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Elliott Gould narrates this affectionate look at life in the shtetls of Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. "It's unreal that all this could have just disappeared," says Polish native Mariem Adler Stok, one of the seniors whose memories of this "Yiddish world" give this documentary its life. The hour traces Jewish history in Europe and explores Jews' focus on education, their religious customs, clothing, food, music and theater.
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60 min
2004-11-14
Released
English
1
10
Narrator
7.0
Commentator-comic Bill Maher plays devil's advocate with religion as he talks to believers about their faith. Traveling around the world, Maher examines the tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Islam and raises questions about homosexuality, proof of Christ's existence, Jewish Sabbath laws, violent Muslim extremists.
2008-10-01 | en
0.0
Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars the self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement, Zarah Leander. It is a melodrama of love, emigration, and betrayal reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa and Yiddish films from the 1930s and 40s.
2002-01-01 | en
5.5
An inspiring documentary film that details the life mission of Col. Ilan Ramon, the first and only Astronaut from Israel, who blasted off on the Shuttle Columbia. He carries with him a cherished artifact, a miniature Torah scroll, that had survived the Holocaust. From the "Depths of hell to the heights of space," his simple gesture would serve to honor the hope of a nation and to fulfill a promise made to generations past and future.
2011-05-01 | en
6.0
Lithuania, 1941, during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of texts on Jewish culture, stolen by the Germans, are gathered in Vilnius to be classified, either to be stored or to be destroyed. A group of Jewish scholars and writers, commissioned by the invaders to carry out the sorting operations, but reluctant to collaborate and determined to save their legacy, hide many books in the ghetto where they are confined. This is the epic story of the Paper Brigade.
2018-03-15 | fr
0.0
Najwa, Nawal, and Siham, three Palestinian widows, live with their 11 children in a house on Shuhada Street in Hebron. Their house lies on the border; the façade is under Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority controls the back. At the entrance to the house is a military post; on the roof the Israeli army has placed a watch point over Palestinian Hebron. The three women, trapped in the middle and constantly surrounded by Israeli soldiers, carry on their difficult lives in a perverse situation: the occupation becomes a routine, the absurd becomes a given. This is the story of an occupation that extends to the staircase and the roof of the house, where it encounters poverty, loneliness, pain, but also the small joys of everyday life. This is an internal prison, the external one is the ongoing occupation.
2001-02-22 | he
7.4
In the nine months prior to World War II, 10.000 innocent children left behind their families, their homes, their childhood, and took the journey... to Britain to escape the Nazi Holocaust.
2000-09-15 | en
7.1
Intent on shaking up the ultimate 'sacred cow' for Jews, Israeli director Yoav Shamir embarks on a provocative - and at times irreverent - quest to answer the question, "What is anti-Semitism today?"
2009-05-01 | en
0.0
A Jumpin' Night in the Garden of Eden was the first film to document the klezmer revival, tracing the efforts of two founding groups, Kapelye and Boston's Klezmer Conservatory Band, to recover the lost history of klezmer music. For nearly a millennium, this vigorous and soulful music was part of the celebration of Jewish life in Eastern Europe. In the early decades of this century, the music took root in America. Klezmer musicians learned hundreds of tunes by ear and their ears were open to Gypsy, Ukrainian and Greek melodies of the old world, as well as to the new sounds of American jazz. Music born in Eastern Europe lived on in the imaginations of composers for New York's Yiddish theater, men whose tunes entered the mainstream through such unlikely adapters as the Andrew Sisters. Eventually Klezmer went underground as its audience assimilated into mainstream American culture.
1987-01-01 | en
7.5
Documentarians Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg traveled to Israel to interview Palestinian and Israeli kids ages 11 to 13, assembling their views on living in a society afflicted with violence, separatism and religious and political extremism. This 2002 Oscar nominee for Best Feature Documentary culminates in an astonishing day in which two Israeli children meet Palestinian youngsters at a refugee camp.
2001-01-30 | en
0.0
The biggest trial of Nazi war crimes ever: 360 witnesses in 183 days of trial - a stunning and gripping portrayal of the most terrible massacre in history.
2013-01-02 | de
4.5
This story follows one man's quest to uncover the origins and reveal the mysteries of a possible Holocaust artifact some historians now say never existed: lampshades made of human skin. When the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina receded, they left behind a wrecked New Orleans and a strange looking lamp that an illicit dealer claimed was 'made from the skin of Jews.'
2012-09-29 | en
6.9
In an unprecedented and candid series of interviews, six former heads of the Shin Bet — Israel's intelligence and security agency — speak about their role in Israel's decades-long counterterrorism campaign, discussing their controversial methods and whether the ends ultimately justify the means.
2012-07-09 | he
0.0
An upbeat, witty, and timely exploration of a global community of artists creating innovative work in their quest to rediscover and revitalise the endangered Yiddish language. From behind-the-scenes with an acclaimed Yiddish-language version of Yentl in Melbourne, to enjoyably transgressive punk-Klezmer musicians, and Barrie Kosky’s latest trailblazing production in Berlin – the endangered Yiddish language is alive and well in this rousing documentary. The language originated amongst the Jewish community in Eastern Europe, but almost disappeared when more than half of the world’s Yiddish speakers were murdered during the Holocaust. Most of the artists and performers (aka Yiddishists) in the film didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish, but all have found solace, identity, and inspiration in its rich traditions and culture. Ros Horin has mapped a fascinating cultural history.
2024-06-09 | en
0.0
30 thousand Hasidim journey to Uman in Ukraine to celebrate the Jewish New Year at the gravesite of Rebbe Nachmann. A Ukrainian far-right group erects a cross at the site of Hasidic prayers and builds a monument to Cossacks who slaughtered thousands of Jews and Poles in 1768.
2015-11-19 | pl
0.0
Suburban DC accountant Neil Keller has amassed a collection of over 9000 items tracing the genealogy of every famous jew on earth.
2000-04-30 | en
0.0
Chaja Florentin and Mimi Frons have been best friends for 83 years. Born and raised in Berlin, they had to escape from the Nazis to Palestine with their families in 1934. They talk about their complicated relationship with Berlin in a Tel Aviv café where they meet everyday. A film about friendship, homeland and identity.
2013-06-22 | de
6.8
A reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of the crisis.
2011-09-09 | en
5.2
Documentary tracing the history of the Jewish people from the destruction of the temple in AD 70 to the modern-day nation of Israel. Through scriptural and historical evidence, DNA, mathematics, and testimony from rabbis and pastors, it attempts to answer the question, "Who are God's chosen people?".
2015-03-26 | en
7.0
SHANGHAI GHETTO recalls the strange-but-true story of thousands of European Jews who were shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution in the late 1930s. Left without options or entrance visas, a beacon of hope materialized for them on the other side of the world, and in the unlikeliest of places, Japanese-controlled Shanghai. Fleeing for their lives, these Jewish refugees journeyed to form a settlement in the exotic city, penniless and unprepared for their new life in the Far East. At the turn of the new millennium, filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amire Mann boldly snuck into China with two survivors and a digital camera to shoot at the site of the original Shanghai Ghetto, unchanged since WWII.
2002-02-28 | en
0.0
Some extreme anti-Semitics maintain the Jews were behind 9/11, are responsible for the spread of AIDS and other diseases, and that they invented the Holocaust. The Jews are also accused of murdering babies in ritual sacrifice, and of working towards a secret goal of world domination. Journalist and commentator David Aaronovitch travels to the Middle East to find out just how widespread such views are, what the causes are, and to ask what can be done to combat such thinking. Travelling between Israel and Gaza, Aaronovitch encounters a disturbing degree of hostility among the Palestinians. A trawl through recent excerpts of Palestinian TV reveals just how much animosity there is directed towards the Jews.
2006-09-05 | en