Film Screening

Eva Zelig‘s documentary An Unknown Country tells the story of European Jews who fled Nazi persecution to find refuge in an unlikely destination: Ecuador. This small South American country, barely known at the time, took them in when most had closed their doors. Featuring first hand accounts, family photos and archival material, the film opens a window on the exiles’ perilous escape and difficult adjustment as they remade their lives in what was for them an exotic, unfamiliar land. (more…)

11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 9 PM JERUSALEM

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There are few figures in world history like Hannah Senesh. Possessed at a young age by the mission to save the Jewish people, she was an ardent Zionist who moved to Palestine to help establish a Jewish homeland. Then, in the midst of the Nazi genocide in Europe she volunteered to parachute into Yugoslavia en route to Hungary in an effort to warn and rescue Hungary’s Jews. Today she is remembered and revered in Israel — the land she helped build. Her poem “Eli, Eli” was set to music, and is widely known. This program will include a screening of Roberta Grossman‘s Blessed is the Match about Hannah’s life and action. Then meet the filmmaker who will be in dialogue with historians Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Mordecai Paldiel. Also joining the program will be the Israeli pop singer Avaya to speak about what Hannah Senesh means to her. A story everyone should know! (more…)

1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK

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Billionaire activist George Soros is one of the most influential and controversial figures of our time. Famous for betting against the Bank of England in 1992 and making a billion dollars in one day, he is maligned by ideologues on both the left and the right for daring to tackle the world’s problems and putting his money behind his fight – from free elections and freedom of the press to civil rights for minorities. With unprecedented access to the man and his inner circle, filmmaker Jesse Dylan, the son of music icon Bob Dylan, follows Soros across the globe and pulls back the curtain on his personal history, private wealth, and public activism. The resulting filmed portrait reveals a complicated genius whose experience as a Jew during the Holocaust gave rise to a lifelong crusade against authoritarianism and hate. (more…)

In 1940, a ship called the S.S. Quanza left the port of Lisbon carrying several hundred Jewish refugees to freedom. Most of them held life-saving visas issued by the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. But events went terribly wrong, and the passengers became trapped on the ship when no country would accept them. Nobody Wants Us tells the gripping true story of how Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in to save the passengers on board. Other heroes of the Quanza were the lawyers Jacob and Sallie Morewitz and members of the National Council of Jewish Women. This is an episode in American history that everyone should know!
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In 1943, during the darkest times of human history, a handful of people in tiny Bulgaria stood up against Hitler… and succeeded. This is a true story about the remarkable rescue of 49,172 people — the entire Jewish population of Bulgaria. Plamen Petkov‘s documentary film 49,172 tells the story.

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11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK

6 PM LONDON • 7 PM PARIS • 8 PM JERUSALEM

(Please note: Daylight Savings Time in the United States)

“We Jews don’t have saints, but we do have tzaddikim, righteous people, people of tzedek, of justice. Perhaps the word could also be translated as ‘decency.’”

– Zuzana Růžičková, Holocaust survivor, speaking about Fredy Hirsch
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1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK

Join us for a celebration!

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Hava Nagila (The Movie) is a documentary romp through the history, mystery and meaning of the great Jewish standard. Featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte, Leonard Nimoy, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Regina Spektor and more, the film follows the ubiquitous party song on its fascinating journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the kibbutzim of Palestine to the cul-de-sacs of America. High on fun and entertainment, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is also surprisingly profound, tapping into universal themes about the importance of joy, the power of music and the resilient spirit of a people. 

“When you find a song that says ‘Let us rejoice,’ there’s no better song to leave an evening with. Hava Nagila tells us who we should be and what we, in a fundamental sense, aspire to be – peoples of love and joy and peace.” – Harry Belafonte
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11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK

7 PM LISBON • 9 PM JERUSALEM

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Artur Carlos de Barros Basto was a captain in the Portuguese military who was discharged as a Jew despite having been raised as a Catholic. Descended from a family forcibly converted during The Inquisition, he rediscovered his Judaism and underwent a formal conversion. Then he built the largest synagogue in the Iberian peninsula in order to attract other “conversos” to reclaim the religion of their ancestors. A remarkable story!  (more…)

1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK

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This Mother’s Day program remembers the brave partisan Faye Schulman, whose photographs are the only visual record of the resistance action of the Polish partisans. The program is co-presented with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF) and will be moderated by Mitch Braff.
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11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK

7 PM LONDON

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Felix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy pianist and composer who was famous from a young age. Born into an illustrious Berlin Jewish family (his grandfather was the theologian Moses Mendelssohn who began the assimilation of Jews into German society), Felix was baptised Lutheran, along with his siblings, at the age of seven, in part because at that time Jews in Germany did not have full civil rights. For the rest of his short life (he died at age 38), Mendelssohn strove to unite the two religions in his music, continuing what his grandfather had begun. He became one of Germany’s most beloved composers, and millions of brides have walked down the aisle to his Wedding March. One hundred years later the Nazis came to power, banned Mendelssohn’s music in Germany and re-classified his (mainly Lutheran) descendants as Jews, threatening their lives. One of these descendants, the filmmaker Sheila Hayman, decided to tell her family’s story on screen. Her wide-ranging and fascinating film is about the madness of labels and the unifying power of music.

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