From: friedenb@elm.egr.msu.edu (Gedaliah Friedenberg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Need help finding a film
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:48:38 GMT
Reply-To: friedenb@elm.egr.msu.edu (Gedaliah Friedenberg)
Organization: College of Engineering, Michigan State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 35.8.14.24


(NOTE:  Skip to the ############# below if you don't have time to read this
entire post)

I have a humanities class this term.  I am taking a humanities class 
which is about Jews from 1880-1967, focusing on American immigration.
The prof is planning to show a terible documentary which shows
Orthodox Jews in an *extremely* negative light.

The film (true story) is about some Jewish leaders from Ney York who go 
to an old Jewish community in Germany in the late 1980's.  They ask 
the old community what can be done for them by the Jews in America.
The German community asks for a Bar-Mitzvah, since there had not been
one in that community in over 30 years.  

So the American Jewish leaders had an essay contest for 12 year old
boys and the winner would get to go Germany for his Bar-Mitzvah.
A boy was selected and he, his family (reform), and their Rabbi
(a woman) went to Germany.

An Orthodox Rabbi in NY heard about the selection, and tried to persuade
the boy and his family to have an Orthodox Bar Mitzvah.  The family
declined, so that Rabbi protested to the administrators of the essay
contest, who also declined to change their decision.

So, the day before the boys Bar Mitzvah in Germany, the O Rabbi went to
Germany.  There insued a *huge* fight between the woman Rabbi and the O
Rabbi (the woman Rabbi flipped out over the mechitzah, the O Rabbi
flipped out when the woman Rabbi decided to wear a tallis on the bimah
when she gave the dvar Torah and when the "document"arian filmed the Bar-Mitzvah
on Shabbos and took pictures of him) etc.

This film shows a difficult conflict, to be sure.  But the film is so
incredibly biased showing the Orthodox Rabbi as coercive and mean etc.

I asked the prof why he plans to show this film, and he said that he is
trying to show the bridging of the gap between pre-Holocaust German Jews
and young American Jews of the 1990s.  I aked him if it was necessary to 
show the part (roughly 30-35% of the film) depicting the conflict 
between the Rabbis, and he said that he was not willing to cut and paste 
the film (although he did this to Fiddler on the Roof due to the length of
the film!).  He plans to show the entire film.

The film is taken from an extremely biased perspespective, and I would 
prefer if the prof would not show it.

#########################
Now, if I can present him with a better film which shows the bridging of 
the gap between pre-Holocaust German Jews and young American Jews, I think
that I could get him to change his mind on showing the first "documentary."

I need ideas!  Please email if you have any films which could be a good for
this purpose.  I appreciate your help!

Gedaliah Friedenberg
-=-Department of Mechanical Engineering
-=-Department of Metallurgy, Mechanics and Materials Science
-=-Michigan State University


                   
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