lecture
Family History Today: Researching your Jewish Ancestors in Greater Hungary – Live on Zoom
Jordan Auslander, forensic genealogist and author of the Genealogical Gazetteer for the Kingdom of Hungary, will provide an overview of resources available online and in European archives for tracing your family history in Hungary and former Hungarian territories over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. He will also discuss Jewish demographics, record keeping, the Holocaust, and the diasporas before and after World War II, concluding with an examination of the contemporary resurgence of Jews in Hungary in the face of Viktor Orbán’s regime.
Ticket Info: Pay what you wish; register here
Presented by:
lecture
film and panel discussion
When We Went MAD!: The Unauthorized Story of MAD Magazine – In-Person Event
For generations, MAD Magazine shaped and warped its readers’ senses of humor and their very outlook on the world around them. From the McCarthy hearings and the Cold War to Taylor Swift and social media, MAD Magazine was there to poke fun at all of it. When We Went Mad! presents the (unauthorized) history of America’s oldest and most influential humor magazine. From MAD’s landmark court case that ensured satire as free speech to its maverick publisher who kept the water cooler filled with white wine, MAD lived its very ethos. With celebrity interviews from Judd Apatow, Quentin Tarantino, Howie Mandel, Gilbert Gottfried, David Zucker, Bryan Cranston, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and a plethora of the people who created MAD, When We Went Mad! is a celebration of MAD, the nutty geniuses behind it, and the indelible impression they left on American culture.
Join us for a screening of this new documentary followed by a panel discussion with director Alan Bernstein, former MAD executive editor John Ficarra, former MAD senior editors Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau, and MAD’s maddest writer, Dick DeBartolo.
Ticket Info: $10 general; $8 seniors/students, $6 members; register here
Presented by:
film and panel discussion
book talk
A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews - In-person Event
Shaul Kelner, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Sociology at Vanderbilt University, joins us to discuss his book A Cold War Exodus: How American Activists Mobilized to Free Soviet Jews with moderator Gal Beckerman.
What do these things have in common? Ingrid Bergman, Passover matzoh, Banana Republic®, the fitness craze, the Philadelphia Flyers, B-grade spy movies, and ten thousand Bar and Bat Mitzvah sermons? Nothing, except that social movement activists enlisted them all into the most effective human rights campaign of the Cold War.
The plight of Jews in the USSR was marked by systemic antisemitism, a problem largely ignored by Western policymakers trying to improve relations with the Soviets. In the face of governmental apathy, activists in the United States hatched a bold plan: unite Jewish Americans to demand that Washington exert pressure on Moscow for change.
A Cold War Exodus delves into the gripping narrative of how these men and women, through ingenuity and determination, devised mass mobilization tactics during a three-decade-long campaign to liberate Soviet Jews—an endeavor that would ultimately lead to one of the most significant mass emigrations in Jewish history.
Drawing from a wealth of archival sources including the travelogues of thousands of American tourists who smuggled aid to Russian Jews, Shaul Kelner offers a compelling tale of activism and its profound impact, revealing how a seemingly disparate array of elements could be woven together to forge a movement and achieve the seemingly impossible. It is a testament to the power of unity, creativity, and the unwavering dedication of those who believe in the cause of human rights.
Ticket Info: $10 General Admission, $40 Admission + Copy of the book
Presented by:
book talk
film screening
Family Treasures Lost & Found - In-person Event
Join the American Jewish Historical Society and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research for a premiere film screening of Family Treasures Lost and Found, followed by a talkback with filmmakers Karen A. Frenkel and Marcia Rock.
In Family Treasures Lost and Found, journalist Karen A. Frenkel investigates her parents’ unspoken WWII stories. She knew little about their lives before and during the Holocaust, but her detective work leads to astonishing revelations of her family’s riveting journeys through Europe, Cuba, Mexico, and New York. Karen shares steps in family history research such as using digital and real-world archives to fills gaps in what she was told. A family archive of portraits, photos, documents, and artifacts also reveals the cultural life of pre-war urban assimilated Polish Jews. The process deepens Karen’s appreciation for her relatives’ resistance to fascism, luck, altruism, and the reasons for their silence. She honors her parents, sole surviving grandfather, and lost relatives, who cease to be mere names. Ultimately, Karen’s sleuthathon ensures that memories of a vanished culture will endure and shows why filling in the blanks of lives lost is important not only to her, but to the history of the Jewish people and society as a whole.
Family Treasures Lost and Found is a Women Make Movies Production Assistance Program Project. Established in 1972, Women Make Movies is a 501(c)3 nonprofit media arts organization registered with the New York Charities Bureau of New York State.
Karen A. Frenkel: (www.karenafrenkel.com) is an award-winning journalist, author, and documentary producer. Previous documentaries: Minerva’s Machine: Women and Computing (1995) won Best Documentary in a Small Market, 1997 EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award) given by National Women’s Political Caucus and Radcliffe College, Best Documentary, Brooklyn Arts Council, 30th Annual International Film and Video Festival, Best Television Series, Runner Up, Eleventh Annual Computer Press Award. Net.LEARNING (1998) won the 1998 National Education Reporting First Prize, Television Documentary and Feature. Both documentaries aired on public television. Ms. Frenkel co-authored with Isaac Asimov Robots: Machines in Man’s Image (Harmony 1985). Her articles have appeared in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CACM, Discover, Essence, FastCompany.com, Forbes, Scientific American, Technology Review, and The New York Times among others. She blogs for The Times of Israel about her parents’ survival during World War II, fascism, and political parallels today.
Marcia Rock: Marcia’s documentaries cover international dilemmas, women’s issues as well as personal perspectives. Before Family Treasures, Rock co-produced and directed. UnReined, about an Israeli equestrian Champion, Nancy Zeitlin, who built the first Palestinian equestrian team. Rock also produced SERVICE: When Women Come Marching Home about women transitioning from active duty to civilian life, NY Emmy. She covered the changing role of women in Northern Ireland, Daughters of the Troubles: Belfast Stories, AWRT Grand Documentary Award. McSorley’s New York is about the history of the NY Irish and won a NY Emmy. She experimented with personal storytelling in Dancing with My Father. Rock started and is the director of News and Documentary at the NYU Carter Journalism Institute and co-authored with Marlene Sanders, Waiting for Primetime: The Women of Television News.
Ticket Info: General Admission: $10, Students: $5
Presented by:
film screening
conversation
At Lunch with Joan Nathan – Live on Zoom
Julie Salamon (New York Times best-selling author) sits down with award-winning cookbook author Joan Nathan. Joan is the author of twelve cookbooks including her latest work, My Life in Recipes: Food, Family, and Memories. Her books Jewish Cooking in America and The New American Cooking both won James Beard Awards and IACP Awards. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and other publications. Nathan’s PBS television series, Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan, was nominated in 2000 for the James Beard Award for Best National Television Food Show. She was also senior producer of Passover: Traditions of Freedom, an award-winning documentary sponsored by Maryland Public Television. Nathan has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs including the Today show, Good Morning, America, The Martha Stewart Show and National Public Radio.
Ticket Info: Free; register online for a Zoom link
Presented by:
conversation
film screening and discussion
Joseph Brodsky: Epitaph for a Centaur, Six Years Later - In-person Event
Join YIVO and Poetry in America for a panel discussion and screening of a short film examining the life of Joseph Brodsky, the celebrated Russian-Jewish American writer and Nobel Laureate.
Through analyses of two of Brodsky's evocative poems, “Epitaph for a Centaur” and “Six Years Later,” this 25-minute film encapsulates Brodsky's exploration of identity, belonging, and the passage of time. The film examines the paradoxical relationship between the U.S. and Russia during the Cold War, intricately portrayed through the symbolic figure of the centaur—a representation of Brodsky’s own multi-faceted existence as Russian, American, and Jewish. By delving into the intricate language of Brodsky’s poetry, this short film explores Brodsky’s Jewish identity, his legacy, and the political undertones of his writing.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.
Ticket Info: Free; registration is required
Presented by:
film screening and discussion