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Documentaries

Documentaries

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Documentaries
  • Why We March

    Movie

    Follow three Holocaust survivors on a six-day trip across Poland as they re-visit the death camps they were imprisoned in. From the killing field of Majdanek to the infamous Auschwitz camp, the survivors tell their stories and share their lives with the younger generation in order to make sure hi...

  • The Rise and Fall of the Borscht Belt

    Movie + 3 extras

    For over 50 years, the Catskill Mountains of New York State were the summer retreat of millions of Jews, mostly of Eastern European origin, from New York City. The “Borscht Belt” – as it was affectionately known – became the model for vacation practices throughout the United States, and the train...

  • P.S. Jerusalem

    Movie

    Filmmaker Danae Elon returns to Jerusalem after living abroad for several years. 'P.S. Jerusalem' is about a family's personal journey to establish themselves in Jerusalem in a quest to find a place they can call "home."

    "A cross between home movie and documentary essay, P.S. Jerusalem emerges a...

  • Is Anybody Listening?

    Movie

    Psychologist and author Paula J. Caplan grew up listening to - but not remembering - stories her beloved father, Jerome A. Caplan, told annually about being Captain of an all-Black battery in The Battle of the Bulge. Bewildered at her inability to remember those stories, she met with and listen t...

  • The Patriarch's Room

    Movie

    In 2005, the elderly Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem was accused of selling properties to Jewish Settlers. He was deposed and confined to his room in the Old City for eleven years. Documentarian Danae Elon (Another Road Home, P.S. Jerusalem) forges a special relationship with ...

  • The Church

    Movie

    The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the holiest Christian site, is shared by six denominations fighting each other for every square meter. Two Muslim families, guardians of the entrance key to the church, argue who is the true key custodian. Jonny, an Israeli police officer in charge, ...

  • The Heart of Auschwitz

    Movie

    A filmmaker goes on a search to discover how a beautiful hand made birthday book came to be within the walls of a concentration camp, who its makers were, and how it came to survive the horrors of war and decades after to end up in the Holocaust memorial in Montreal. This feature documentary is t...

  • I Danced for the Angel of Death: The Dr. Edith Eva Eger Story

    Movie

    After dancing for her life in front of Dr. Joseph Mengele, bestselling author Dr. Edith Eva Eger relays the events of her life - including her imprisonment at Auschwitz, her struggle with survivor's guilt and how her work as a psychologist has helped her grow and heal - in this striking, one-of-a...

  • Lieber-Man

    Movie

    The meteoric rise of Avigdor Lieberman was the first sign of a new era in the state of Israel - and with it, the fall of "the old elites," the right wing trend, and the emergence of "the second Israel" as the dominant political force. But Lieberman himself, who immigrated at the age of 20, withou...

  • Bob Hope: Entertaining the Troops

    Movie

    Filmmaker Robert Mugge pays tribute to hundreds of American performers who assisted the military in World War II with rare period performances by beloved Jewish artists such as Jack Benny, Dinah Shore, Danny Kaye and Mel Blanc, plus Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Frances Langford, the And...

  • The Dreamers

    Movie

    Orthodox women Ruchama and Tikva embark on a journey to fulfill their dream of making movies within their closed society. Like other orthodox women who in recent years have started making films for strictly female audiences, they feel a strong need to express themselves despite strict rabbinical ...

  • In the Land of Pomegranates

    Movie

    The pomegranate is the fruit of the land, a symbol of rejuvenation and rebirth. It is also a euphemism for a hand grenade. From the Academy Award-nominated director of 'The Restless Conscious' comes a suspenseful, multi-layered documentary centered on a group of young people born into a violent, ...

  • Irwin & Fran

    Movie

    Narrated by Susan Sarandon! | At 100 years old, Professor Irwin Corey finally reveals the magic behind his subversive and sophisticated double-talk. Irwin and his chain-smoking wife, confidante and #1 fan, Fran, afford filmmaker Jordan Stone intimate access to their lives and the inner workings o...

  • Sukkah City

    Movie

    When best-selling author Joshua Foer began to build his first sukkah, a small hut that Jews build and dwell in every fall for the holiday of Sukkot, he wanted to move beyond the generic plywood boxes and canvas tents that have become the unimaginative status quo. And so was born the design compet...

  • One for the Road

    Movie

    As she moves from Brazil to New York, filmmaker Fernanda Roth Faya looks back at her grandmother's migration as a way to find traces of her own identity in this nuanced short documentary.

    Directed by Fernanda Roth Faya
    United States/Brazil, 2019
    Documentary, Jewish Culture, South America
    Portugu...

  • Anti-Semitism: 2000 Years of History

    1 season

    The history of anti-Semitism is a story of demonization deeply intertwined with the societies, countries, and ages where it takes place.

    To understand a phenomenon as immemorial and powerful as anti-Semitism, whose manifestations have survived the destruction of Europe's Jews, requires a deep di...

  • In the Shadow of Memory

    Movie

    Tragedies play out for years. IN THE SHADOW OF MEMORY focuses on Jerri Zbiral, the daughter of a survivor of the Nazi destruction of the Catholic village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia. Even though Jerri was born after the war, her mother’s stories had a profound effect on her life. This compelling st...

  • Balkan Jazz

    Movie

    This documentary tells the life story and music of Niko Nissimov, and his Jewish friends from the Bulgarian Jazz band 'The Optimists'. The movie charts their rise to stardom as a band in late 1930's Bulgaria. The beginning of WWII changed everything for them, as Bulgaria joined the Axis powers. A...

  • Saving the Hermans

    Movie

    With their three children, the Hermans set off on an adventurous trip from Thailand to Laos, Cambodia, China, and Kazakhstan, and from there along the Silk Road to Cyprus. Their journey is a fulfillment of a dream, and a chance to save their marriage. They fight and quarrel, laugh and cry. They m...

  • The Optimists

    Movie

    How did 50,000 Bulgarian Jews survive the Holocaust despite the efforts of the government to deport them? The Optimists tells the dramatic story of Christians and Muslims who, at the eleventh hour, secured the safety of their Jewish neighbors. Individuals made a difference. Labor unions, the Bulg...

  • There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv

    Movie

    In 1935, Max Shorenstein left his honorable position as chief Rabbi of Copenhagen, to fulfill a longtime dream: to build a zoo in Tel Aviv and teach the local children about the love of animals. Against all odds, the Tel Aviv Zoo became the city’s greatest attraction .Yet envy, greed and corrupti...

  • 21 Days Inside

    Movie

    This unique documentary uses police archives, reenactments and animation to reveal the story of a Bedouin woman whose life is changed forever when her two-year old toddler is found at the bottom of a well in the Negev Desert. During 21 days of detention and interrogation, police officers exploit ...

  • Keep Quiet

    Movie

    As vice-president of Hungary’s far-right extremist party, Csanad Szegedi espoused anti-Semitic rhetoric and Holocaust denials, and founded the Hungarian Guard, a now-banned militia inspired by a pro-Nazi group complicit in the murder of thousands of Jews during WWII. But his life was soon upended...

  • From Slavery to Freedom

    Movie

    FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM portrays the story of Soviet "Refuseniks" through the prism of Natan Sharansky's biography. In 1977, Sharansky, a famous human rights activist, was arrested on charges of spying for the USA, treason and anti-Soviet agitation. The film takes you back to a Soviet era where t...