Visions, Images and Dreams: Yiddish Film Past And Present, Revised Edition - Softcover

Goldman, Eric A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0841914370 ISBN 13: 9780841914377

Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 2010

Synopsis

This is the history of the Yiddish cinema, and the people who shaped its development. The films were intended as entertainment but also acted to reinforce Jewish identity
especially in the United States. The author traveled to fourteen countries, viewed dozens of films (some of them considered lost), and combed archives in Austria, Poland, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union and the United States to uncover details, facts, and background for this narrative.

Our story begins with the early Yiddish silent movies, largely films made of Yiddish stage productions in Poland and Russia, and moves on to the innovative film productions in 1920s Soviet Union made with government support, and then on to the Golden Age of this genre In Poland and the United States from 1936-1940. Even after the height of its popularity before the war, Yiddish movies continued to be made in the late 1940s. This newly revised edition includes films of the past fifteen years, as there has been a renaissance of interest in Yiddish- and along with it, Yiddish cinema. Another special feature of this edition are interviews with Jacob Ben-Ami, Ira Greene, Joseph Green and Molly Picon, some of the key figures in Yiddish movie-making.

This fascinating and little-known story is accessible to students of film, Yiddish, Jewish culture, as well as to the general reader.

About this title

About the Author

Eric A. Goldman is founder and president of Ergo Media, a New Jersey-based video publishing company specializing in Jewish-oriented video. He has been writing and lecturing about Yiddish, Israeli, and Jewish Film since the 1970s and is film reviewer for New Jersey's The Jewish Standard. He is former director of the Jewish Media Service, which was a program resource on film and television for the North American Jewish community. Prior to that, he was curator film for the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and director of the New Jewish Media Project. He has curated and moderated film programs t Hebrew Union College, Yeshiva University, the 92nd street Y and the Center for Jewish History in New York. In 1999, he became artistic director of the Jack Wolgin Jewish Film Festival in Philadelphia. He was also a member of the Educational Advisory Committee of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum In Washington, DC and has served as juror at the Jerusalem International Film Festival and the First International Festival of Jewish Cinema held in Tiberias. He has also produced and directed for radio, Tv, film and Video. Goldman Received a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from NYU and was a fellow of the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at Columbia University. He holds graduate degrees in Contemporary Jewish Studies and Theater Arts from Brandeis University and was an adjunct fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Goldman is presently adjunct associate professor of cincma at Yeshiva University.

Review

Eric Goldman's VISIONS, IMAGES AND DREAMS is a unique attempt t chronicle every picture produced in the Yiddish language, regardless of national origin...I applaud his filling a gap in the history of Jewish aesthetic pursuits. --Jerusalem Post

A foundational work in the history of Yiddish film...with the tenacity of a detective and the acuity of a cineaste, Goldman tracks down and lays out s the who, what ,where, and how of this magnificent, incandescent, and all too evanescent facet of Yiddish culture. --Jeremy Dauber, Columbia University

Steeped in tradition, rich in culture, laden with emotion (are) the flms Goldman treats (in this) admirable study. --Los Angeles Times

Steeped in tradition, rich in culture, laden with emotion (are) the flms Goldman treats (in this) admirable study. --Los Angeles Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Holmes & Meier Publishers
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0841914370
• ISBN 13: 9780841914377
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 286