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Curious George Escapes the Nazis
2 PM LOS ANGELES • 5 PM NEW YORK
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This is a film-and-discussion program about the movie version of Louise Borden‘s book The Journey that Saved Curious George. The delightful film Monkey Business: The Adventure of Curious George’s Creators explores the extraordinary lives of Hans and Margret Rey, the authors of the beloved Curious George children’s books. See the film, then join filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki and historian Dr. Susan Zuccotti for a lively discussion. (more…)
Hannie Schaft — Dutch Resistance Hero
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Hannie Schaft, the “girl with the red hair,” was a university student when Nazi Germany occupied the neutral Netherlands in 1940. Over the next five years she risked everything — her education, her safety, her family, and her life — in order to shelter her Jewish friends and become, along with her young comrades, the Oversteegen sisters, one of the Most Wanted resistance fighters in the country. (more…)
Journey to Freedom
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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Filmmaker Tanja Dammertz followed the Sousa Mendes Foundation’s pilgrimage tour Journey on the Road to Freedom in 2023 and produced this wonderful documentary film for the European cultural television channel, ARTE. It chronicles both the physical and emotional journeys of the participants as they confront childhood memories and long-buried family secrets. (more…)
Whistleblowers
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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A compelling nonfiction graphic novel, Whistleblowers is the true story of four courageous individuals who risked their careers — or their lives — to confront the unfolding Holocaust. (more…)
The Radical Audacity of Rabbi Heschel
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
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Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel fled Nazi Germany and became an authoritative voice not only in the Jewish community but in the religious life of America. His book, The Prophets, inspired Martin Luther King, Jr. to invite him to take a role in the Civil Rights Movement. Heschel was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, an advocate for Soviet Jewry and a pioneer of interfaith dialogue. Join the filmmaker Martin Doblmeier and Heschel’s biographer Rabbi Shai Held, for a riveting film-and-discussion program moderated by Dr. Shulamit Reinharz. (more…)
The Secret Jews of Mallorca
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
The Spanish island of Mallorca (or Majorca) has a secret history — a group of families who have been discriminated against for centuries because their surnames connect them to a once-suppressed Jewish heritage. Some members of these families have been inspired to return to the faith of their ancestors. American Jewish filmmaker Dani Rotstein tells their story. (more…)
The Jewish Defense Committee of Belgium and the Rescue of 3000 Children
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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The Comité de Défense des Juifs was established in Brussels, Belgium in 1942 in order to protect the Jewish population from Nazi persecution. They assisted and hid approximately 10,000 adults and 3000 children, from 1942-44. Eighteen members of this group were honored in 2018 by B’nai B’rith International with the Jewish Rescuer Citation. See a touching film about this heroic group and their legacy. (more…)
The Courage to Care
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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In this touching program, author Peter Hellman tells the story of the Holocaust rescuer Leokadia Jaromirska, Righteous Among the Nations. She rescued Shifra, a Jewish baby girl who had been abandoned near the fence of a convent in Poland and sheltered her during the war, sometimes in very perilous circumstances. Today, Shifra Ivri is in her 80s and lives in Israel. Before the program, see the touching film The Courage to Care, narrated by Elie Wiesel, about rescue throughout Europe during the Holocaust. (more…)
Crypto-Jews and the Search for Identity
11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
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A new documentary film Between the Stone and the Flower: The Duality of the Conversos profiles the life and work of the renowned genealogist Genie Milgrom. After successfully tracing her Jewish roots to pre-Inquisition Spain and Portugal, she founded the Converso Genealogy Project. In this capacity she helps other “crypto-Jews” or “conversos” to reclaim their Jewish roots and is now overseeing the vast international effort to digitize the Vatican’s Jewish records.
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Victory in Algiers! The Jewish Heroes of North Africa who Changed the Course of World War II
1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK
This film and discussion program tells the extraordinary unsung story of how the Jewish resistance in Algeria, led by José Aboulker, ushered in the Allied capture of North Africa in November of 1942. This was the first major Allied victory of World War II (codename: “Operation Torch”) — an event that changed the course of the war and saved the Jews of North Africa from potential deportation. The film Shadows of Freedom tells the dramatic true story.
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