2017 - 2018

0662-1160-01
  Falling Stars: Yiddish Cinema Between East and West                                                  
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES
Aviv LivnatGilman-humanities279Wed1000-1200 Sem  1
 
 
University credit hours:  2.0

Course description

Yiddish film was part of the modern whirlwind, which threatened to destabilize Jewish society during the first decades of the twentieth century. Yiddish cinema reflects the social, psychological and spiritual turmoil that ended with the atrocities of the Holocaust.

While presenting the major Yiddish film repertoire, discussions on key issues will be developed from the revolutionary early days of Yiddish expression on the screen, its peak during the short "Golden age" in Poland and America, through the acquaintance with key figures among crew and cast in the production behind and on the screens. Various films deal with the fracture of traditional Jewish life and some anticipate the dramatic events to come.

The course will attempt to read the Holocaust through the Yiddish films according to its diverse themes, from the Dibbuk to experiences of detachment and wanderings, death, Kiddush Hashem and more. We will observe the transition of the Jewish cinema industry to the Ghettos and Death camps and the later attempts to renew it.

Films made shortly after the events of the Holocaust and in the following years after the collapse of Yiddish cinema are noted as fallen stars in a potential 'takeoff lane' with the Yiddish language sometimes serving as a subversive language which demands to raise its voice in the silenced soundtrack of lived cinema.

The Yiddish cinema corpus today serves as a living cultural monument for the Jewish world that was lost with the Holocaust and provides a unique path for a renewed examination and discussion on the trauma and commemoration aspects of the Holocaust.

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