The Jewish Community Library has over 1,000 videos which give expression to Jewish history, life and culture. Of particular interest to our users is the Jewish Heritage Video Collection which is listed and described below.

You are welcome to borrow these videos from the Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles. Contact the JCL by telephone at 323.761.8648 or Email to make arrangements to borrow a video from this collection. Borrowing period is one week. Please return videos on time. Overdue fines on videos: 1$/day/video.

MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR
125 min. JH-A 1958

The daughter of upwardly mobile Jewish parents in the 1930s, Marjorie Morningstar is bright and beautiful, and has ambitions for success. With her college friend Marsha Zelenko, she gets a job at at a summer camp. When sneaking into the nearby South Wind hotel, Marjorie meets- and falls in love with- Noel Airman, the handsome director of the resort's summer theater. The attraction is mutual and highly charged. Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly are a striking pair in this once-in-a-lifetime romance. When she resists his advances, he denounces her conventional mores, and their clash illuminates the mood of the era. Ultimately, their romance leads her to question her values and lifestyle, and her ideas about love and success.

THE MIRACLE OF INTERVALE AVENUE
65 min. JH-A 1983

Synonymous today with crime and urban abandonment, New York's South Bronx once teemed with Jewish life. Jewish shops thrived and worshipers spilled onto the sidewalks from hundreds of synagogues. Feeling increasingly threatened by the rise in crime, the Jews moved away. By 1983 only a handful remained. Most are elderly and idiosyncratic, refusing or unable to leave apartments where they raised families and collected memories. Some see no reason to stop providing services as a baker, tailor, or sign painter to those of their black and Puerto Rican neighbors trying to eke out a decent life. One or two are African American Jews. Together this remnant struggles to keep open the last synagogue in the neighborhood, helped by a Jewish cop, black youth, and Puerto Rican clergy. The Miracle of Intervale Avenue tells their remarkable story.

MIRELE EFROS
80 min. JH-A 1939

No playwright had more impact on the character of the Yiddish theater than Jacob Gordin. Gordin was born in the Ukraine and moved to New York at the turn of the century. On New York's Jewish rialto, his plays became renowned for their sophisticated narratives that expounded on the ideals of menschlichkeit- the practice of honesty, decency, and devotion to family and community. Mirele Efros, often called the "Jewish Queen Lear" is considered Gordin's masterwork. It tells the story of a pious widow named Mirele who handpicks a wife for her oldest son, Yossele. But after the wedding, Mirele discovers that her new daughter-in-law, Shaindele, is selfish and conniving. The resulting conflict between mother, son, and wife provides fertile ground for exploration of themes inherent in Gordin's work.

THE MITZVAH MACHINE
10 min. EL-A 1987

This animated story will serve as a catalyst for thought in junior high school age viewers about the nature of Mitzvah living. Its message is clear- that Mitzvah is not a mechanical routine but calls instead for thoughtful, ongoing choice. Jeff feels uninspired by the rote duties for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. When his uncle Martin gives him a robot kit for his present, Jeff secretly builds a machine that looks like himself. On the big day, the robot is a star, filling Jeff's unsuspecting parents with a feeling of pride. But Jeff is troubled by his actions. Ironically, it is the Mitzvah machine- a mechanical being without choice- that explains to him why he feels conflict.

MOLLY'S PILGRIM
23 min. EL-A 1985

Children of Jewish immigrants often bore the emotional brunt of their family's transition into American society. Their fresh spirit was called upon to wade into the unfamiliar social depth of an alien culture. But those children often suffered the taunts of classmates and acquaintances who felt uneasy about someone who spoke, dressed, and prayed differently from them. Molly's Pilgrim is an Academy Award-winning film about a nine year old Russian Jewish immigrant girl named Molly who is the object of her classmates' derision. When the children make dolls for a class display of the first Thanksgiving, Molly brings in her own version of a pilgrim- a Russian doll. Her unique perspective on the holiday provides her calssmates with a bridge to understanding Molly and her family's quest for religious freedom.

MR. SATURDAY NIGHT
119 min. JH-A 1992

You may recognize something of Milton Berle or Jackie Mason in Catskill comedian Buddy Young Jr. He's the classic Brooklyn-born Jewish funny man with a dark side who starred briefly in the golden days of television. Comedian Billy Crystal makes his directorial debut playing Buddy, a comic who "rose to the middle." In a series of flashbacks smarting with humor and pathos, Buddy's hysterical career missteps tell the story of a performer obsessed with winning the love of audiences- even while sacrificing the love of his family. Chock-full of rapid-fire one-liners and outrageous schtick, Crystal's hilarious portrait will leave you in tears.

THE MUSIC BOX
126 min. JH-A 1988

The trial of John Demjanjuk highlighted the problems of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice so many years after the fact. The dwindling numbers of people on both sides, the reliability of elderly witnesses' memory, and the simple passage of time conspire to make assessments of guilt or innocence extremely difficult. Questions of memory and emotion loom large in Music Box, an intense courtroom thriller about a Chicago attorney (Jessica Lange) who defends her Hungarian immigrant father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) against charges of war crimes. As Ann Talbot, Lange must establish innocence even as she wrestles with growing doubts about her father's dubious past. In a sudden twist, the trial shifts to Hungary, where Ann's waning subjectivity succumbs to anger.

MY KNEES WERE JUMPING: REMEMBERING THE KINDERTRANSPORTS
76 minutes. Narrated by Joanne Woodward

The story of the Kindertransport is an extraordinary piece of history. With tremendous courage, a group of Jews and Quakers saved the lives of children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland between December 1938 and August 1939. Most of the parents never saw their children again. Filmmaker Melissa Hacker reveals the dramatic story of her Vienna born mother, the Academy Award nominated costume designer, Ruth Morley.

MY FAVORITE YEAR
92 min. JH-A 1982

During television's early days, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, and Neil Simon, among others, got their start as writers for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. They brought a distinct Jewish sensibility to the sketches Caesar performed weekly before a live audience. My Favorite Year is a hysterically funny fictional treatment of the show's backstage shenanigans. New York, 1954. Brash comic king Kaiser has ordered his youngest gagwriter, Benjy Stone, to take care of the guest star, flamboyant matinee idol Alan Swann (Peter O'Toole). If Benjy can keep his hero sober and deliver him in time for the show, he'll hold on to his job. But with an ogre for a boss, a lush for a star, and all of Manhattan at their feet, anything can happen- especially in front of a live audience!

NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE
109 min. SH-A 1976

The year is 1953. Larry Lapinsky is packing his suitcase to move out of his parents' Brooklyn home and into his own Greenwich Village apartment. His mother, brilliantly played by Shelley Winters, is hysterical that her son is deserting her. Next Stop, Greenwich Village, a bittersweet comedy about post-immigrant Jewish life, portrays Lapinsky's coming-of-age. Struggling to make his way as an actor, Larry collects an assortment of bohemian friends and contends with his long-time girlfriend. But his conflicts with her pale in the face of constant run-ins with his overbearing mother- who appears at his home with gifts of food and underwear. Based on Paul Mazursky's own passage from Brooklyn to Greenwich Village (and then to Hollywood), the film is about more than geographical transition- it's about the dynamics of leaving home, and trying to leave home behind.

NIGHT AND FOG
34 min. SH-A 1955

The essential fact of the Holocaust- that millions of lives were extinguished for arbitrary, political reasons- is brought home in Alain Rensai's harrowing 1955 documentary. Every aspect of the Nazi orchestra of death, from the roundup and labelling of the victims to their eventual death in the gas chambers, is shown. Contrasting images of the camps during war with the desolate, overgrown, and run-down edifices that exist in the present, the film challenges its viewers not to forget what happened even as the reminders dwindle. "No description, no shot can restore [the camps'] true demension," the narrator says. Still, Night and Fog comes as close as it is possible to get to the horrors of the concentration camp.

NORTHERN EXPOSURE: THE FIRST EPISODE
49 min. JH-A 1990

New Yorker Joel Fleischman is a fish out of water. Or rather, a kvetch out of water. He's a Jewish doctor recently graduated from Columbia University, where his years in medical school were financed by the state of Alaska. Now Joel must repay his debt by working in tiny Cicely, Alaska for four years. It's a place where almost no one has heard of a bagel. Northern Exposure, the Pilot introduces the eccentric characters and hilarious predicaments that have given this Emmy-winning TV series its huge following. Searching in vain for a way out of his contract, Joel's true nature eventually show- he's a mensch with a medical kit. Now all he has to do is learn to like moose burgers and caribou hot dogs.

NOVA: SECRETS OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS
60 min. 1991

In 1946, three Bedouin shepherds in the Judean desert stumbled across one of the greatest archeological discoveries of the century; in caves near Kumran, 40 miles from Jerusalem, 800 manuscripts were found. They contained the oldest biblical texts extant, as well as unknown material that could shed light on the origins of Christianity and the variety and richness of Jewish life prior to rabbinic Judaism. Who wrote the scrolls and why? Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls traces the political and academic controversy that has surrounded them- culminating in the crumbling of a monopoly of scholars who controlled publication and interpretation for decades. The search for the scrolls' true meaning is a fascinating detective story.

NOW...AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
SH-A

In the 1920s, Rhina was the only Prussian village whose population was evenly divided between Jews and Christians. Jews had lived there for generations and were intergrated into the local economy. Under the Nazis the town's synagogue was burned, windows were smashed, and Jews were beaten; those who did not escape were arrested and deported. Today, the town has no Jewish population. How do the current residents recall that time? In Now... After All These Years, a German filmmaker tries to reconstitue Rhina's history by talking to Jewish survivors living in New York and to the German's who remain. Everywhere in Rhina he is met with denial, avowed ignorance, and an angry refusal to confront the past. The residents' evasive responses reveal much about the climate leading up to the Holocaust as well as the unwillingness of ordinary men and women to acknowledge or atone for their part in it.

NUMBER OUR DAYS
29 min. JH-A 1983

Anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff, whose scholarly work focused on the study of indigenous peoples, decides to research a community where she feels an emotional connection, that of elderly American Jews. In this Academy-Award winning portrait, Myerhoff conducts field work at the Israel Levin Jewish Community Center in Venice, California, which is a magnet for a group of men and women in their eighties and nineties, many of them originally from Eastern Europe. Proceeding from the idea that one day their fate will be her own, Myerhoff takes much more than an academic interest in the ways her subjects deal with poverty, illness, loneliness, and old age. She shows how they find important solace in the company and activities of the center. With unusual warmth and compassion, she explores their histories and records their lives, where nothing is taken for granted.

ONE-MINUTE BIBLE STORIES (OLD TESTAMENT)
30 min. P-A 1994

Jews are called the People of the Book for a good reason. The early history and religious base of the Jews can be found in the Torah, and knowing the stories and teachings of the Torah gives children an introduction to Judaism and Jewish history. The timeless Biblical tales of ancient leaders, heroes, and struggles becomes fresh with each new generation. Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop tell these ancient tales in One Minute Bible Stories (Old Testament). The stories are just that- short and fast paced. Using numerous illustrations, Lewis zips through familiar tales, beginning with Adam and Eve and moving on to Noah, the Tower of Babel, the Patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, Joshua, David, Ruth and Naomi, Gideon, Solomon, Jonah, and Job. Lamb Chop remains fresh and hilarious, a wonderful guide to the tales of the Torah.

OPERATION MOSES: A DOCUMENTARY
27 min. EL-A 1985

For more than 2,500 years the Jews of Ethiopia lived cut off from their people, believing themselves to be the last remnant of the religion they fiercely preserved. A strong nation within the African continent, it was not until 300 years ago that they were subjugated by their neighbors, stripped of their landowner status, and forbidden to practice their religion. Nevertheless, they struggled to observe, and shared with Jews worldwide a desire to return to Zion. Return began with a trickle following the founding of the State of Israel. When famine ravaged sub-Saharan Africa in the mid 1980s, many of Ethiopia's Jews were forced from their villages in an attempt to find food and refuge from political oppression. Families were shattered, and many died along the way. But the international Jewish community responded, clandestinely assisting their flight and resettlement in Israel. Operation Moses describes this saga.

OPERATION THUNDERBOLT
124 min. JH-A 1977

On June 27, 1976, Air France Flight 139, enroute from Tel Aviv to Paris, was hijacked by Arab and German terrorists and commandeered to Entebbe, Uganda. In short order, the 103 Jewish and Israeli passangers (joined by the French crew) were separated from the others, who were then freed. The terrorists' demand: the release of 43 Arabs held in Israeli prisons in exchange for Jewish lives. The Israeli government negotiates, while secretly planning one of the most daring rescues ever attempted. Operation Thunderbolt reenacts these heart-stopping events in realistic and thrilling detail, giving us an inside look at the decisions that led to the dramatic rescue. Many of the figures who played a role- Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Yigal Yadin, and others- appear in cameo roles, lending the film a unique authenticity.

THE OPPERMANNS
235 min. SH-A 1986

The years 1932-33 were critical ones for Germany's Jews, when popular disaffection and political turmoil fueled by an economic crisis set the stage for Hitler's rise to power. As Nazi views took hold, the Jews- fully intergrated into German society and accepting the nation's ideals as their own- were increasingly viewed as "foreigners" and "enemies" which many found incomprehensible. This mood culminated in the boycott of Jewish stores and professionals in 1934. The Oppermanns, a drama made for German TV, recounts how one wealthy German-Jewish family responded during these pivotal years. As the film opens, the family meets to discuss merging their furniture business with that of an old rival, who may be a Nazi. But the Opppermann brothers- the store's manager, a doctor and a man of letters- continue to emotionally resist acknowledging the extent of Nazi gains. Finally, they can resist no longer.

A PAINFUL REMINDER
69 min. SH-A 1985

Efforts to document the Holocaust began while it was still happening. A Painful Reminder is a documentary filmed by a unit of the British Army's psychological warfare division in the spring of 1945; Alfred Hitchcock helped shape the raw material. Considered too controversial at the time, it was not publically viewed until the 1980s. The film sketches Hitler's rise to power, then provides gruesome details of concentration and exterminiation camps such as Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz. Besides on-the-scene comments by British troops, A Painful Reminder follows the stories of several Jewish survivors, and carefully shows German municipal officials and citizens at the death camps. The film addresses the post-war political considerations that led it to being shelved for so many years.

PARTISANS OF VILNA
130 min. JH-A 1986

Partisans of Vilna explores the moral dilemmas and continuous dangers facing young Jews who organized an underground resistance in the Vilna ghetto and fought as partisans in the woods. Interviews with survivors of the Jewish resistance movement tell the largely unknown story of Jews who risked their lives and those of others to fight the Nazis. Among those who speak are Israeli poet Abba Kovner, a resistance leader, and Chaika Grossman, former Israeli Knesset member. The survivors, whose stories are interspersed with rare archival footage from 1939-44, tell how enforced ghetto life, unbearable in many respects, led to plans to build grenades, blow up a train, and continually fight back, under constant threat of death. Much of the film is in Yiddish or Hebrew with English subtitles.

THE PAWNBROKER
120 min. SH-A 1965

Sol Nazerman is a refugee from a nightmare. His memories of the family and life he lost in the Holocaust influence his every action. A man whose emotional life was wrenched from him, he maintains a cold distance towards all who approach him. Played brilliantly by Rod Steiger, Nazerman eventually comes to recognize human suffering beyond his own when his capacity for sorrow is belatedly revived by a dramatic turn of events. But Nazerman is a controversial figure, and the film raises difficult questions about whether parallels can be drawn between the ghettos of New York and Europe, and between victim and victimizer. Based on a novel by American Jewish writer Edward Lewis Wallant, this is the first American film to portray the inside of the death camps.

PRISONER OF HONOR
88 min. JH-A 1991

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French artillery, was convicted of betraying military secrets and sentenced to life imprisonment. Four years later, the evidence used in his trial was exposed as a forgery, but it was not until 1906 that Dreyfus was exonerated. The case became a cause celebre in French political and intellectual circles and focused world attention on anti-Semitism in an "enlightened" democratic nation. Prisoner of Honor dramatizes the reopening of the case by Col. Georges Picquart (played by Richard Dreyfuss), the new head of Counter-intelligence, whose code of honor is stronger than his personal distaste for Jews. Utimately, one man's conscience forces a nation to face its prejudices.

PRIVATE BENJAMIN
110 min. SH-A 1980

Is Private Benjamin a hilarious Hollywood comedy about feminism or a wry social commentary on growing up a Jewish woman in America? Goldie Hawn plays Judy Benjamin- a spoiled young woman from a wealthy Philadelphia family. When her boorish husband drops dead on their wedding night, Judy becomes distraught- for the first time in her life, she is alone. What's a girl to do? Join the army! Judy enlists under the impression that she can live a cushy military lifestyle in an exotic paradise. But she quickly finds herself in a rugged boot camp at the mercy of a leathery drill sergeant (Eileen Brennan). In a series of comical scenes contrasting Judy's expectations with the realities of the army, Judy learns to tough it out. In the process, she earns a medal for moxie.

THE PRODUCERS
90 min. SH-A 1968

In the hands of anyone else, The Producers might be pure kitsch. But writer/director Mel Brooks knows how to take the Jewish psyche and wring the absurdity out of it until you have to laugh. Or cry. The Producers is an outrageous comedy starring Zero Mostel as a loud, conniving Broadway producer named Max Bialystock. Together with his meek and nervous accountant, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), he sells 25,000 percent of a musical that's so tasteless, it's sure to be a flop. They'll close the show in preview and head to Rio with the excess cash. But "Springtime for Hitler" is a smash hit! (You've got to see it to believe it.) How will Bialystock and Bloom ever pay back all of their unsuspecting investors? And how can the audience find their play so funny?

THE PURPLE HEART
98 min. JH-A 1944

This World War II film is one of the first to depict an American character only incidentally Jewish. Lieutenant Greenbaum, identified as a graduate of City College, is distinguished by his articulateness, but is otherwise a typical young man. Made in 1944, The Purple Heart reflects American attitudes toward the war, as well as the nation's own self-image and values. It not only documents Jewish integration into society but also declares social inclusiveness to be an American virtue. After their plane is crippled in a raid, eight Americans of diverse backgrounds are captured by the Japanese and subjected to a brutal trial in violation of international law, as well as to physical and mental torture. Unless they reveal critical information, they will be found guilty and executed. The men are sustained by their sense of justice, loyalty, and patriotism.

RITUAL: THREE PORTRAITS OF JEWISH LIFE
60 min. EL-A 1989

The practice of ritual affirms our place within our faith, fosters a sense of continuity and identity, and affords stability. But does the process of performing a ritual guarantee a spiritual experience? Ritual: Three Portraits of Jewish Life examines the place and nature of rituals in Judaism, and tries to answer these questions. The film expores the importance and meaning of ritual through examples drawn from life: a rabbinical student explains why she has encorporated daily prayer into her life; a family builds a sukkah to enhance their celebration of the Sukkot holiday; and a mother and father describe their emotions as they participate in the circumcision ceremony of their newborn son. Interspersed with these moving examples, theologians discuss the nature of rituals and try to define exactly what they are.

ROUTES OF EXILE
90 min. JH-A 1982

Since Jewish traders settled in the Land of the Berbers more than 2,000 years ago, Moroccan Jewry has had a unique culture, mingling Jewish and North African influences. It also constitutes one of the most successful models of political and religious coexistance in theIslamic world. But with the upheavals of the twentieth century, the question is whether Moroccan Jewry will retain its character and identity into the twenty-first century. Routes of Exile traces the history of this branch of Jewry- from the first "Berber Jews" to the vast migration and new tensions set off by the creation of the State of Israel. The film takes a particularly probing look at the most recent stage of the journey- social and political changes in Israel, the struggle for identity in France and Canada, and the increasing isolation of the remnant that remains in Morocco.

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