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GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II

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GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II

3/24: Q&A filmmaker Lisa Ades, producer Amanda Bonavita & historian James Young

2017. 91 m. Lisa Ades. US. English. Rated NR.

Accomplished director Lisa Ades (Miss America) tells the profound and rousing story of 550,000 brave men and women who were active participants in the fight against Hitler, bigotry, and intolerance. Many were immigrants who had close family in Europe and who earned their American citizenship by shedding blood. Like all Americans, they battled fascism, but they also participated on a more personal front—to save their fellow Jews. Speaking on camera are “the greatest generation” of Jewish-Americans, both famous and unknown, including Ed Koch and writer/directors Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. After years of struggle, the survivors emerged transformed, more profoundly American and more deeply Jewish, determined to continue the fight for equality and tolerance at home.

Sponsored by The Jewish Week

Tickets: $10 (members), $15 (nonmembers)

PAST EVENTS

Q&A filmmaker Lisa Ades and editor and publisher of The Jewish Week Gary Rosenblatt
Sunday, Mar. 25 2018, 3:00
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Lisa Ades is a documentary filmmaker who has produced and directed films for PBS and cable television for more than 25 years. Her acclaimed film Miss America premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before its broadcast on PBS in 2002. Previously, she produced award-winning films with Ric Burns, including New York, a ten-hour series, (PBS, 1999), The Way West (PBS, 1995), and The Donner Party (PBS, 1992). Other documentaries include Beauty in a Jar (A&E, 2003), In the Company of Women (IFC, 2004), and Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (IFC, 2005). Most recently, she directed a seven-part series on the history of the Jews of Syria, The Syrian Jewish Community: Our Journey Through History, including an episode on WWII.

Gary Rosenblatt has been editor and publisher of The Jewish Week of New York, the largest Jewish newspaper in America, since the summer of 1993. Prior to that he was editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times for 19 years. Rosenblatt is founder and chairman of The Conversation, an annual retreat for American Jewish leaders and emerging leaders; founder of The Jewish Week Investigative Journalism Fund; and founder and chairman of Write On For Israel, an educational program for Israel -- through journalism -- for high school students. A collection from 20 years of his weekly columns, “Between The Lines: Reflections on the American Jewish Experience,” was published in 2013.

3/24: Q&A filmmaker Lisa Ades, producer Amanda Bonavita & historian James Young
Saturday, Mar. 24 2018, 7:30
This event is over. View all of our upcoming events.

Director/Producer: Lisa Ades is a documentary filmmaker who has produced and directed films for PBS and cable television for more than 25 years. Her acclaimed film Miss America premiered at the Sundance Film Festival before its broadcast on PBS in 2002. Previously, she produced award-winning films with Ric Burns, including New York, a ten-hour series, (PBS, 1999), The Way West (PBS, 1995), and The Donner Party (PBS, 1992). Other documentaries include Beauty in a Jar (A&E, 2003), In the Company of Women (IFC, 2004), and Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (IFC, 2005). Most recently, she directed a seven-part series on the history of the Jews of Syria, The Syrian Jewish Community: Our Journey Through History, including an episode on WWII.

Producer Amanda Bonavita has worked in commercial television, documentary and narrative film for the past fifteen years. Her previous documentary work includes 40th Anniversary of Stonewall (PBS, 2009) and Waiting for Hockney (Tribeca Film Festival, 2008).

James E. Young is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, former Chair of Judaic & Near Eastern Studies, and Founding Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author of five books on the Holocaust, memorials, and national memory, including: The Texture of Memory (1993), which won the National Jewish Book Award; At Memory’s Edge (2000); and The Stages of Memory (2016), which won Book of the Year Award from the National Council on Public History.

This film is part of the Westchester Jewish Film Festival 2018 series.



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