almagor, Doron Tavori and Chaim Hadaya. Directed by Dan Wolman. One of those rare films - like Truffaut's 400 Blows - that eloquently shows the traumas of childhood, but in Hide and Seek something of that trauma is the birth of a nation as well.

Israel Color 1980 90 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Hill 24 Doesn't Answer

Four young Zionists are assigned to defend strategic Hill 24 outside Jerusalem, in order to maintain access to the besieged city during Israel's War of Independence. Through the diverse personal stories of the defenders, we gain a critical perspective on the birth of Israel and those who risked their lives to insure the State's survival. With Edward Mulhare, Haya Hararit, Michael Shillo, and Michael Wager. Directed by Thorold Dickinson. "This first major success of the young Israeli cinema is superbly directed." - Georges Sadoul, Dictionnaire du Cinema.

Israel Black &White 1955 101 min. English VHS

His Burial Place (Makom Keevro)

After forty years of silence, elderly family members are able to convince the Israeli army to conduct a search to locate their lost relative who vanished during the Independence War. We trace the path of the investigator who tires to collect information on the young volunteer from Europe, who arrived without language, family, or friends, and joined the fight for Jerusalem, then disappeared. The investigation traces old archive documents, stories of fighters, and first hand accounts of the siege of Jerusalem. A true story, this film was aired on Israeli TV on Yom Hazikaron, Israeli Remembrance Day 2001.

Israel Color 60 minutes Hebrew only VHS

Hitchhikers

On his way to Tel Aviv, Yehzkel picks up three hitchhikers B an Orthodox soldier, a free spirited young woman, and an Israeli Arab. As the trip progresses, the complicated personal lives of each unfolds. Each traveler is representative of different segments of Israeli society. The film, written by talk-show host Dudu Topaz, captures the essence of Israeli society today in a most poignant and humorous way. With Gadi Yagil.

Israel Color 1998 47 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Hope

In this documentary, the filmmaker enters the world of a lower class suburb in Israel called "Hope" where soccer is an obsession and the only hope for parents who want their children to succeed and break out of the neighborhood's cycle of poverty. This film follows a season of the Hope Lions, a little league soccer team composed of boys, who are pushed by their parents and coached to excel in the sport -- almost to the exclusion of everything else. A fascinating Israeli version of the American film, "Hoop Dreams."

Israel Color 1966 54 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

House on Chelouche Street

Life in Tel Aviv during the period of British rule is told in terms of the maturing of a young man, Sami, the eldest son of a young widow. The film has an authentic flavor that captures the vigor of the new emerging country.

Israel Color 1973 111 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

I Love You Rosa

Jerusalem: 1887, Rosa is a widow at 20, forced to work in a bath house and sew to earn a living. Her husband's only brother is 11-year-old Nessim. The local law demands that a widow marry her late husband's brother, but it will be seven long years before Nessim is a man. Rosa is left to decide whether she will wait or break with tradition and marry a local man instead. An insightful look at the clash of values, feminism, wisdom, and tradition. The ending will likely please some and anger others. Nominated for a Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1973. Directed by Moshe Mizrahi.

Israel Color 1980 90 min. Dubbed VHS

If Not Now, When? Peace Now

Interviews with Yeal Dayan, Professor David Hartman, and others.

Israel Black & White 1989 36 min. English VHS

If You Make It Possible (documentary portraits of Middle East Peacemakers) *

The Peacemakers are: Nafez Assaily, a Palestinian Muslim pacifist who co-founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Non-Violence and now directs the Library on Wheels for Non-Violence and Peace; Rabbi Menachem Fruman, a founder of the Gush Emunim religious settler movement, who has been dialoguing with Hamas activists and other orthodox Muslims; Father Bruno Hussar, a Dominican priest who is the founder of Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salaam, a Jewish-Arab village with a fully integrated, tri-lingual primary school and an internationally recognized School for Peace. Nabila Espanioly and Hannah Safran, a dual portrait of a Palestinian woman and an Israeli woman who’ve built a close friendship through their work in women’s advocacy groups. These individuals span the political spectrum. They do not fit into any facile political or religious categories. Their uniqueness and their originality, is what gives their work its clarity and strength.

USA Color 75 min English with some Hebrew and Arabic VHS

Impressions of Israel

A visual montage of the sites and sounds of contemporary Israel. This video relies on images rather than dialogue to paint an exquisite picture of contemporary Israel from every possible vantage point. Walk the streets of Jerusalem; soar over the Judean Hills; climb aboard a boat on the Sea of Galilee; or drive through the busy Tel Aviv streets. A feast for the eyes.

Israel Color 1987 28 min. VHS

Israel Never a Dull Moment

1948–1990 were the years that witnessed the founding of the State of Israel and the tumultuous times that were to follow. Never a Dull Moment captures the essence of this significant era in fascinating footage and unique stills shot by prize-winning photographer David Rubinger, among others.

Israel Black & White 1992 60 min. VHS

James’ Journey to Jerusalem

A cannily droll mix of social commentary and modern fairy tale follows the adventures of James, a devout Christian making a pilgrimage from his African village to the Holy Land. He becomes part of the migrant labor workforce in Tel Aviv and pursues his religious quest – until he gets a little taste of fortune by turning the tables on his employers. With a moving and charismatic performance by Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe, this film is an astute exploration of the economic, moral and spiritual hypocrisies of Western society filtered through an evocative portrait of modern Israel’s cultural and generational divisions.

Israel 2004 87 min. English, Hebrew and Zulu w/ English Subtitles DVD

Jellyfish

Winner of the Camera d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, this film is an imaginative portrait of three very different women emotionally adrift in Tel Aviv. While Batya, a struggling waitress, cares for a mysterious child that appeared to her out of the sea, newlywed Karen nurses a broken leg and a ruined honeymoon, and Filipino migrant worker Joy tries to support her son back home.

Israel 2007 78 min. Color Hebrew w/English Subtitles DVD

Jerusalem Is One

In rare footage, former mayor Teddy Kollek and current mayor Ehud Olmert document the reunification and growth of Israel’s ancient and modern capital.

USA Color 1992 9 min. VHS

Jerusalem Potpourri

Going to Jerusalem or simply interested in knowing more about the City of David? Learn firsthand about many of the exciting places to visit, while at the same time learning more about Jerusalem's fascinating history.

Israel Color 1993 28 min. VHS

Jerusalem Throughout The Ages

1) Jerusalem Today: City of Neighborhoods

In the latter half of the 19th Century, Jerusalem's inhabitants began to establish their homes beyond the walls of the old city. Since then, scores of neighborhoods have been built, so that today Jerusalem is a mosaic of unique communities. The film examines four of them, each representing a different framework of settlement and cultural and ethnic development: the Hasidic Beit Ungarin, the Sephardic ohel Moshe, the Moslem Shikh Jarach, and Talpiot as an example of a garden neighborhood.

Israel Color 29 min Hebrew and English VHS

2) Jerusalem "Within Thy Gates, O Jerusalem" The City and the Temple

Following the Jewish Pilgrims to Jerusalem, the film unfolds the Holy City with its many sites around the year 70 C.E. During this last phase of the Second Temple, Jerusalem was the capital and metropolis of the Jewish People in Aeries-Israel as well as in the Diaspora. The description of the sites and events of the period are based on Joseph us Flavious, the rich archaeological findings and the mini model of Jerusalem at the Holy Land Hotel. An inspirational series by the Open University of Israel.

Israel Color 32 min. Hebrew and English VHS

3) Jerusalem Yearning: Jerusalem of the 19th Century

The film focuses on historical developments and changes occurring in Jerusalem of the 19th century, spanning from turn of the century Jerusalem, a Holy City on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, to Allenby's entry of Jerusalem in 1917. The film highlights various Jewish communities in Jerusalem and illuminates the mood and thought of the period, which were based primarily on the holy writings and traditions. The interaction between historical events and the yearning for redemption and the Messiah is explored.

Israel Color 37 min. Hebrew and English VHS

Jerusalem Within These Walls

Jerusalem's Old City is a tiny, historic enclave, busy and colorful -- the fountainhead of three major religions and home to 26,000 people of profoundly different cultures, living side by side in fragile peace. This National Geographic special is a kaleidoscopic view of the city within a city and its people.

Color 1986 59 min. VHS

Kadosh

This is the first Israeli film to be selected for the Cannes Festival in 25 years. Kadosh is a deeply moving story of two sisters living in the Ultra-Orthodox community in Israel. Acclaimed director Amos Gitai provides a sympathetic, but disturbing portrait of women coping with a patriarchal culture. Kadosh is an important and controversial film which raises questions about the conflict between deeply held religious beliefs and the role of women in society.

Israel Color 1999 110 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Kedma

This movie is a powerful drama about a group of European Jewish refugees who arrive at Palestine in 1948. Carried on the deck of the freighter Kema, they come ashore to find not the Promised Land of milk and honey, but a war torn desert in the bloody throes of transformation into the state of Israel. Rescued from a British army ambush at beachside by Palmach Jewish guerillas, the Kema’s ragged refugees are remade into soldiers expected to offer their lives to defend a nation that does not yet exist in a land they’ve never known.

Israel Color 2002 100 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

The Kibbutz

This video examines how, faced by external challenges and influences, the kibbutz has evolved socially, economically, and philosophically. No longer solely agricultural in nature, today's kibbutzim have become major exporters of technical and scientific know-how. In spite of these changes, kibbutzniks still strive to maintain their deeply rooted traditions.

Israel Color 1996 26 min. English and Hebrew VHS

King For A Day

The unusual story of a doorman in a fancy hotel in Natania, who wants to be king for one day. The doorman often sens money to his daughter in the United States, until one day, without notice, the daughter decides to come to Israel. All of

a sudden everyone's dreams and lives are changing. A comedy for the whole family. Starring Gabi Amreni, Hanan Goldblet, and Caroline Lengford.

Israel Color 82 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Kippur

Kippur takes place in 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. Although the story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers, there are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces. Instead, it is the shell shocked memoir of Gitai, himself a participant in the conflict, and of the days that changed his life forever.

Israel Color 2000 123 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Kuni Lemel in Tel Aviv

Mike Burstyn is Kuni Lemel, the bungling Jewish folk-hero of the shtetl of 100 years ago, updated to the present day. Eighty year-old Grandpa Kuni now lives in Brooklyn and offers five million dollars to the first of his twin grandsons to marry a nice Jewish woman and settle in Israel. Grandson Kuni is a shy yeshiva student; grandson Muni is an assimilated song-writer with a beautiful blonde woman-friend who is not Jewish. Lively music, dancing and fun! Also with Mandy Rice-Davies. Directed by Yoel Silberg.

Israel Color 1977 90 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Ladino: 500 Years Young

It has been more than a half a millennium since the Jews were expelled from Spain. But beautiful Ladino (old Spanish with a mix of Hebrew) songs, of the Sephardic Jews continue to be heard throughout Europe, Israel and North Africa. The movie features Yasmin Levy who continues the legacy of her late father and develops a blossoming career as she presents concerts in Ladino to audiences throughout the world, including exciting presentations to enthusiastic crowds throughout Spain.

Israel 2006 52 min. Ladino, Spanish, Hebrew (with subtitles) DVD

Late Summer Blues

A powerful controversial film from Israel. Drawing on autobiographical details, this movie looks at a group of seven 18 year-old men and women during the summer break between their final exams and their induction into the Israeli Armed Forces as the War of Attrition at the Suez Canal draws on. This summer holiday will cut short their adolescence.

Israeli Color 1987 101 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Like a Fish Out of Water

A delightful, romantic comedy about a new immigrant from Argentina, Marcel, who is non-religious, an actor and the single parent of an 11 year old daughter. Seeking to improve his Hebrew, so he can pass auditions for an Israeli Soap Opera, he goes to Anat, the religious teacher at the Absorption Center, for lessons. Anat has problems of her own, mainly her pushy mother, Bruria, who is desperate to get Anat married.

Israel 2007 50 min. Hebrew w/ English subtitles DVD

Live and Become

The magnificent, epic story of an Ethiopian boy who is airlifted from a Sudanese refugee camp to Israel in 1984 during Operation Moses. Shlomo is plagued by two big secrets: He is neither a Jew nor an orphan, just an African boy who survived and wants, somehow, to fulfill his Ethiopian mother’s parting request that he “go, live, and become.” Buoyed by a profound and unfaltering motherly love – both in his memory and in the arms of his adoptive mother – he ultimately finds an identity and a happiness all his own. (For Home Viewing Only)

Israel 2005 140 min In Hebrew, French, and Amharic, with English subtitles DVD

Longing

Michal, Oded, and their daughter Shir appear to be an average young secular Tel Aviv family. Oded, a musician, is about to depart for a concert tour of the United States. Rather than accompany him, Michal decides to move with Shir to the devoutly religious Mea Shearim neighborhood to research a book she is writing about Hasidism. In the course of her work, she is drawn to this community that was abandoned by her mother years before. This powerful film focuses on one woman’s search for spiritual fulfillment, while at the same time highlighting one of the greatest rifts in modern day Israeli society B secularism vs. religion.

Israel Color 1998 50 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Melodies of Jerusalem

The unique sights, sounds, and flavors of Jerusalem are captured in this musical ode to the city by Ruchama Raz, one of Israel's foremost female vocalists. Filmed throughout the city's many diverse neighborhoods, Ms. Raz performs a unique collection of old and new tunes. The history, beauty, and emotional ties to the Eternal City are expressed in the lyrics and music of many favorite songs, including "Hakotel” (The Wall), "Jerusalem of God", and "Lach Yerushalayim." Historic photos and magnificent footage of Jerusalem add a unique touch to this very beautiful video.

Israel Color 1995 28 min. VHS

Meorav Yerushalmi

(Israeli TV series includes 6 DVDs with total of 13 episodes.)

A lively description of a Sephardic family in Jerusalem. The stories reveal the relationships among members of this multi-generational and traditional family. They show the tensions between young and old, between tradition and modernity, and between community and individuals.

Israel 2003-2005 In Hebrew. No subtitles DVD

Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan occupied the center stage in Israel for more than 30 years. A hero in the War for Independence, his finest hour came in 1967 with his command of the stunning victory in the Six Day War. Now BIOGRAPHY brings you the complete story of this famed commander. Through rare vintage footage and exclusive interviews, you’ll go behind the scenes at top-secret planning meetings, witness the catastrophe of the Yom Kippur War and, ultimately, follow Dayan on his quest for peace with his Arab enemies.

USA Color 1996 50 min. VHS

My Father My Lord

“We do everything in the Torah without asking why,” Rabbi Eidelman (Assi Dayan), a pious, respected elder in a cloistered Hasidic enclave tells his wonderstruck only son Menahem (Ilan Grif). But at an age where life prompts questions increasingly outside the confines of doctrine, Menahem unwittingly runs afoul of his father’s inflexibility. Mindful of her marriage vows but accepting of her son’s boyish curiosity, Rabbi Eidelman’s wife Esther (Sharon Hacohen Bar) is caught in the middle. A holiday at the seashore meant to reconnect the family brings the ideological rift between pre-teen boy and middle-aged man to a biblically and dramatically tragic climax.

Israel Color 2007 72 min. Hebrew with optional English Subtitles DVD

My Michael

Two intelligent young adults find each other and marry in a divided Jerusalem of the late 1950's. Michael, a responsible and hard-working scientist, is comfortable in the arrangement. In contrast, Hanna finds herself unfulfilled by the petit-bourgeois life she is leading. Loneliness and fantasy take over in this gentle, yet controversial, rendering of the Amos Oz novel. For mature audiences. With Oded Kotler and Efrat Lavie. "My Michael is a beautiful jewel-like little film." -Variety. "Efrat Lavie is one of the most graceful and beautiful actresses on the screen." - Cue "Made with seriousness and. skill. Its depiction of a shut-in, obsessed marriage is a vehicle for exploring a fenced-in surrounded quality in Israeli society." - New York Times.

Israel Color 1975 95 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Noa at Seventeen

It’s 1951 and Noa, a seventeen year-old, struggles for personal autonomy as an ideological debate over the future of kibbutz socialism tears her family apart. Should she finish high school or follow her youth movement friends to kibbutz? Will Israel's labor movement follow Moscow blindly or turn its attention to the West? This sophisticated allegory penetrates the very essence of the bond which fused the personal and the political in the early years of the State. With Dalia Shimko, Idit Zur, and Shmuel Shilo. "Intense...one of Israel's finest films." - Los Angeles Times.

Israel Black & White 1982 86 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Out for Love…Be Back Shortly

Dan Katzir’s autobiographical film expresses the outcry of his generation, as it struggles to find love and privacy amidst the reality of daily terror and hate. Mr. Katzir, a former officer and paratrooper intimately reveals his love story with Iris, a charming girl about to begin her army service. This poetic film is also an important historic document with rare and shocking footage from the era of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin.

Israel Color 1997 55 minutes Hebrew w/ English subtitles DVD

Over the Ocean

Tel Aviv, 1962. Israel is a country coming of age. Rosinka and Menachem Goldfarb have struggled through the Holocaust and overcome impossible odds to get here, and now they’re trying to survive! It’s an exciting life -- money problems, work problems, and family problems. Enter Morris Greenspan, an old friend who has just arrived from abroad with just what they’re looking for! It’s an opportunity of a lifetime...and it’s just over the ocean! From the promising possibilities of America looming in the background, Over the Ocean emerges, a charming comedy of a family in flux, a nation in transition, and an age of innocence that’s a joy to experience.

Israel Color 1994 89 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Parashat Hashavuah

(6 DVDs, each with two episodes from the popular Israeli TV series.)

An intense drama where the characters’ relationships, dilemmas, and love affairs constantly intermingle. The cast includes leading Israeli actors such as Ronit Alkabetz and Assi Dayan. The engaging dialogue and plot depict a tense, realistic life of three Israeli families and one young Arab Israeli couple. Each episode correlates to the weekly reading from the Torah, "Parashat Hashavuah," depicting a moral issue.

Israel 2006-2008 In Hebrew and Arabic. No English or Hebrew subtitles. DVD

Pick a Card

Pick a Card is a romantic comedy about ordinary people trying to fulfill big dreams in the midst of a mundane existence. David, an unemployed car electrician, decides to leave his native town of Afula for Tel Aviv with his girlfriend Batia, and become a magician. The couple must ultimately face the difference between their dreams and reality. Brief Nudity.

Israel Color 1997 95 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

The Policeman

Ephraim Kishon’s movie. Avraham Azulai has served on the police force for 20 years and his career is on hold. He constantly forgives thieves and small time criminals. The pressure on him to resign is growing, and he has to show an immediate success. The underworld crime is trying to help him out. Shayika Offir is wonderful in the main role. This film has received many international prizes and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film Category.

Israel 1971 87 min. Hebrew with English & French subtitles DVD

Rabbi Kook: A Meeting of Worlds

This film documents the life of the first Chief Rabbi of Israel, from his childhood in Poland, through his immigration to Palestine and his involvement with the secular and the religious community in Israel. Rabbi Kook was admired by all and acted as a bridge between the religious and secular Jews. His philosophy of Jewish life made him a symbol for the Religious Zionist movement (known as the Mafdal) and, on the other hand, made him enemies within the Orthodox community.

USA Color 45 min. English VHS

Rutenberg

Rutenberg is a compelling drama, an introspective view of a larger than life Israeli pioneer. It is the true story of a man who built a hydroelectric plant across the Jordan River in Palestine in 1931. Despite political and personal conflicts and natural disasters, this Russian Jewish émigré rose above all odds to carry on.

Israel Color 2002 90 min. English and Hebrew with English subtitles VHS

Sallah

Sallah is a new immigrant to Israel who arrives with his large family from an Arab country, with great expectations. Instead, he lands in a ramshackle transit camp that arouses his disgust. He decides to take on the bureaucracy in his own inimitable fashion, with hilarious results. Topol plays the lovable, humble, and wily hero. This heartwarming story is filled with humor, romance and satire. Also with Gila Almagor, Arik Einstein and Geula Noni. Written and directed by Ephraim Kishon. Academy Award Nominee - "Best Foreign Film".

Israel Black &White 1964 105 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

The Secrets

Naomi postpones marriage to study at a Jewish seminary for women following her mother’s death. Her quest for individuality takes a defiant turn when she befriends Michelle, a free-spirited student. Their unlikely alliance is jeopardized by a mysterious ailing older woman, who is shunned by the community for her crime of passion. Together they attempt to purge her sins through a series of secret rituals. Saturday,

Israel, 2007, 127 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles DVD

Secrets of Jerusalem

This film is an exploration of the life and times of the First and Second Temple periods hidden beneath the soil of the centuries. Israel’s leading archaeologists guide viewers through the tunnels and caves that played a vital role in Jerusalem’s ancient history, as well as the digs and excavations that verify biblical accounts.

Israel Color 27 min. English VHS

Shalom of Safed

Shalom was a humble watchmaker who lived in Safed in the Galilee. At the age of fifty-eight he began to paint and was almost immediately acclaimed as a great and unique folk artist. This video presents the artist at work and explores the scope and detail of his paintings, as well as the spiritual and physical sources of his inspiration.

Israel Color 1988 28 min. English VHS

Siege

Tamar is an Israeli woman who loses her husband during the Six Day War. Her husband's friends do not want his memory to be forgotten, and this forces her into the role of the ever-mourning widow. Tamar, living with her young son, attempts to break away from the past, form new relationships and normalize her life. Her story is not uncommon in Israel.

Israel Black & White 1988 95 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Sing Along With Israel

Musical Dirctor: Kobi Oshrat. The songs are heard in the background and are illustrated by beautiful scenery from Israel, folk-dancing, and documentary footage from years gone by. The words appear on screen in Hebrew and phonetic English transliteration so everyone can enjoy! Delightful to listen to and wonderful to watch, but most of all fun to sing along

Israel Color 1988 56 min. VHS

The Summer of Avia

The story of a special summer in the life of Avia, a ten year old girl, in the early days of Israel. This film is the private story of madness, pain, and the wish to keep sanity and childhood innocence. Avia's mother, a Holocaust survivor and a former partisan, walks the thin line between madness and sanity. Avia, a girl who lives in a youth village, suddenly has a home, although unstable, with her mother -- a woman who is different and loving, with pictures of a father who died, and Avia is still waiting for his return. As the story progresses, the mother's situation worsens. At the story's end, Avia is living by herself, a girl who has suddenly grown up. With Gila Algor and Kaifu Cohen. Directed by Ali Cohen. This film received the "Silver Bear" prize at the Berlin Festival 1989. Based on the book, The Summer of Avia, by Gila Algor.

Israel Color 1981 97 min. Hebrew (NO SUBTITLES!) VHS

The Syrian Bride

Mona’s wedding day may be the saddest of her life. Once she crosses the border into Syria, she will never be allowed back to her beloved family in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. This is a powerful film about physical, mental and emotional borders and the courage it takes to cross them. Told with great humor and compassion, the story provides an emotionally stirring look at the human side of political conflict, focusing on the hopes and dreams of one family trapped in a no-man’s land between two nations.

Israel Color 2004 97 min. Arabic/Hebrew/English/Russian/French w/ English DVD

The Talmud and The Scholar

Thanks to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s modern English translation and analysis of the Talmud, the Oral Law is accessible to a new generation of English readers. This video takes a "behind the scenes" look at this warm and sensitive man. Whether at home in Jerusalem or at his newly-founded yeshiva in Moscow, whether teaching a crowd of eager students, or spending a few solitary moments at Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo, the Rabbi's boundless energy and philosophic insights serve as an inspiration to us all.

Israel Color 1989 58 min. English VHS

They Were Ten

This first feature length film made entirely by Israelis, sensitively recreates the establishment of a nineteenth century settlement in Palestine by ten Russian Jews. These early pioneers, idealists unschooled in agriculture, not only undertook the tremendously difficult task of building the land, but also had to contend with both Arab resentment and the Turkish military.

Israel Black & White 1961 105 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Time of Favor

This film is based on a true story about a religious army officer accused of planning to bomb a mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Time of Favor is a story of romance and intrigue on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. This moving romantic drama, set against the beautiful backdrop of the Judean hills, includes elements of both the political and psychological thriller. Winner of six Israeli Academy Awards.

Israel Color 2000 100 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

To Touch a City

Jerusalem-born film maker Dan Wolman portrays the images and textures of Jerusalem with great warmth and sensitivity, most often as reflected in the faces of Jerusalemites. There is no narration, just engrossing music as background. This wonderful period piece also focuses on the landmarks that give Jerusalem’s different neighborhoods their unique character.

Israel Color 1996 18 min. VHS

A Touch Away

(Israeli TV series: 4 DVDs with 8 episodes)

An engaging drama about a secular Russian immigrant family that moves to an apartment in an Orthodox neighborhood near Tel-Aviv. The family struggles to adjust to the new Israeli realities. At the same time they experience life next to their religious neighbors. The drama raises a variety of issues related to new immigrants, as well as unfamiliar aspects in the Orthodox community.

Israel 2006 In Hebrew & Russian with English subtitles DVD

A Trumpet in the Wadi

Based on a novel by Sami Michael, this is an impossible love story between two outsiders in Israel: Huda, a Christian Arab and Alex, a new Jewish immigrant from Russia. Alex woos Huda with his trumpet playing. The lovers have to face many obstacles such as family and the political situation in Israel. Will love that faces so many obstacles survive?

Israel Color 2002 97 min. VHS

Turn Left at the End of the World

The setting is the late sixties, in a tiny, isolated Israeli village. Two immigrant families, one from Morocco and the other from India become neighbors. As they are forced to live together, the two wary communities attempt to build a sense of identity. In order to assert their imperial identity, the Indians from the village put together a rag tag cricket team. The Moroccans, who take the game as an act of snobbery, do their utmost to be disruptive. Meanwhile, each family has a teenage daughter negotiating the landscape of the sexual revolution. When the sultry Moroccan Nicole and the heady Indian Sara become friends, their youth and desire for freedom help them overcome prejudices.

Israel 2004 110 min. Hebrew with English subtitles DVD

Tzanani Family

This film is a hilarious comedy of errors with the Tzanani family; a Yemenite household in an old section of Tel-Aviv. The parents, their three grown children, their dates, a grandson, a grandfather, and the close neighbors are part of this film where tradition, love, and arguments clash, resulting in a happy ending.

Israel Color 1980 85 min. Hebrew with English and Hebrew Subtitles VHS

Under The Domim Tree

This film is based on the autobiographical memoir by Gila Almagor. It tells the poignant and harrowing story of a group of teenagers living in a youth village for orphans who survived the Nazi concentration camps, and other troubled Israeli youths in the 1950's. During the day, the students seem like any other normal teens, but when night falls, painful memories of the horrors of the Holocaust resurge. When life becomes unbearable, the teens find refuge under the beautiful Domim Tree - the only place where they feel at peace. Eli Cohen (The Quarrel) masterfully directs an outstanding ensemble cast in this inspirational account of the hopes, dreams, and memories of a unique group of young people. Winner of Jerusalem Film Festival. “One of the most beautiful movies of the past 20 years, maybe longer.”

Israel Color 1994 102 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

Ushpizin

Big-hearted Moshe Bellanga is down on his luck, so he and his loving wife Malli pray passionately for a miracle. Their prayers are answered…in the form of a large sum of money that mysteriously lands on their doorstep. But the great “gift” leads to the arrival of two uninvited ushpizin, and Moshe and Malli are left wondering…have they found God’s favor or is this just a test of their devotion?

Israel Color 92 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles DVD

A Wall in Jerusalem

A powerful documentary about the beginnings of Zionism and the creation of the modern Jewish common wealth in the Land of Israel. Using rare newsreel footage to tell its story, the film begins in the late nineteenth century and takes us through Israel's early years. Objective and not propagandistic, the film allows the historical events, as told by those who experienced them, to speak for themselves. Narrated by Richard Burton.

England Black & White 1972 91 min. VHS

Walk On Water

This movie explores the motives, strengths, and, ultimately, the humanity of an Israeli assassin sent to rectify a wrong committed five decades earlier. Eyal is a top assassin in the Israeli secret service. He has killed terrorists before, but this time he is sent to eliminate an aging former Nazi war criminal. During his mission, Eyal meets his target’s granddaughter and grandson, who inadvertently help him uncover his own troubled history and face his demons, while they discover the ugly truth their family has hidden from them for decades. What began as a straightforward mission has suddenly escalated in intensity and complexity – thrusting three very different people into a thrilling triangle of murder, friendship and fate.

Israel Color 2004 103 min. Hebrew w/ English Subtitles DVD

Wasserman - The Rain Man

In this captivating film, a stubborn nonbeliever and his two estranged daughters struggle to reconcile with their observant kibbutz community as an ongoing drought threatens to obliterate their farm and the family history that it represents.

Israel 2005 58 min. Hebrew/English with subtitles DVD

West Bank Story

A musical comedy set in the fast-paced, fast-food world of competing falafel stands in the West Bank…David, an Israeli soldier, falls in love with the beautiful Palestinian cashier, Fatima, despite the animosity between their families’ dueling restaurants. Can the couple’s love withstand a century old conflict and their families’ desire to control the future of the chic pea in the Middle East?

USA Color 2005 20 min. English DVD

The Wooden Gun

Set in the tense atmosphere of Tel Aviv of the 1950's, this incisive film focuses on two rival groups of pre-teens whose behavior, motivated by their interpretations of the concepts of heroism, nationalism, and friendship, raise hard questions. Portrayed are first generation Sabras (native-born Israelis), who are separated by a tremendous psychological gap from those who came to Israel, from Europe, many of them Holocaust survivors.

Israel Color 1979 91 min. Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

The Wonder of Israel

This film is an energetic and informative video produced for junior high and high school students. It covers the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, the signing of the Interim Agreement, the assassination of the Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other historical events and points of interest. A wonderful resource for students learning about Israel and the Middle East.

Israel Color 20 min. English VHS

Yana’s Friends

This film is a romantic comedy, set against the backdrop of the Gulf War. Yana, a young and beautiful Russian immigrant, has newly arrived in Tel Aviv. Like immigrants everywhere, she faces the problems of a new language, no money, no work, and few social ties. Through intertwining stories, we see the hopes, dreams, and often humorous daily travails of Israel’s Russian immigrants as they try to begin a new life, under the constant threat of falling Scud missiles. Winner of ten Israeli Academy awards. Contains brief nudity.

Israel Color 1999 90 min. VHS

Yehuda Amichai

Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany and moved to Palestine as a boy. In his poetry, one finds the Jewish past, echoes of biblical texts, the Israeli present he fought to bring into being, an embracing humanity, and, always , love and elegies of love. Mr. Amichai read from Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on March 15, 1989 and was interviewed by critic Esther Robbins.

USA Color 1989 60 min. VHS

Yitzhak Rabin

In this biographical documentary, the story of Israel's recently assassinated Prime Minister is told in all its complexity. Rabin’s career paralleled the growth of the state of Israel. He fought for Israeli independence with the Haganah underground army, formulated the Israeli victory in the Six Day War, became Israel's first native-born Prime Minister, and finally signed the historic peace treaty with the P.L.O.

USA Color 1995 50 min. VHS

YIDDISH FILMS

The Bent Tree (* Children)

This charming fable, presented through sand animation, is based on Itzik Manger's bittersweet Yiddish folk tune "Oyfn Veg Shteyt A Boym." The story tells of a small child whose mother tries to prevent her from discovering her surroundings and flying like a bird. This movie is for the young and old.

USA Color 1979 4 min. Yiddish & English VHS

Burstyn in Concert: in Israel

This is a memorable show for all fans of Yiddish entertainment. Mike Burstyn shows his many talents - singing, telling jokes and Jewish "shtetel" stories, impersonating, and much much more. The program includes: When the Rabbi Wants; The Mexican With the Sombrero; Shabbos After the Kugel; Shakespeare Wrote and Composed ....Mike Performs; Avremel Mavricher; Die Chassene Lied; a "Comedian" I Am; Mazel Und Shlimazel; Maybe a Miracle Will Happen; and Rumania Rumania.

Israel Color 1990 Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Cities Before the War (4 Travelogs)

(1) A Day in Warsaw

This film focuses on the lively Jewish Neighborhoods of Warsaw, including Zamehof Street and the commercial “beehive” Nalewki Street, were home to 400,000 Jews before World War II. Trucks, trolleys, autos, and buses meet horse-drawn carriages, push carts, and porters in the bustling commercial district. Also shown are the Yiddish Theater, Gensza Cemetery, and other Jewish institutions -- the community council, hospitals, schools, and synagogues. At the film’s end, after Sabbath services, families pour into Krashinsky Park where children play and adults spiritedly debate the issues of the day.

Poland Black & White 1939 10 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

(2) Jewish Life in Bialystok

Vivid cinematography and music evoke the industrial and cultural center that was Bialystok in 1939. Images of smokestacks and textile workers; downtown shops; market day; schools, synagogues, the Sholem Aleichem Library, the TOZ Sanatorium, and a community-run summer camp reflect the diversity of the city’s 200 year old Jewish community. Jewish Life in Bialystok features memorable images of a spacious park where young adults relax and children play.

Poland Black & White 10 min. 1939 Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

(3) Jewish Life in Cracow

Focusing on Cracow’s Jewish quarter, this film intermingles old and new, using music to enhance the images. Streetcars share tree-lined streets with horse-drawn carriages; people conduct business under umbrella-covered markets and arcaded market halls; parks and schoolyards host sports, games and animated discussions. Scenes of the famous Remu Synagogue and the Alte Shul, and orphanage, a hospital, the Jewish Community Council and several schools convey the vitality of this age-old Jewish community.

Poland Black & White 10 min. 1939 Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

(4) Jewish Life in Lvov

Also known as Lemberg and home to an old, well-established Jewish community, this city, nestled in a valley, projects an aura of prosperity. Parks and pavilions punctuate its public spaces, as trucks, pushcarts and bicycles occupy its busy streets. Among the Jewish community landmarks shown are the Yak Haruzim Trade Union Building and the old ghetto, the softly curving exterior of the Modern Temple and the orthodox school, the Moorish looking Lazarus Hospital, the grave of the “Golden Rose”, and the Nowosci Theater.

Poland 1939 10 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

The Cowboy

Created by editing a Hollywood Western and adding Yiddish dialogue and Jewish folk melodies, this short film provides a few moments of fun for those who understand Yiddish. A small boy falls out of a covered wagon on the journey West, and turns up seventeen years later as a fast riding, quick shooting cowboy who is framed for stealing. A gun duel to the strains of "Oyfn Pripitchik" combined with covered wagons, sagebrush, horses, and saloon brawls makes this spoof a one-of-a kind.

USA Black and White 1968 11 min. Silent VHS

Der Purimshpiler

Filmed in Poland in 1937 with an American/Polish cast, "Der Purimshpiler" is one of the most famous musicals in Yiddish film history. The play has been shown and filmed with various casts and remains vivid even today. The songs were specially written by Itzik Manger, and are amongst the most popular Yiddish tunes. The story takes place in the circus and is classical triangle love story between a shoemaker's daughter, a vaudeville circus player, and a jester. The colorful and intriguing circus atmosphere entices the viewer, climaxing with Purim jesting. Filmed on location in Warsaw and Cracow, the film introduces some of the greatest stars of Yiddish film and theater such as Zygomnd Torkov, Miriam Kressyn, and Max Bozyk. Directed by Joseph Green.

Poland Black & White 1937 90 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Die Kleine Mentshelech

A collection of short stories by Sholom Aleichem, the grandfather of the Yiddish Literature. Sholom Aleichem's heroes were the simple Jews with their natural wit and charm, love and existential sense of humor with a mixture of laughter and tears. A hilarious production of the Israeli Yiddish theater. The stories include "Kasrilevke Restaurants", "A Slow Train", "The Competitors", and "A Question of Luck".

Israel Color 1992 85 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

The Dybbuk (Der Dibuk)

Years after their parents had made a pledge that they marry, a young couple meet and fall in love. The father of the young man had long before perished and the young woman's father, forgetting his vow, keeps the two apart. A story of unfulfilled love, broken promises, and the supernatural.

Poland Black & White 1937 120 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

East and West

Morris Brown, a New Yorker better acquainted with his checkbook that his prayerbook, returns to Galicia for a family wedding. The bride, daughter of his traditionally observant brother, and Morris’ daughter Mollie (Molly Picon), whose exuberant antics fill the film, could not be more different. But Mollie unexpectedly meets her match, an engaging young yeshiva scholar who forsakes tradition and joins the secular world to win her heart.

USA Black & White 1923 85 min. Yiddish with English Intertitles DVD

God Man And Devil

This film is an adaptation based on the play "Faust." It concerns the constant war between God and Satan. We see the devastating results of a man who sold his soul to Satan and lost his Jewish morals for greed. He becomes obsessed with Satan and his beliefs and religion are replaced by betrayal and abandonment. Satan drives him to divorce his wife, commit a murder, and finally take his own life. This film stars the most respected actors of the era, such as Michael Michalesko, Max Bozyk and Berta Gersten. Directed by Joseph Seiden.

USA Black & White 1949 100 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Green Fields

Peretz Hirschbein's legendary tale of a young Hasidic scholar who leaves his studies to search the countryside for common people and a meaningful existence close to the land. He happens upon a family of simple Jewish peasants who take him in as a boarder and tutor for their children, one of whom is an attractive young woman. With Michael Goldstein, Herschel Bernardi, and Helen Beverly. Co-directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and Jacob Ben-Ami.

USA Black and White 1939 94 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

The Mame-Loshn

This is Pierre Sauvage's memorable film study of Yiddish language and culture. Through interviews, excerpts from Yiddish films, poetry and music, the pleasures of Yiddish as a language and a culture are unforgettably evoked. Author Leo Rosten, actor Herschel Bernardi, and comedian David Steinberg all recall the wealth that the "mame-loshn" carries. Mame-Loshn is a joyous look at a tenacious language and culture.

USA Color 1979 58 min. English with some Yiddish Subtitles VHS

Memories of the Shtetl

This prizewinning documentary film produced with the renowned paintings by Samuel Rothbort, which was the major visual resources for Jerome Robbin’s acclaimed movie, Fiddler on the Roof. Thanks to modern techniques, we are privileged to enter the Shtetl and view the daily life in the Eastern European towns (shtetls) from 1882-1904. This visual record through Samuel Rothbort’s memory watercolor paintings are woven into a beautiful and eloquently narrated color film depicting a vanished era.

US 1989 Color 30 min. VHS and DVD

Mirele Efros

Jacob Gordin's classic play about a noble, dignified widow and successful businesswoman who comes into conflict with the daughter-in-law she chose for her son. Her generosity and love for her son lead to her own undoing. This film stars Berta Gersten, Ruth Elbaum, and Michael Rosenberg. Directed by Josef Berne.

USA Black and White 1938 80 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

The S. Dzigan Show (* Israeli )

Dzigan was born in Lodge and was one of the first young actors on the "Klein Kunst Theater." Dzigan teamed up with Israel Shumacher to form the most famous Yiddish comic duo "Dzigan & Shumacher." Sketches include: 1. As much as you are willing to pay. 2. Goldenyu. 3. King Faysal. 4. A letter to Rabeinu Tam. 5. The "Oleh" from Shancahi. 6. You can get crazy. 7. The wedding. 8. Menachem Mendel and Tuvya. With special guest Havah Alberstein.

Israel Black & White 60 min. Yiddish with Hebrew Subtitles VHS

Song of The Living with Dudu Fisher (* Holocaust )

An emotional experience as David (Dudu Fisher) Fisher takes you from the Concentration Camp to the State of Israel. In telling the story of Moishele and Sarah'le, to their ultimate deaths in the Holocaust, Fisher recounts their story through songs, in Yiddish and Hebrew. The story culminates with Fisher performing a rousing tribute in Israel. This video is narrated in Hebrew and Subtitled in English and the songs are performed in Yiddish and Hebrew.

Israel Color 1995 75 min. Hebrew and Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Tale of the Goat, The

Max Cohen’s short, hand-drawn animation in Yiddish, adapted from the story by S.Y. Agnon.

USA 2004 5 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles DVD

Tevye (Tevye der Milkhiker)

The adaptation of Sholom Aleichem's now classic story, made decades before Fiddler On The Roof, in which one of the daughters, Khave, falls in love and marries a Gentile. This intermarriage places Tevye's paternal affection in direct conflict with his deep commitment to religious tradition. With Maurice Schwartz, Miriam Riselle, and Leon Liebgold. Directed by Maurice Schwartz. Selected by the Library of Congress in 1991 for the United States National Film Registry.

USA Black & White 1939 96 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Too Early To Be Quiet, Too Late to Sing (Holocaust)

A flourishing Yiddish culture of poetry, music, drama, and literature came to an abrupt end with the Holocaust. Six million Jews perished and with them their spoken language. A small core of survivors continued to create in Yiddish after World War II, spread out among the communities of the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Israel. Now, fifty years later, only a few Yiddish poets remain alive, most of them in Israel. Chava Alberstein set out to interview those last writers of Yiddish poetry, to hear their poems and stories. Along the way she sings a superb collection of Yiddish folk songs.

Israel Color 1995 53 min. Hebrew and Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Uncle Moses

Maurice Schwartz plays a "despot" who rules his Lower East Side sweatshop with a tight grip in this Sholom Asch classic. Although Uncle Moses came from the same Polish town, it does not stop him from exploiting his laborers. The story becomes all the more complicated when the tyrant falls in love with the daughter of one of his discontented workers. This film also stars Judith Abarbanel and Zvee Scooler. Directed by Sidney Goldin and Aubrey Scotto. "Uncle Moses is more than historically important; it is also immensely entertaining." - SF Chronicle.

USA Black & White 87 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Where Is My Child?

Where Is My Child? is one of the few Yiddish movies that deals with an important social issue, the mentally ill and the way they are treated by society. The story follows Celia Adler as a mentally ill widowed mother. She has to give up her newly born baby for adoption, and then struggles to meet him twenty years later, upon her release from mental hospital. She triumphs in the end and is finally united with her son. The film describes the years that saw the massive immigration of a million Jews from Eastern Europe to the U.S. and their integration into American society. Although a melodrama, the film provides memorable moments of comedy relief and crafted musical interludes.

USA Black & White 92 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

The World of Sholom Aleichem

This is a wonderful collection of three of Sholom Aleichem’s classic stories. A Tale of Chelm deals with a bookseller who is sent by his wife to buy a goat in a town of fools. Bontshe Shveig follows the path of a poor, modest man who dies and goes to heaven. The High School portrays the efforts of a couple to get their son into a secular high school. Featuring Zero Mostel, Nancy Walker, Jack Gilford and Gertrude Berg.

USA Black & White 1959 90 min. VHS

The Yiddish Cinema

This film is a documentary narrated by David Mamet. Nourished by Yiddish literature and theater, Yiddish film production in Eastern Europe and the United States flourished between the two World Wars. Using interviews, archival photographs and film clips, The Yiddish Cinema achieves an embrace as comprehensive as its subject, and assigns equal importance to music and tradition, comedy and tragedy, actors and directors. The film traces the decline of the cinema and the language, discussing the Holocaust's decimation of European Jewry, Stalinist suppression of Jewish culture, and the New World's demands for assimilation.

USA Color/Black &White 1991 60 min. English VHS

Yiddish Sing-Along

This film features memorable folk songs tracing the Jewish experience from the Shtetl to America plus gems of the Yiddish theater. Mike Burstyn tells the story behind each song in English. A company of talented young performers sing, dance, and dramatize the songs as the words appear on screen in English transliteration. Zalmen Mlotek is the musical director and it stars Avrom Marevsky, Isaac Samberg, Lili Liliana, and Leon Liebgold. Directed by Michal Waszynski.

USA Color 1990 60 min. Yiddish with English Subtitles VHS

Yiddish Theater: A Love Story

Enter the funny, larger-than-life world of Yiddish Theater today through this documentary about the amazing woman who has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. This heart warming story portrays the struggle of both an old art form to stay relevant and an old actress to find meaning and a stage in a society that worships youth. This film includes moving interviews with some of the last legends of the Yiddish Theater.

USA 2007 80 min. In English w/ Yiddish & English subtitles DVD

The Yidishe Gauchos

The Yidishe Gauchos is a story of immigration and survival in a new world and is narrated by Eli Wallach. It is a little known story of Jews escaping from Eastern Europe to the wilderness of the Argentine pampas. At the end of the 19th century, millions of Jews fled from persecution and Russian pogroms. Some dreamed of Palestine. Others came to the United States. In Argentina, with the help of the Jewish Colonization Association, thousands became ranchers and farmers. Bearded Jews with sidecurls lived alongside the gauchos. This meeting of Jew and Argentine cowboy created a new and unique hybrid: the Jewish Gaucho. Artfully crafted from rare archival footage and contemporary interviews, The Yidishe Gauchos is a lively documentary that illuminates this unknown chapter of Jewish history.

USA Color/Black & White 1989 28 min. VHS

Yidl Mitn Fidl (Yidl with a Fiddle)

Molly Picon plays a young woman who poses as a man in order to join a band of musicians traveling the Polish countryside. She falls in love with one of her colleagues with delightfully humorous results. Filled with music and charm, the film is made all the more fun and wonderful by Miss Picon's unequaled ability to amuse and entertain. The film also stars Simche Fostel, Max Bozyk, and Leon Liebgold.

Poland Black & White 1936 92 min. Yiddish with new English Subtitles VHS

HOLOCAUST

Aimee and Jaguar

This film is set in Berlin 1943, Aimee and Jaguar is the story of two women, one a mother of four and wife of a Nazi, and the other a member of the Jewish Resistance, who begins an improbable love relationship. Based on the true story of Felice Schragenheim and Lilly Wust, the film focuses on the choices that these women make in the midst of war and persecution, and shines a light on the society in which they lived. Adult content. Brief nudity.

Germany Color 1999 125 min German with English Subtitles VHS

Art and Remembrance

The Legacy of Felix Nussbaum - a film by Barbara Pfeffer WMHT/ Channel 17 presents a special screening of a new half-hour documentary film on a major artist of the Holocaust. During four years in hiding, Felix Nussbaum created one of the world's major bodies of work reflecting the experience of European Jewry during World War II.

USA Color 1993 30 min VHS

The Attic

Capturing the dignity and quiet bravery of the Dutch people, Jews and non-Jews alike, this historically accurate drama is based on the book, Anne Frank Remembered, by Miep Gies, a Dutchwoman who risked everything to help her Jewish friends. From the first day of the German invasion of Holland, the production shows the buildup of persecution, hardship, and terror in Amsterdam which drove the Franks into hiding and thrust Miep into the role of caretaker. The story continues until the war's end and Mr. Frank's return as a sole survivor. Starring Mary Steenburgen and Paul Scofield.

USA Color 1992 95 min. Closed captioned VHS

Au Revoir Les Enfants (Goodbye Children)

From acclaimed filmmaker Louis Malle (Atlantic City) comes this moving, autobiographical account of a boy's first friendship and his discovery of the real world. Set in a Catholic boarding school during the German occupation of France, this is the powerful story of Julien Quentin, a sensitive, headstrong 12 year-old boy who befriends the new students in his class. The boy, Jean Bonnet, seems different from the others. But Julien is intrigued and the two begin a shaky friendship that grows as they share common experiences. Then one day, by accident, Julien makes a frightening discovery about his newfound friend: he learns of the secret surrounding his identity. A secret that will soon be revealed to the Gestapo and will change the young boys’ lives forever. Say goodbye to innocence and prepare yourself for one of the most poignant and powerful films of our times.

France Color 1987 103 min. VHS

Better Don’t Talk

Naava Piatka brings to life the untold stories of her remarkable Yiddish, comedienne mother, Chayela Rosenthal, teenage star of the Vilna Ghetto Theater, whose undaunted spirit, humor and love of theater brought light and laughter into war torn Europe. In an uplifting celebration of song, humor, family reconnection and life itself, Naava plays both her Holocaust survivor mother and herself, blending past with present in a spellbinding journey to discover and reclaim her rich cultural heritage.

USA 2005 90 min. DVD

Black Book

In the darkest days of World War II, Jewish fugitive attempt to escape occupied Holland – only to face a Nazi ambush. Rachel Stein alone survives the attack and joins the Dutch Resistance to avenge her family. She soon confronts the ultimate fest: she must infiltrate German headquarters by tempting Captain Ludwig Munte. In the heat of passion, he uncovers her duplicity…but keeps her secret. Then Rachel’s espionage reveals that a murderous traitor lurks within Resistance ranks. Unable to fully trust anyone, Rachel navigates a minefield of deception and becomes an enemy to both sides. Epic, passionate, and breathtaking, Black Book relates an untold story of World War II where the distinctions between good and evil become blurred by the complexities of human nature.

USA Color 2007 146 min. Rated R DVD

Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

This feature documentary is about Hungarian born Hannah Senesh, who parachuted into Nazi occupied Europe to help save Hungary’s Jews, only to be imprisoned alongside the person she most wanted to save - her mother Catherine. The film is a harrowing account of the only outside military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust, but it is also a moving mother-daughter tale that weave interviews and cinematic visualizations.

USA, 2008, 86 Minutes, English DVD

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno, an innocent and naïve eight-year-old, ignores his mother and sets off an adventure in the woods. Soon he meets a young boy, and a surprising friendship develops. Set during World War II, this remarkable and inspiring story about the power of the human spirit will capture your heart and engage your mind.

USA 94 min. Rated PG-13 DVD

The Darien Dilemma

A father and his filmmaker son explore an untold story of 1,000 Jews stranded in the winter of 1941 on the frozen Danube, waiting a life-a-death decision to be taken by their would-be rescuer, senior Mossad agent Ruth, and her agents in a hotel room in Istanbul. Intriguing storytelling interweaving interviews with the survivors, actors and a father who must tell this story!

90 min. DVD

Desperate Hours

At a time when millions were murdered before the eyes of an indifferent world, there were some men, and at times, some governments, who chose to act - not for praise, not for glory, but in the name of simple decency. In doing so, they dispel the myths that people were powerless to resist the Nazis. Desperate Hours tells the stories of those precious few, who in the face of utter darkness never lost their sight. This film recounts the little known story of Turkey during the Holocaust. Directed by Victoria Barrett.

USA 2001 64 min. VHS

The Diary of Anne Frank I, II

Few stories have captured the world's imagination as this "emotionally stunning" (Newsweek), of a 13 year-old girl who chronicled the lives of two Jewish families hiding from the Nazis, cramped in a tiny Amsterdam attic. "A motion picture masterpiece ... enriching...exciting and unforgettable." A 1959 Academy Award winner.

USA Black & White 1959 170 min. VHS

Divided We Fall

This is the true story of a Czechoslovakian couple whose village has been taken over by Nazis during World War II. Josef and Marie lead a simple life until they decide to hide a young, Jewish neighbor in their small apartment. The realities of the situation outside of their home soon make themselves felt as their own personal lives are changed in surprising and bittersweet ways.

Czech with English Subtitles Color 2000 117 min. PG13 – Nudity, Adult content VHS

Echoes That Remain

A poignant study of Jewish Shtetl life before the Holocaust, Echoes That Remain combines hundreds of rare archival photos and previously unseen film footage, with live action sequences, shot on location at the sites of former Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The Echoes production team spent over a year of research in archives around the world collecting the photographs and film footage to help dramatize the folk stories, parables, and anecdotes. It is a film that will bring tears and laughter to both the young and old.

England Color 1991 60 min. VHS

The Eighty-First Blow

This film is a historical document made up of footage and stills shot by the Nazis. A compilation of testimony from

witnesses who appeared at the Eichmann trial provides a telling narrative. Academy Award Nominee - "Best Documentary".

Israel Black & White 1987 115 min. Hebrew and Yiddish w/ English Subtitles VHS

Escape From Sobibor

During WWII, the death camp at Treblinka had an escape, causing the Commandant at a similar camp in Sobibor to threaten that his camp would never experience the same thing. But those who were its captives, the Jewish laborers that had been spared from the ovens, knew that they were on borrowed time and that their only hope was to escape…the only question was how to do it. However, because the Germans would kill an equal number of others whenever a group attempted to escape, the captives knew that if ever an escape was tried, all 600 prisoners in the camp would have to be included…logistically precluding any ideas about tunnels of sneak breakouts. Indeed, to have such a mass escape could only mean that the Ukrainian guards and German officers would have to be killed, which many of the Jews felt simply reduced themselves to no better than their captors…thus making it a struggle of conscience. And therein lies the story, with the film being based on a factual account of what happened at that Sobibor prison.

USA Color 143 min. 2003 DVD

Europa, Europa

Europa Europa is the fascinating true story of Solomon Perel (Marco Hofschneider) a very courageous German-Jewish teenager who survived World War II by concealing his true identity and by living as a Nazi for seven harrowing years through three countries. On the eve of his Bar Mitzvah in 1938, Solly's odyssey becomes an unbelievable epic of survival. Through quick wittedness, the oddest twists of fate, and sheer luck, the young Jewish boy escapes from a Polish ghetto, lives in a Communist orphanage, hides out in an elite school for Hitler's youth and fights as a Nazi soldier in the battlefield without the Germans ever knowing the truth! Directed by Agniexzka Holland.

Poland/France Color 115 min. German & Russian with English Subtitles VHS

The Exiles

A riveting, haunting work detailing the experiences, situations, and heartbreak of German intellectuals, artists, and writers who fled Hitler's fascist state and resettled in America. Despite initial resistance, they made contributions to American culture, science, art, nature, film and music. Director, Richard Kaplan deftly mixes archival footage with interviews with witnesses and participants, achieving a fascinating historical context and powerful personal connection.

USA Color/Black & White 1990 115 min. VHS

Flames in the Ashes

Using testimony of eyewitnesses and recently discovered film footage, this video explores how Jews in innumerable ways resisted the Nazis. "A powerful film, crafted with skill and sensitivity." - Haim Herzog, former President of Israel.

Israel Black & White 1987 90 min. Hebrew & Yiddish w/ English Subtitles VHS

Garden of the Finzi-Continis *

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Garden of the Finzi-Continis is set in Mussolini's Italy of 1938 amidst increasing anti-Semitism. Vittorio de Sica

Italy Color 1971 96 min. Italian with English Subtitles VHS

Genghis Cohn

A brilliant and controversial tale of revenge, murder, and madness, GENGHIS COHN, is driven by powerful performances from Robert Lindsay, Diana Rigg, and Antony Sher. A former Nazi concentration camp commander tries to escape his past by settling into a small Bavarian town where he becomes police chief. But shades of the violence and horror of his past come back to haunt him when his quiet life is shattered by a series of murders in this sleep town, and he becomes embroiled in a bizarre relationship with a kinky, widowed Baroness. Into this mix appears the ghost of Genghis Cohn, a Jewish comedian he ordered killed in his concentration camp. Slowly and deftly, with hilarious touches, Cohn exacts his ironic and surprising revenge. Parental Advisory: scenes containing adult situations, language, and nudity.

USA/Britain Color 1995 80 min. VHS

Gloomy Sunday

Can a song reflect an era? A brooding Jewish composer in 1930’s Budapest pours his longing for unattainable love into a song whose haunting music and morbid lyrics drive listeners to suicide. The drama whirls around two Jews and a German SS member in love with the same woman and the length to which each end will go for love.

Germany Color 2000 114 min. German with English subtitles DVD

Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg

This film tells the story of Raoul Wallenberg, a small-scale businessman from Sweden, whose life was transformed after he witnessed bodies being thrown from a train on its way to Auschwitz. With the support of the Swedish Embassy, he consequently moved to Budapest in late 1944 to help protect Jews from Adolph Eichmann's Sonderkommando. In 1945 he saved the lives of some 65,000 Jews in the Budapest Ghetto by forcing the hand of the German general responsible for their fate. Although hailed as a hero the world over, Wallenberg was taken prisoner by the Russian Army a month after these events and never released.

USA Color 115 min. NR Swedish, German, and Hungarian w/ English Subtitles VHS

Hanna's War

The harrowing, true story of the martyrdom of Hannah Senesh, "Israel's Joan of Arc." Forsaking her secure life on a Palestinian kibbutz during WWII, Senesh volunteers for a suicide mission that takes her back to Hungary. She is captured, imprisoned, and tortured by the Nazis, but she never reveals the names of the others involved in her mission. After trying desperately to free her, her mother finally obtains orders for her release, but the young girl is executed anyway. This somber but inspiring account of real-life heroism stars Ellen Burstyn, Maruschka Detmers, and Anthony Andrews.

USA Color 1955 32 min. English VHS

The Harmonists

Filled with topflight performances and unforgettable music, this entertaining and critically acclaimed story was cheered by audiences everywhere! When Harry, a struggling but highly imaginative funnyman, forms a singing group with an unusual group of friends, “The Harmonists” go on to become an overnight sensation in prewar Germany. But as their wave of success inevitably collides with the nation’s changing political tide, the group’s members are forced to face unprecedented challenges that will try their wills and test their loyalty!

Germany Color 1997 115 min. German with English Subtitles DVD

The Jews of Warsaw

The purpose of this documentary is to present the vibrant life, people and culture of the Jewish community in Warsaw for the 1,000 years leading up to the pre-World War II period, to the extermination of the Warsaw Ghetto, and to Janusz Korczak’s last days. The film examines historical sites and the world of Polish Jewry. This historical documentary includes black & white and color sequences divided into five acts: Aleph - History, Bet - Faith, Gimmel - Theater, Daleth - Growing-up, He - concern. Every act shows a different aspect of life. Historical footage is intertwined with contemporary pictures of the same places. The historical pictures are accompanied by a commentary and help illustrate facts and the content of the film.

Poland Black & White/Color 1997 38 min. VHS

Korczak

Written by Agniezka Holland (Secret Garden) and directed by Andrzej Wajda, Korczak focuses on one of the most complex and tragic figures of the Holocaust: Janusz Kirczak, physician, educator and author, who maintained a home for Jewish orphans in the Warsaw ghetto until he and the children were transported to the Treblinka death camp in 1942. Korczak has aroused considerable controversy, in part for its confrontation of still-troubling issues: the efficacy of non-violent resistance, the perilous pragmatism of choosing the lesser evil, and the peculiar seductions and satisfactions of martyrdom.

Poland Black & White 1990 118 min. Polish with English Subtitles VHS

Ladies’ Tailor

This is a recent film from Russia, directed by Leonid Gorovets. It is September 29, 1941. In Kiev, this is the eve of the infamous execution of 96,000 Jews by the Germans at Babi Yar. A Russian family, whose house has been destroyed by the partisans, is relocated by the Germans to the house of Isaac the tailor. As the deportation of Kiev’s Jews approaches, the two families meet and reveal their thoughts and feelings.

Russia Color 92 min. In Russian with English Subtitles VHS

The Last Metro*

Truffaut's poignant, compelling drama, set in Nazi-occupied Paris, unfolds in the Theatre Montmartre, as a group of actors rehearse. But everyone harbors a secret. Catherine Deneuve visits her exiled Jewish husband; the leading man is a member of the Resistance. Touching and tense.

France Color 1980 135 min. French & English Subtitles VHS

The Last Sea

Thousands of survivors of the Holocaust set out on a perilous journey to the Land of Israel. They retell stories of survival and redemption. "A film should not explain but show, and this film does.... gigantic in scope." - Elie Wiesel.

Israel Black & White 1987 90 min. Hebrew/Yiddish/French w/ English Subtitles VHS

Lodz Ghetto

With stunning intimacy and openness, Lodz Ghetto reveals the enveloping drama of 200,000 people trapped in the longest surviving community of Jews in Hitler's Europe, bringing to life the words of ordinary people caught in an unbelievable time. The film was meticulously assembled from secret diaries and clandestine photographs hidden away under the threat of death. It crosses through time, bringing us into the past by mixing modern and historical footage into a seamless reality.

USA Color/Black & White 1992 118 min. VHS

The Long Way Home

For the majority of Holocaust survivors, World War II did not end with their liberation from Nazi concentration and death camps. As the personal accounts contained in The Long Way Home demonstrate, the battle to rebuild lives and human dignity continued long after the Allies’ victory. The tumultuous years between 1945-1948, from liberation to the creation of the State of Israel, epitomized the challenges Holocaust survivors faced in recreating their identity from the remnants of their destroyed world

USA 1997 116 min. English VHS

Mendel

In the 1950's, Norway received a small quota of Jews who were homeless after World War II, among them, the Trotzigs and their two sons. Mendel is the funny, warm, and bittersweet story of how a 9 year-old comes to terms with his new life in a remote Norwegian town. Directed by Alexander Rosler.

Norway Color 1997 98 minutes Norwegian with English Subtitles VHS

Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard)

This haunting production effectively combines actual black-and-white footage of the concentration camps with color scenes of the same places ten years after the Holocaust. This surrealistic journey of horror was written by a novelist who survived imprisonment by the Third Reich.

France Color 1955 32 min. French with English Subtitles VHS

The Only Way

During World War II, the citizens of Denmark banded together to prevent the Nazis from arresting Jewish families. Set in 1943, this gripping production dramatizes the true story of the escape of one Jewish family and the Danes who helped them. Filmed on location in Denmark. Starring Jane Seymour.

USA Color 1986 86 min. VHS

La Passante (The Passerby) *

The film stars Romy Schneider in the dual role of Elsa, a German refugee, and as Lina, the lovely wife of a contemporary world leader. It is the story of two lovers compelled by action, mystery, and political drama from pre-war Berlin to present day Paris.

France Color 1983 106 min. In French with English Subtitles VHS

The Pawnbroker *

Rod Steiger gives a mesmerizing Oscar-nominated performance as the embittered survivor of a Nazi death camp who can't escape the ghosts of his past, or the powerful lesson that awaits him in the future. Now a Harlem pawnbroker, Sol Nazerman condemns the dregs of society who pass through his shop, and ridicules his idealistic assistant, Ortiz. But when Ortiz puts his life on the line for Sol, he learns the ultimate truth about hope and humanity.

USA Black & White 1964 116 min. VHS

Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future (* Children)

Ray Errol Fox's soulful video deals with the most tragic victims of the Holocaust, the 1,500,000 children, who perished. We join visitors, young and old, white and black, Jews and Gentiles, as they express their profound shock at the incomprehensible realities with which they are confronted on their visit to Jerusalem's Yak Vashem museum and its haunting Children's Memorial. New footage of racist violence, juxtaposed with the poetry and artwork of children who died in the camps, makes this a stirring and powerful experience. 1990 Academy Award Nominee -"Best Short Subject Documentary". Blue Ribbon Winner, American Film/Video Festival. Winner of 1990 Parents' Choice Award.

USA Color 1989 15 min. VHS

The Quarrel (* Jewish Interest)

A haunting story, by Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, written shortly after World War II. Two survivors of the Holocaust are accidentally reunited in a park in Montreal in 1948. One is a pious Hasid who runs a yeshiva for Jewish orphans, the other is a secular writer who has long since lost his religious faith. These two lock horns in debate over their opposing views of God and the world. The Quarrel is an exhilarating philosophical confrontation between the secular and the religious, as well as a profound touching with reconciliation.

Canada Color 1992 88 min. VHS

Raoul Wallenberg: Between the Lines

This film documents the personal courage of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who risked his life during WWII to save the Jews of Budapest. Wallenberg, following the war, was imprisoned as a spy in the Soviet Union. Through newsreel footage and interviews with Holocaust survivors and Wallenberg's colleagues, this inspiring biography describes the diplomatic maneuvers and ingenious protests he used. One example is his creation of a "protection passport", an illegal document that gave Swedish citizenship to Hungarian Jews. This film also discusses the international cover-up following his disappearance from Moscow in 1945 and the struggle to gain his freedom.

Color/Black & White 1984 90 min. VHS

Reunion (* Jewish Interest)

The innocence of youth is shattered by the turbulence of war in this poignant tale of love, friendship, and betrayal. Konradin, an ambassador's son, and Hans, the son of a Jewish doctor, meet in Germany in 1932 and become fast friends. But the carefree days of youth are interrupted by Hitler's rise to power. Hans is sent to America for safety and the boys say farewell forever. Fifty years later, Hans returns to Germany to find his friend and learn the truth about the country he once loved. What he finds will touch your heart. A tense and engrossing drama from director Jerry Schatzberg, -expertly scripted by Harold Pinter, and starring Jason Robards.

USA Color 1990 120 min. VHS

The Ritchie Boys

The Ritchie Boys were young German Jews who came to America in the late 1930’s. They were recruited and trained by the US Army in psychological warfare and intelligence gathering and then sent back to demoralize the enemy after D-Day. The men were groomed at Camp Ritchie, MD. Bauer tracks down surviving members of this unique unit, who share their war remembrances in witty and lively anecdotes. Documentary.

Germany/Canada 2004 93 min. English and German with English subtitles DVD

Secret Courage

Walter Suskind was a German Jew living in Amsterdam who was forced to serve as the Jewish head of deportation at the Hollandsche Schouwburg (the Jewish Theater in Amsterdam), used as the main deportation site in Holland. Using his fluent German, his skills as an actor and businessman, and unfathomable courage and tenacity, he and an intrepid group of resistance workers orchestrated the escape of 1000 Dutch children who were marked for transport to the death camps. In this movie, we hear the stories of five of the saved children in their own words.

USA Color 2005 82 min. DVD

The Shop on Main Street

This film is a tragicomedy of two people that develops into a powerful anti-fascist statement. In a sleepy Slovak town, a simple carpenter is offered the job of Aryan controller of a Jewish-owned button shop. The relationship between the carpenter and the woman owning the button shop, played by the great Yiddish actress Ida Kaminska, provides a moving counterpoint to the horror of the Holocaust.

Czechoslovakia Black & White 1965 128 min. Slovak with English Subtitles VHS

The Sorrow: The Nazi Legacy

A group of six Swedish teenagers, two of whom are Jewish, embark upon a journey to Auschwitz in an effort to try to comprehend the incomprehensible. A preliminary visit to Wannsee, site of the Nazi meeting place where the implementation of the "Final Solution" was determined, sets the stage for the teens' pilgrimage. Yet no amount of intellectual explanation of the facts, as they occurred, can adequately prepare the group for their own emotional reactions after having spent time in Auschwitz. A meeting with Ruth Elias, one of the camp's survivors, proves to be full of pain and sorrow, yet full of hope for the future. The pilgrimage comes full circle as the group returns to Stockholm for a meeting with Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, the high-ranking Nazi official who was the governor-general of Nazi occupied Poland. The teenagers ask and try to understand, "How could all this have happened? How could it have been allowed?"

USA Color 1994 33 min. VHS

Survivors of the Holocaust

Steven Spielberg moving documentary chronicles the events of the Shoah (Holocaust) as witnessed by those who survived. The program weaves together archival footage and music with survivor’s personal testimonies and

photographs, chronicling life in pre-war Europe, the devastating impact of Nazism, the liberation of the concentration camps and life fifty years later.

USA Color 1995 70 Min. VHS

Tribute to Holocaust Survivors

As part of its 10^th Anniversary, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum hosted the historic Tribute to Holocaust Survivors: Reunion of a Special Family on November 1-2, 2003, in Washington, D.C. This documentary captures the energy and spirit of that occasion, attended by more than 70,000 people from around the world. Additional features: A Museum for the 21^st Century and Voices from the Survivor Tribute.

USA Color 2004 VHS

Tzvi Nussbaum: A Boy From Warsaw

This film recounts the dramatic life story of Tzvi Nussbaum, the little boy immortalized in the infamous photograph taken in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. Featuring archival black-and-white footage and contemporary interviews, the program examines how Tzvi came to be in the Warsaw ghetto, the circumstances surrounding the photograph, his imprisonment at Bergen-Belsen, how he managed to survive, and how he feels today about the Nazi persecutors that murdered four generations of his family.

Finland Color/Black & White 1992 50 min. German/Hebrew with English Subtitles VHS

The Wannsee Conference

On January 20, 1942, fourteen high ranking Nazi civil servants and SS officers gathered in utter secrecy for 85 minutes in a villa in the elegant Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Their sole purpose was to discuss the logistical and technical implementation of "The Final Solution to the Jewish problem." Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of Nazi Security Police and Secret Service, had expected to encounter some resistance to the idea but there was none. Producer Korytowski carefully researched the minutes of the conference (as recorded by Adolf Eichmann), and has dramatically recreated the meeting in real time.

Germany Color 1984 87 min. German with English Subtitles VHS

The Warsaw Ghetto

Charged with documenting the gradual destruction of the almost 500,000 Jews in the walled-in Warsaw ghetto, cameramen of the German army, the S.S., and the Gestapo made an almost anthropological study of the people. In this program, their still and motion pictures are collected (many from Himmler's personal scrapbook) and narrated by Warsaw ghetto survivor Alexander Bernfes. The program includes striking and often shocking footage showing the creation of the ghetto and the early Nazi propaganda.

England Black & White 1969 51 min. VHS

Weapons of the Spirit

Weapons of the Spirit tells the astonishing story of Le Chambon, a small village in France that successfully defied the Nazis. As the world stood by, 5,000 Christian villagers gave refuge to 5,000 Jews. No one was turned away or betrayed. Why did this happen? Who were these people of Le Chambon who didn't flinch when conscience called? Filmmaker Pierre Sauvage, himself born and sheltered in Le Chambon, attempts to answer these questions while chronicling the dramatic events that occurred in this extraordinary place.

France Color 1986 91 min. In English VHS

Witness and Legacy - Contemporary Art About the Holocaust

This is the accompanying video to the “Witness and Legacy” Exhibit. The art work of survivors, children of survivors, and artists whose work was influenced and centered around the Holocaust. This impressive exhibit includes large scale installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, and mixed media. The narrative voice moves from one art work to another, and comments on the different artistic expressions.

USA Color/Black & White 1996 20 min. VHS

World of Anne Frank

This film is a poignant and informative docudrama of Anne Frank. It is highlighted by dramatic recreations from Anne's diary.