Massachusetts: Paper Bridge arts festival, July 11-15

The annual Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival is hosted by the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts.

This year's dates are July 11-15.

It's billed as "a dynamic arts festival exploring the full range of modern Jewish culture" for the whole family.

It includes concerts, films, performances, pre-performance talks, workshops and two exhibits.

For more information, click Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival.

Holocaust: Czech Jews documentary

Several years ago, when I was still writing "It's All Relative" for the Jerusalem Post, it was my pleasure to meet a young filmmaker and director Lukas Pribyl of Prague.

A detailed story in the Jerusalem Post was the result of our Tel Aviv meetings. Lukas and Jakub shared a Persian dinner at our home. They later traveled to Australia, where my cousins - Bob and Di Conley of Sydney - took good care of them while the young men interviewed more survivors.

Lukas, born in 1973 in Ostrava, was one of the first young Czech students allowed to attend high school and university in the US, following the Velvet Revolution.

He studied at Philips Andover Academy, followed by political science, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and History at Brandeis University, Columbia and Central European University. His interest in World War II and Jewish history resulted in a number of published studies on various chapters of the Holocaust and exhibits in the Jewish Museum in Prague.

Lukas became interested in the Holocaust as a direct result of his own family's experiences (his grandfather survived a little-known camps) and devastation. He spent 10 years researching, photographing and collecting archive material to document exactly what happened to them. It took a long time, but he eventually persuaded almost all the survivors to share their stories. For most of them, it was the first time they had spoken.

The series of four feature-length (90-minute) documentary films on virtually unknown concentration camps and ghettos and little known modes of survival is Lukas's directorial debut.

The four segments have been screened on their own at various venues in the past, but the full six-hour series was shown in its entirety at its US premiere Sunday at the Legacy of Shoah Film Festival (John Jay College, Manhattan). Read Joseph Berger's review of "Survival Tales Told in Snapshots: Czech Jews Enduring the Holocaust" in the New York Times. It details the survivors and how they survived.

The survivors sometimes chuckle as they look back in disbelief. Mr. Pribyl said he felt that survivors had a sense of humor and an optimistic outlook in common. But ultimately, Mr. Pribyl said, his research proved that “the only recipe for survival is to have a lot of goodluck.”

The four segments are "To Poland," To Latvia, To Belarus, and To Estonia.

Two have already won awards: 2008 Academia Film Olomouc - Dějiny a současnost magazine Award for Best Czech Documentary Film in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Forgotten Transports: To Belarus); 2007 Czech Film and Television Association's Trilobit Award for Best Czech Documentary (Forgotten Transports: To Latvia).

He and his team have traveled the world, interviewing the few remaining Czech survivors and hearing their stories.

The segments trace the experiences of 76 of 270 survivors among thousands of Czech Jews deported to rarely-mentioned camps like Jagala and Kaiserwald. The documentary process produced more than 260 hours of interviews, collected in 30 countries. Each tells the story of the people deported to a particular destination, as well as a different method of survival.

Each is based on the experience of Jews sent to virtually unknown camps and ghettos - in Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and the Lublin region of eastern Poland. Almost all of them were sent to places where nearly everyone perished. The locations of Ereda, Maly Trostinec, Salaspils and Sawin don't appear in most Holocaust histories as hardly any people survived to tell what had happened.

Read more about it at the film's website:

It is not just that the tragic events depicted are almost unknown, even to specialist historians. Just as significant is the way they have been recreated. Instead of a detached outsider’s narrative, each film is built from the gripping stories of individual survivors, seen through their own eyes and told entirely in their own words. While they speak only of what they experienced themselves, their impressions weave together to form a poignant picture of ordinary individuals caught up in an era of atrocity and terrible violence. Every detail of what they describe is illustrated and confirmed through contemporary photographs and other visual material, most of it previously unseen, meticulously sourced everywhere from official archives to the garages of former SS men.

The films illuminate a neglected chapter of the Holocaust, as well as spotlight the tactics adopted by people who suffered such persecution and terror. Importantly, those who survived relied on many strategies including self-reliance, family loyalty and solidarity.

According to the website, it is thrilling to hear a handful of elderly survivors - who defied all Nazi attempts to kill them - who still tell their stories. It also reveals much about the sheer lust for life of human beings everywhere.

Check your local film festivals and other venues to see if the segments or the entire series will be screened.

Resource: Crypto-Jewish Links

Are you searching for your Crypto-Jewish/Sephardic/Converso ancestry or are just interested in this fascinating story? Here's a good source of links.

Poet M. Miriam Herrera has compiled a good list of Crypto-Jewish resource links on her website.

Crypto-Jews of the Southwest & New World

History & Definitions - includes explanations and definitions of such words as "marrano," "converso," "new Christian," history, usage and origins. Sources include the Jewish Virtual Library, Shulamit Halevy, Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives, Arthur Benveniste, PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, David Goldblatt, JewishGen, Georgetown University scholar Estelle Irizarry, George Washington University Professer Howard M. Sachar, Nan Rubin, Beit Hatfutsot, Jewish Journal, JUF News and more.

The Spanish & Mexican Inquisitions - includes the 1492 Edict of Expulsion, Books, Papers, Inquisition rosters, Robert J. Ferry, Stanley Hordes, Richard C. Greenleaf, Mary Elizabeth Perry, Anne J. Cruz, Clara Steinberg-Spitz, Dennis P. Geller, Gracia Mendes, Dr. Yitzchok Levine (Jewish Press), Luis de Carvajal, Mexico, Dr. Samuel Nunes and more.

Tools for Researching Crypto-Jewish Heritage - includes Michael Freund's Shavei Israel, Kulanu, Richard C. Greenleaf (tools, DNA, guidelines, etc.), SephardicGen.com, Ezra l'Anusim (several languages), Be'echol Lashon, Rabbi Juan Mejia's Kol Tuv Sepharad (English/Spanish), Colorado's Secret Jews (article).

Writers & Artists - Gabriela Bohm's "The Longing," Gannit Ankori's "Hidden Frida," Menachem Wecker's "Unchosen Artist," New Mexican artist Diana Bryer, author Kathleen Alcala, Cary Herz's photographs/books, photographer Peter Svarzbein's Crypto-Jews Project, Stephanie Rachum's articles on Camille Pissarro, scholar Abraham Haim's work on Miguel de Cervantes, New Mexico singer Consuelo Luz,

Personal Stories - Carlos Salas Diaz (Congregacion Hebrea de Baja California), musician Vanessa Paloma (Ladino music and her family's story), Rabbi Juan Mejia (personal story, plans for a Southwest US yeshiva for anusim, Latin American oral traditions and more), Rabbi Nissan Ben Avraham (a Chueta of Mallorca), Californian Enrique A. Navarro-Pinto's story, California Rabbi Daniel Mehlman (Mexicali group), Rabbi Daniel Ginerman and Shulamith Havi (why Crypto-Jewish families do not come out openly), New York Rabbi Marcelo Bronstein (Amazon conversion), Barcelona's Nuria Guasch Vidal, Chicano Crypto-Jews in Whittier California, Andree Aelion Brooks (hurdles faced by bnai anusim), and Gloria Trujillo.

Culture & Folklore - Rosemary Levy Zumwalt's book on Sephardim and evil eye, Renee Levine Melammed's "Question of Identity," 15th century cancioneros, Anne deSola Cardoza on Jewish food and traditions, Charles M. Robinson's culinary traditions of Rio Grande Valley, Rachel Laudan on pan de semita," history of capirotada bread pudding, gravestone photos, Shylamith HaLevy articles, editor/publisher Ana Pacheco's La Herencia magazine, Mair Jose Benardete's collection of Judeo-Spanish ballads and the Rio Grande Valley's Jewish customs.

Book Reviews - Gloria Golden's "Remnants of Crypto-Jews among Hispanic Americans," Stanley M. Hordes" "To The End of the Earth," Tamar Alexander-Frizer's "The Heart is a Mirror."

Although I didn't see it - and I'm sure Miriam will be updating her lists - Sephardim.com's valuable name search engine is also excellent, as it indexes many books, while Sephardim.org has a list of and links for Sephardic congregations around the world, information on Sephardic music, and Jamaican Sephardic history, which provide links to families of similar names.

New York: Jewish Film Festival, Jan. 13-28

The 19th New York Jewish Film Festival will run January 13-28, sponsored by The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center.

NYBlueprint.com offered details.

The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present the 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival at The Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater, The Jewish Museum, and The JCC in Manhattan, January 13-28, 2010.

The festival’s 32 features and shorts from 13 countries—28 screening in their U.S. or New York premieres—present a diverse global perspective on the Jewish experience. Several filmmakers and special guests will join in onstage discussions following the screenings.

Films include the New York premiere of Lukás Pribyl’s “Forgotten Transports: To Poland,“ which looks into the lives of Czech Jews deported by the Nazis to camps and ghettos in Eastern Poland’s Lublin region during the Holocaust. I've known Lukás since he came to Israel to interview and film survivors.

There will also be two restored archival films: (1947) "The Axe Of Wandsbek," (1935) Yiddish classic "Bar Mitzvah," with Boris Thomashefsky in his only film performance. The other films and documentaries:

"Saviors in the Night"
"Within the Whirlwind"
"Einsatzgruppen: The Death Brigades"
"The Jazz Baroness"
"Mary and Max,"
"Ajami"
"Eyes Wide Open"
"Ultimatum"
"Valentina's Mother"
"Protector"
"Berlin '36"
"Gruber’s Journey"
"Happy End."
"Gevald!"
"Chronicle of a Kidnap"
"Ahead of Time"
"Making the Crooked Straight"
"Human Failure"
"Leap Of Faith"
"Leon Blum: For All Mankind"
"A History of Israeli Cinema"
"Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness"
"The Peretzniks"

For details on each film or documentary, tickets and all festival information, click here.

Most screenings will be at the Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, with other screenings at The Jewish Museum (5th and 92nd St.) and the JCC in Manhattan (Amsterdam at W. 76th St.). Single tickets are $11; seniors, $8; Film Society and Museum members and students, $7.

New Blog: Through young immigrants' eyes

There's a new blog, Half-Remembered Stories, written by more than a dozen young Jewish immigrants, aged 16-25. If you have immigrant ancestors - don't we all? - readers should relate to the words of these young people.

"I am up to my ears in bits and pieces. I am immersed in parts of my family’s story, in clues to follow-up on, in tales that must continue to be reinvented, imbued with life. But because there is so much, so much, so much time gone by and so much family I must consult ...," writes Hannah, one of 16 young Jews invited to blog for the New Jewish Filmmaking Project (NJFP).

The NJFP project is subtitled, "Emerging media from the borderlands of Jewish identity."

For the past seven years, 50 young Jews (ages 16-25), have collaborated with a team of documentary filmmakers to create sophisticated, personal documentaries; 16 are blogging.

The NJFP project, sponsored by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), also creates films about and co-directed by these new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Latino Jews and Jews of North African origin, who are "coming of age at the intersection of multiple ethnic and national identities."

In July 2010, the projected multi-media exhibit will launch under the auspices of the SFJFF's New Media Initiative.

It will be about lost people, lost places and the quest to reclaim lost memory, and will combine films, text, photographs and audio to show what it means to come of age on the border between Jewish identity and mainstream American life.

Some of the young bloggers are Adam, Alex, Ashley, Corey, David, Hannah, Jason, Klaira, Lee, Mayana, Samantha, Yelena, Yenny and Zoe.

Samantha writes, "The streets you resided in as a child stick with you for life. Your childhood home, so to speak, is where memories reside. I bet almost all of you reading this can remember the address, or at least the street name of the house where you began your life. For myself, and those around me ... ."

"We’re all familiar with the timeless adage 'write what you know,' and it continues to guide writers both young and old. The NJFP has long offered a unique opportunity for young Jewish filmmakers to 'film what they know,' taking us on tours of their homes, histories, streets, and cities—exploring their fears, passions, and dreams....," shares Lee.

See the videos here, including "Four Short Films About Love," where a Latino-Jewish couple strolls through San Francisco’s Mission district, a triad of sisters laze on a sunny Sunday morning, four grandmothers face off at a Russian family dinner. It demonstrates how families come together and sometimes fall apart. The film won the 2004 Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Produced by documentary production company Citizen Film, the NJFP is a program of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival which provides showcase venues. More than 300,000 people have viewed the NFJP films through public television and exhibits in classrooms nationwide.

Tracing the Tribe thinks this project and exhibit will be of interest to help young people get involved with family history research. It would be an interesting exhibit for the upcoming international conferences on Jewish genealogy.

Moment Magazine: The best Jewish films

What do you get when you ask film critics to list their five favorite Jewish films? A great article in this month's Moment Magazine.

See the article here, and view the top 100 Jewish films list here. The editors are also asking readers to send in their own favorites for an update.

Most of these are well-known to readers but some were new to me. Read the film descriptions in the article above.

New York Times, Esquire and Vogue writer Phillip Lopate: The Plot Against Harry (1989), A Kid for Two Farthings (1955), The Heartbreak Kid (1972), The Nutty Professor (1963), Nobody’s Business (1996)

Entertainment Weekly film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum: The Producers (1968), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Late Marriage (2001), The Counterfeiters (2007), The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971)

"The Jew in American Cinema" author Patricia Erens: The Frisco Kid (1979), Green Fields (1937), Exodus (1960), Hester Street (1975), Blazing Saddles (1974)

"American Jewish Filmmakers" co-author David Desser: Animal Crackers (1930), The Pawnbroker (1965), Annie Hall (1977), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Blazing Saddles (1974)

"Nostalgia in Jewish-American Theatre and Film, 1979-2004" author Ben Furnish: Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Avalon (1990), Funny Girl (1968), Torch Song Trilogy (1988), Europa, Europa (1991)

"Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History Up to World War II" author Steven Carr: Birthplace (1992), The Search (1948), Little Man, What Now? (1934), Playing for Time (1980), The Last Stage (1948)

"The Jewish Image in American Film" author Lester Friedman: Annie Hall (1977), The Pawnbroker (1965), Quiz Show (1994), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Dirty Dancing (1987)

National Center for Jewish Film executive director Sharon Rivo: The Frisco Kid (1979), Tevye (1939), The White Rose (1982), Being Jewish in France (2009), The Dybbuk (1937)

Village Voice regular contributor B. Ruby Rich: Where to and Back trilogy (1982, 1985, 1986), Me Ivan, You Abraham (1993), Like a Bride (1994), Local Angel (2002), Zero Degrees of Separation (2005)

Village Voice film reviewer J. Hoberman: Green Fields (1937), Waltz with Bashir (2008), Shoah (1985), Jewish Luck (1925), Lost in America (1985)

Television Quarterly media writer Bernard Timberg: The Jazz Singer (1927), Body and Soul (1947), The Graduate (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971), Borat (2006)

"The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies: A Critic’s Ranking of the Very Best" author Kathryn Bernheimer: The Chosen (1981), Enemies: A Love Story (1989), Everything is Illuminated (2005), Unsettled (2006), Paper Clips (2004)

A great list and I'm sure each of us have our own favorites in this list and additional others that should be added. What do you think should be added to the magazine's list?

Read the complete article and see the list of 100 at the links above.

Los Angeles: The Bielski story and more

Everyone's back from busy summers and genealogical societies are beginning their program years.

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles has planned a great kick-off to this special year, which will culminate in the 30th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, hosted this year by the JGSLA, from 11-16 July 2010.

You won't want to miss this program on Sunday, September 13 event at the Milken JCC in West Hills.

The main event is Sharon Rennert speaking on "The Bielski Partisans: A Granddaughter's Story." She presented this multi-media lecture to a standing-room-only crowd at the Philadelphia conference. The program also includes a recap of the Philly 2009 conference, and a screening of Jordan Auslander's very funny "Genealogy Goes to the Movies."

Presented by filmmaker Sharon Rennert, granddaughter of Tuvia Bielski (played by Daniel Craig in the film "Defiance"). Sharon will delve into the real story behind the Hollywood motion picture and break down historical fact from fiction. She'll provide a unique glimpse into the real characters behind the film and will show scenes from her work-in-progress documentary, "In Our Hands: A Personal Story of the Bielski Partisans."

If you haven't seen "Defiance," view it before the meeting to enhance appreciation of this program. It is available via Blockbuster, Netflix or Amazon.

An award-winning independent filmmaker and television editor with a Boston University BS (Broadcasting & Film) and a USC MFA (Cinema-Television), Rennert's been editing and producing documentary series and television specials for more than 15 years.

The time schedule:

1.30-3pm: Rennert's program.

3-3.30pm: Philly 2009 recap and exciting plans for the upcoming JGSLA 2010.

3.30-4pm: "Genealogy Goes to the Movies." A screening of Jordan Auslander's hilarious compilation of genealogically-themed clips from classic and kitschy films and TV shows, ranging from The X-Files, Grey's Anatomy and The Sopranos to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Mel Brooks and Frances Coppola.

Those who arrive early (1-1.30pm) can enjoy refreshments, browse the JGSLA's traveling library and speak with members who attended the Philly conference.

Fee: members, free; others, $5. Invite your friends to this great program.

The Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus is at 22622 Vanowen St., in West Hills.

Philly 2009: Film festival highlights

The 2009 Film Festival at the conference offers these highlights:

- Sunday afternoon: "The House of Life: The Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague," (2.50pm) with filmmaker/artist, Mark Podwal, followed by "The Tree of Life" (4.20pm) dealing with the magical and mystical history of the Jews of Italy with documentarian, Hava Volterra. (repeated 5.15pm Monday with Volterra)

- Join us for the hilarious, short film "My Nose," about the standards of "beauty" in the Jewish world, with Gayle Kirschenbaum (accompanied by her mother, the impetus for this documentary). 11.50am.

- Tuesday, 5.35pm - Composer Jeff Hamburg, now living in Amsterdam, will discuss his film, "Terpe Kind Mains, Terpe," in which he returns to his Ukrainian ancestral village, and also travels to Uman.

- John Kovacs, a child survivor of the Abonyi Street Jewish School in Budapest, which is the topic of this new Hungarian film, "Captain Laszlo Ocskay: The Forgotten Hero," will discuss events in Budapest during WWII. 5pm Wednesday.

- Sharon Rennert - Tuvia Bielski's granddaughter - will introduce "Defiance" at 8.30pm Wednesday and "present her own full-length program: "The Bielski Partisans: A Granddaughter's Story" at 11.15am Thursday.

- Gabriella Bohm will discuss her film "The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America" at 9.45am Wednesday, and her film "Passages," on her Argentinian, Hungarian, and Israeli life-changing sojourn at 3.25pm.

- Richard Kollins takes us along on his surprising shtetl trip to Ukraine in "Bashert," at 2pm Thursday. If you've ever thought of undertaking a trip like this, this is a film worth seeing.

- No genealogical film festival would be complete without a screening of the hit UK program: "Who Do You Think You Are?"The festival will screen two episodes: Zoe Wanamaker, (11:15am Wednesday), covers UK, Chicago and Nikolayev, Ukraine research; and Esther Rantzen's (2.45pm Thursday) shocking discoveries in London's East End and Warsaw. Two Rantzen researchers - Hadassah Lipsius and Laurence Harris - will answer questions. after the screening.

- To view the complete film program, click on "film festival" on the program page. Click on the film title to see a complete synopsis.

All films and discussions are scheduled for Salon 3/4.

Popcorn, anyone?

Philly 2009: A search in Galicia

Judy Maltz has a first-person account of her Galician search in today's Jewish Exponent.

"In Search of a Shared Past in East Galicia, With Camera in Hand" covers her visit to Sokal, where her father was born and her grandpaents lived.

It's one of those many little towns in the area known as East Galicia that every few years seemed to change hands. When my grandparents were coming of age, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire; between the two World Wars, it found itself on the edge of Poland's eastern border; during the Second World War, it was occupied by Nazi forces; and after the war, when the border moved west, it became Ukrainian territory.

But unless your family happens to have roots there -- as I've discovered -- most people have never heard of this part of the world.

For years, I'd try to imagine what it must have looked like. I'd picture the little farmhouses along the Bug River, the town square with its lively marketplace, the majestic synagogue where the Jews would gather each week for Shabbat prayers.
Judy Maltz entering Francisca Halamajowa's home at No. 4 Street of Our Lady for the first time; Maltz has made a documentary of her experiences.

Two years ago, she finally visited the town as she arrived to film a documentary on how her family had survived the Holocaust.

Before the war, some 6,000 Jews lived there, about 50% of the population. At the end of the war, only 30 had survived.

Maltz's film, "No. 4 Street of Our Lady," tells the story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman, who risked her life to save 15 of these Jews, including eight members of my own family.

She hid two families -- the Maltzes and the Kindlers -- in the hayloft of the pigsty behind her house, and another family, the Krams, in a hole dug under the kitchen floor. For almost two years, she fed and cared for her Jewish boarders, even while German forces had their tanks parked on her property and had moved into her tiny two-room house.

Her grandfather, Moshe Maltz, kept a diary of those years which offered details of daily life. she was able to locate the house where three families had been hidden, using the diary as a guide. She also found the old Jewish ghetto, the three-century old synagogue ruins and the old Beit Midrash. Everything else had vanished.

On this journey, Maltz has discovered an international network of friends and others who have Sokal in common. Connections were made on the website for the film.

Among her new friends:

- Alan Charak of Sydney, Australia, whose father survived as a teenager working at the Sokal train station, where Maltz's great-uncle Shmelke watched out for him.

- David Zugman, a hidden child from Sokal, shared his extraordinary tale of survival from FLorida.

- New York Times' former executive editor Max Frankel's mother was from Sokal, and still remembers a trip there as a 6-year-old.

- Poland's first full-time Reform rabbi, Burt Schumann's great-uncle was a neighbor and friend of Maltz's grandfather.

The film will be screened at Philly 2009; check out the online program to see the schedule.

Read the complete article at the link above.

India: Holocaust Film Festival planned

Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi is planning a Holocaust film festival in Lucknow, India, and he's asking for your help as to suggestions and donations for the event. Films will be shown at various institutions in the city.

He writes;

Shalom!

I plan to organize a Series of Holocaust Film Screenings in Lucknow, India, at universities, colleges and other educational institutions here. The objective is to make the Indians aware of the great tragedy and to fight the Holocaust denial, common among Muslims here.

I already have in my possession three documentary films (thanks to the munificence of Yad Vashem), namely:

- Outcast: Jewish Persecution in Nazi Germany 1933-1938

- She Was there and She Told Me: The Story of Hannah Bar Yesha

- May Your Memory Be Love: The Story of Ovadia Baruch

If you could donate documentaries or/and feature-films on the Holocaust it would be a great mitzvah, for which I would be most grateful.

He has set up a blog, Open Space Lucknow and will acknowledge contributions. He also asks DVDs to be sent by registered post of courier service.

Email him for more details and to clear titles you may wish to provide for this good cause.

Philly 2009: An offer you can't refuse!

Jewish genealogy film festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger is making an offer that conference attendees should consider.

Pam is calling for volunteers to staff the film festival room throughout the conference, morning to evening.

It's a great opportunity to see some wonderful films and meet some terrific filmmakers up close. The only requirements are knowing how to run a DVD player, turning lights off and on, adjusting sound levels.

Being organized also helps as it will be your job to switch over from one film to the next on our tight schedule, and make sure the films run on time.If you plan to go to see several films anyway, consider volunteering to be in charge for a few of them.

Pam would prefer to have volunteers work in shifts from 2-5 hours for continuity. Films will run until 10.30pm most nights.

Now for the really interesting part:

- Are you traveling with someone who is not attending the conference? If they volunteer for four hours on one day, they can attend lectures for the rest of that day for free.

- Do you have film buff friends in the Philadelphia area? The offer holds for them as well, as long as they are not JGSGP members.

- It's a great opportunity for responsible high school/college students or seniors,. You can even work in pairs.

See the film schedule here. Many films will have speakers taking Q&A to add to the experience.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping, contact Pam for more information.

Poland: High-tech virtual shtetl launched

Warsaw's future Museum of Polish Jews launched the Virtual Shtetl site a few days ago.

According to its creators, it is a virtual encyclopedia of knowledge for those who want to find out more about the history and current life of Polish Jews.

Currently, it offers information on 800 Polish cities and towns where Jews lived, some 5,000 photographs and dozens of films.

The bilingual (Polish/English) site is intended to build the museum's collection before it opens in 2011. Using Web 2.0, it allows viewers to contribute information and eyewitness testimony.

The project also includes localities which were in Poland before borders changed after WWII. Versions of the site are now being developed in Belorussian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian languages.

Creators hope it will bring to light 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland that was wiped out.

View the site's English version here.

Philly 2009: Film Festival schedule online

There has been much interest in the Philly 2009 edition of the Film Festival, and the program is now online.

Check it out here and organize your days so you can take full advantage of the entire conference program, including the film festival. Tracing the Tribe offered a quick rundown on the films for this year here.

Film Festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger of Los Angeles says:

• To see films at a glance, click on "Session Topic" -> "Film Festival" -> "Search."
• Click on the film title to see a description with synopsis and photo. Some films will be screened multiple times to make it easier for conference attendees to see them.
• Filmmakers, researchers, or other creative participants will be introducing, discussing and leading Q&As on many of the offerings.

This year's edition covers globetrotting documentaries, features and shorts in Argentina, Austria, Belarus, Columbia, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Libya, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Siberia, Slovakia, South Africa, Tajikistan, the Catskills, the Czech Republic, New York's Lower East Side, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and, of course, Philadelphia!

Offerings cover personal voyages of discovery, sweeping epics of WWII bravery, Holocaust memoirs, court battles for restitution, travel in search of identity, Jews in basketball, telling jokes, singing and dancing, living and thriving, often in unexpected places and providing opportunities for both laughter and tears.

Pamela also thanks many people who suggested films for this year's edition. And, of course, if those suggestions couldn't be worked in this year, there will be another edition at the Los Angeles 2010 conference - the 30th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy - which will be hosted by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles in July 2010.

Philly 2009: Film Festival

The annual Jewish Genealogy Film Festival, screening some 40 films, will be a highlight of this summer's 29th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. Films will be shown from Sunday-Friday, August 2-7.

"I'm excited that so many filmmakers are coming through to talk about their films at the conference," writes festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger in an email . "A lot of these films are very new and Philadelphia premieres to boot!"

Although film selection and scheduling is still underway, Pam wants to let Tracing the Tribe's readers know about already confirmed films and filmmakers. This year's edition will span the globe, covering a diverse range of topics, locales and Jewish historical periods.

Here's a preview:

"The Tree of Life" - A personal family saga that illuminates the fascinating history of the Jewish people of Italy, following Israeli-born director, Hava Volterra, as she travels from the U.S. to Italy to trace the roots of her family tree. She digs up rare historical manuscripts linking her to the da Volterra filmy of banks in Florence of the Medici, Ramhal, a Venetian rabbi and mystic involved in the Kabbalah, Luigi Luzzatti, Italy's first Jewish prime minister, and back to New York's own mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Volterra will be present to discuss her film.

"The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America" - A small group of South Americans long to affirm their faith. Their ancestors, European Jews, were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition. Isolated in Catholic countries, rejected by local Jewish communities, they battle to become Jews regardless of the consequences. Argentinian-born, producer/director Gabriela Bohm will discuss her film.

"In Search of Bene Israel" - Follows a group of 3,500 Jews in and around Bombay which believes that it was shipwrecked in India 2000 years ago and is in the process of a community-wide migration to Israel. We meet a Jewish Indian filmmaker working in Bollywood, a family who takes care of a rural synagogue, and a young couple on the eve of their marriage and departure for Israel. Director Sadia Shepard will discuss her film and sign DVDs.

"No. 4 Street of Our Lady" - The remarkable, yet little-known, story of Francisca Halamajowa, a Polish-Catholic woman who rescued 16 of her Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust by cleverly passing herself off as a Nazi sympathizer. On the eve of World War II, more than 6,000 Jews lived in Sokal, a small town in Eastern Poland, formerly Galicia and now part of Ukraine. By the end of the war, only about 30 had survived, half of them rescued by Halamajowa. The film draws on excerpts from a diary kept by one of the survivors, Moshe Maltz, whose granddaughter produced the film. The film's Lviv-based researcher Alex Denishenko will be present to discuss it.

"Philly Hoops: The SPHAS & Warriors" - A look back at the first two professional basketball in the city of Philadelphia that were both owned and operated by Eddie Gotlieb "the mogul of basketball." Producer Jim Rosin will be present to discuss the film and sign DVD copies.

"House of Life" - The story of the old Jewish cemetery in Prague, the site of layer upon layer of buried members of the once-vibrant Jewish community. Almost a million people from all over the world now visit the cemetery each year, and the film chronicles its history, which is rich in lore, mysticism, tradition and philosophy. Tales of great rabbis and philanthropists and the story of the giant golem, created from clay to protect the Jewish people, are narrated by Claire Bloom. Producer Mark Podwal will discuss the film. He is best known for his drawings on The New York Times OP-ED page and as an author and book illustrator, exhibited in museums throughout the world.

"Horodok - A Shtetl's Story 1920-1945" - This is the story of vibrant life in an Eastern European Jewish village, before WWII, told by partisan-survivors, who moved to Israel after the war. Horodok was in Poland prior to 1939; then in Russia; invaded by the Nazi's in 1941 and included into Belarus after the war. The film covers the shtetl's community and religious life; the shtetl economy; Jewish and secular education; the flourishing Zionist youth movements and political parties; the background story of an early 1930's film of the shtetl; Russian and Nazi occupation; the creation of the Ghetto and Nazi slaughter; Horodok partisans and the end-of-the-war revenge.

"The Rise and Fall of the Borsht Belt" - At is peak, 1 million New York Jews spent their summers in the Borscht Belt, the birthplace of Jewish-American iconoclastic humor. Many of us spent time there during the 1950s and 60s. This film shows how the Catskills communities were run by women and how class divisions were reflected in the resort hotels: a happy, humane, ironic and bittersweet tale of the past.

"Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh" - Narrated by Joan Allen, "Blessed Is the Match" is the first documentary feature about Hannah Senesh, the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter, and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Senesh joined a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Shockingly, it was the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust. Through Senesh’s diary entries and poetry, her correspondence with her mother, and unprecedented access to the Senesh family archive, this film looks back on the life of a uniquely talented and complex young woman who came of age in a world descending into madness.

"My Mexican Shiva"- Set in Polanco, a Jewish quarter of Mexico City, and spoken in Spanish, Yiddish and Hebrew, this is a dramatic comedy about how the death of a man results in the celebration of his life.

"Toyland" - The 2008 Oscar-winning short subject film : Winter 1942. A small town in Germany. Despite her good neighborly relations with the Silbersteins, Marianne Meissner has certain difficulties to be really behind them in those dangerous times. Marianne’s son Heinrich entertains a close friendship with David, the son of the Silbersteins, whose deportation is imminent. What can Marianne tell her son? For his sake in order to protect him she tries to make him believe that the neighbors are going on a journey to "Toyland." When he hears this, he's envious...and runs off to join them.

"Against the Tide" - Human lives sold for $50. Rabbis marching on Washington. Epic battles between American Jewish communities. These are just three of the realities documented with finesse in this Dustin Hoffman-narrated documentary which addresses the attitudes of President Roosevelt and his senior advisors, who used the pretext of winning the war against the Nazis to block any Jewish immigration to the U.S. and juxtaposes the events in America with heart-wrenching heroic stories of the doomed Jews of Europe and the leaders of Polish Jewry who had faith that their powerful brothers and sisters in the United States would somehow be able to save them.

"Vienna's Lost Daughters" - Anita, Dorit, Eva, Hennie, Lizzy, Susanne, Susy und Rosalie live in New York, where they have started families and built up lives. “Vienna’s lost daughters” grew up Jewish in Vienna and had to flee suddenly in 1938/39. Director Mirjam Unger encounters them with impressive openness and emotion, providing insight into and a look back at extremely personal areas of their lives as they open the doors to their pasts in Vienna—a Vienna that lives on in New York.

"On Moral Grounds" - The story of former Uzhgorod, Czechoslovakia resident, Adolf Stern, who wouldn't take no for an answer and battled the giant insurance company, Generali, in court for not giving Holocaust survivors what they rightfully deserved under their policies. His daughter, attorney Lisa Stern teamed up with attorney William Shernoff to win a landmark settlement that resulted in a US $5.2 billion fund that German companies established to pay reparations to the Holocaust survivors.

The complete film list and schedule will be available online in a few weeks. Tracing the Tribe will post updates as more films and filmmakers are confirmed.

Seattle: Polish heroes exhibit, through Feb. 13

"Polish Heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews" is an exhibit at the Suzzallo Library, University of Washington, Seattle It is open through February 13. For more information, click here

This moving exhibition by photographer Chris Schwartz tells the story of 21 Poles who rescued Jews during the World War II German occupation of Poland. Each of these heroic individuals still resides in the Krakow region today. This exhibition is a tribute to the "Polish Righteous Among Nations" created by the Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oswiecim, Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, and the Polish American Jewish Alliance for Youth Action.

Five companion lectures (free admission) are also scheduled Thursdays at Kane Hall, Room 220 at UW. The first two have taken place.

7.30pm, January 29
"Irena Sendler's Children"
Prof. Przemyslaw Chojnowski
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań

7.30pm, February 5
"Henry Friedman, Holocaust Survivor: One of the Rescued"
Henry Friedman

7.30pm, February 12
"Rescue in the Polish Countryside- Politics, Differentiation in the Occupied Village"
Prof. Keely Stauter-Halsted
Michigan State University

The exhibit and lectures are sponsored by the University of Washington Polish Studies Endowment Committee, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, and Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, in cooperation with the University of Washington Slavic Department, Jewish Studies Program, Ellison Center, and History Department.

California: Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival, Oct. 26

The Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival is branching out for its 17th annual edition, which runs Oct. 26 through Nov. 19. It will include some 22 full-length, short, and short short films, speakers, special programs and a concert.

On November 13, "Ladino: 500 Years Young" will be screened. It's about an Israeli singer who keeps alive the songs of Sephardic Jews. Following the film, the Sephardic Music Experience, led by Bay Area jazz vocalist Kat Parra, will perform.

Check out a full schedule and ticket information here.

Los Angeles: Chicago 2008 report, films

The next Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles meeting will feature a Chicago 2008 conference report and film festival highlights, beginning at 1pm Sunday, September 14.

The schedule offers a variety of important topics, interspersed with films shown in
Chicago:

1pm: Film - "Word Travels: Lithuania - Digging Up Roots."

1:30pm: JewishGen managing director Warren Blatt will review where JewishGen has been and where they are going, outlining its expanding databases, new tools and services.

2pm: Film - "A Torah Returns to Poland"

2:30pm: Gesher Galicia Cadastral Map & Landowner Records Project Update, Lviv vital records, H-SIG Update, South American programs and IAJGS elections.

3pm: Film - "Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good" (Czech)

The JGSLA traveling library and IAJGS conference materials will be available before the program begins (12:30-1pm).

The venue is the University Synagogue, 11960 W. Sunset Blvd. Free admission for JGSLA members; $5, others.

For more details, click here.

Chicago 2008: Film Festival volunteers needed

This just in from Chicago 2008 Film Festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger, with a deal you can't - or shouldn't - refuse! Fellow genealogy bloggers are welcome to post this request as well for their readers in the Chicago area.

We need volunteers to staff the screening room for different shifts. In return, volunteers may attend the entire film festival - and lectures - on the day he or she volunteers ... for free.

The film festival will run August 17-22, at the 28th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile.

Duties are simple, and involve running a DVD player and announcing films. High school or college students, seniors or community members can all volunteer. Anyone with an interest in seeing great films is welcome to help out.

Contact: Pamela Weisberger
IAJGS Film Coordinator, Chicago 2008
pweisbergerAThotmailDOTcom - Subject: Film Festival
[replace AT and DOT with the proper symbols]

Films cover Jewish genealogical, historical and sociological topics from ancient times to the present day, including first-person narratives and memoirs, theatrical films, classic silent films, and those reflecting the Jewish artistic experience.

There will be portraits of Holocaust heroism, the immigrant experience, vanished shtetls, DNA technology, analysis of Nazi-era looted art investigations, and family dynamics.

Screening this year will be Stuart Urban's new documentary, "Tovarisch: I Am Not Dead," "Stealing Klimt," Yaron Zilberman's "Watermarks," "The Rape of Europa," plus theatrical releases like the Martin Scorcese-produced "Golden Door," “Everything is Illuminated” and Academy Award-winner, "The Counterfeiters.'"

In some cases, the filmmakers will be on hand to introduce their films and take Q&A afterwards.

On Tuesday, August 19, Brown University Professor Omer Bartov will lecture on his book, "The 'Jew' in Cinema: From 'The Golem' to 'Don't Touch My Holocaust,'" which will take place between screenings of both these unique and powerful films.

Filmmakers Susannah Warlick and Michael Schwartz of "Match and Marry," a film dealing with Orthodox matchmaking customs will be available for two Q&A sessions. Their film, along with "Tovarisch," about dashing Galician-born Dr. Garri Urban who managed to survive the Holocaust, the Gulag and working for the KGB; "The World Was Ours," dedicated to the memory of pre-war Vilna; "Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story;" and "Mahjong and Chicken Feet," will all be Chicago premieres.

For more details, click here .

Florida: Jewish heritage films, family ties

The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival and Castle Hill Productions celebrate a century of leagcy with 10 films on Jewish heritage, to be screened June 18-23, at Cinema Paradiso, Fort Launderdale.

The films include:

Line King: The Al Hirshfeld Story - documentary takes a look at works by renowned artist Al Hirshfeld, whose caricatures of celebrities were featured on playbills and in The New York Times.

The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton - documentary about the courage and determination of a young English stockbroker who saved the lives of 669 children between March 13 and Aug. 2, 1939.

Hester Street - film about a young Jewish woman who comes to America in the 1890s, only to discover that her husband has found a new life and is dating another woman. In English and Yiddish.

Partisans of Vilna - film chronicles the endeavors of Jewish resistance fighters during World War II and the Holocaust.

The Greenhouse - film about a professor who makes up a story to his granddaughter about how his son was heroically killed in World War II. In French with English subtitles.

Alan and Naomi - film is set in the 1940s and is about a young Jewish boy who helps a young girl come out of her shell after she watched her father die at the hands of the Nazis.

The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg - film tells the story of baseball Hall-of-Famer Hank Greenberg, through archival footage and interviews with Jewish and nonJewish fans, former teammates, friends and his family.

The Boat is Full - film about refugees who sneak into Switzerland from Germany during World War II. They are allowed to stay at an inn if they pose as a family. In German with English subtitles.

The Tollbooth - film explores the life of a Jewish family in Brooklyn through the eyes of a struggling painter in her first year of art school.

Left Luggage - film about a rebellious student struggling with her relationship with her parents, who are concentration camp survivors. In English, Hebrew and Yiddish.

For the schedule and ticket prices, click here here.

Chicago 2008: Film Festival additions

Film Festival coordinator Pamela Weisberger has announced that the film screening schedule at the Chicago conference has been finalized.

The schedule for the film festival at the IAJGS conference has been finalized and we will be showing an exciting, eclectic array of international productions, documentaries, shorts and theatrical features. Some films are strictly genealogical in nature, others historical, and many pure entertainment, and they will screen starting at 8am and into the evening each conference day.

Chicago-area premieres: "Tovarisch: I Am Not Dead," about dashing Galician-born doctor Garri Urban who managed to survive the Holocaust, the Gulag and working for the KGB; and "The World Was Ours," dedicated to the memory of pre-war Vilna.

Nazi-era looted art: The Rape of Europa, an epic journey through seven countries and into the violent whirlwind of ideological fanaticism, greed and warfare which threatened to wipe out Europe's artistic heritage of Europe; and "Stealing Klimt," in which conference keynote speaker Randy Schoenberg appears

Popular films: The Counterfeiters, Everything is Illuminated, and Golden Door will keep you on the edge of your seats, while personal family stories like 51 Birch Street get you thinking:"Do we ever really know our parents? Would we want to if given the opportunity?"

Globe-trot: Mahjong and Chicken Feet, (Harbin, China and Russian-Jewish emigres, and the 1,000 year old community of Kaifeng); Adio Kerida on the Jews of Cuba. Go south with De Bessarabia a Entre Rios about Argentina's Jews, while Disneyland meets Stalin-era deportations in a controversial Lithuanian amusement park, Stalin World.

Hit BBC series: Who Do You Think You Are?, take celebrities on a search for their roots, from the UK, back to Slovakia, Belarus, Prussia, South Africa and the Netherlands. Kinderland, Cinderland joins a middle school reunion, where 12 women in their 70s - children when the Nazis came to power in 1933 - are reunited with Christian German classmates in Germany 60 years later.

Brown University Professor Omer Bartov will speak on "The 'Jew' in Cinema: From The Golem to Don't Touch My Holocaust," at 9.30am Tuesday, August 19; both films will be screened. The restored 1920 print of "The Golem" portrays the ancient Hebrew legend as the precursor to Frankenstein myth.

Classic films: Yiddle with His Fiddle, with Molly Picon. Shot in 1936 Kazimierz and Warsaw, Poland, with shtetl residents as extras.

Music lovers: From Shtetl to Swing, and the musical metamorphosis born in darkest Russia to blaze across the Great White Way. Included is rare, archival footage of Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, George Gershwin and Al Jolson among others. Theatre lovers: Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story about Holocaust survivor Zypora Spaisman, who keeps alive the oldest running Yiddish theater in America.

Sports fans: Watermarks, about the Jewish women's Hakoah swimming team, pre-war Vienna; and Jewish Women in American Sports, the history of Jewish female athletes.

Holocaust and World War II: The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank, (Paul Scofield, Mary Steenburgen) telling the Frank family story through the Miep Geis, who helped hide; Uprising, (Donald Sutherland, Jon Voight, David Schwimmer) chronicles the Jewish Fighting Organization, youthful Polish guerrillas and freedom fighters; Swimming in Auschwitz offers six stories of the female concentration camp experience; I Have Never Forgotten You, on the life and legacy of Simon Wiesenthal, famed Nazi hunter and humanitarian.

Back by demand: Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and The American Dream, about the men who founded Hollywood, showing how major American films were influenced by the Eastern European Jewish culture shared by most of the major movie moguls who controlled the studios.

Brooklyn: Pearl Gluck's film A Tour of Chasidic Williamsburg into the heart of Satmarland, including restaurants, shops, shuls and the Rebbe's House - a humorous insider’s glimpse of Williamsburg's Hasidic world.

Last, but not least: Budapest filmmaker Peter Forgacs's Miss Universe 1929: A Queen in Wien, a true story about Lisl Goldarbeiter, a nice Jewish girl growing up in Vienna, crowned Miss Universe and then swept up in the horror of World War II; documented by her Hungarian cousin, Maurice, with a home movie camera.

The complete schedule should be online soon.

Film-only conference registrations are available for friends, spouses, and anyone living in the Chicago area interested in a different kind of Jewish film festival. For all conference details, click here.