2021 | Rated NR | 60 minutes | Digital | Click Title for Details
Attempting to better understand her grandfather Avrom Sutzkever, Israeli actress Hadas Kalderon travels to Lithuania, using her grandfather’s diary to trace his early life in Vilna and his survival of the Holocaust. Sutzkever (1913–2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet—described by the New York Times as the “greatest poet of the Holocaust”—whose verse drew on his youth in Siberia and Vilna, his spiritual and material resistance during World War II, and his post-war life in the State of Israel. Kalderon, whose native language is Hebrew and must rely on translation of her grandfather’s work, is nevertheless determined to connect with what remains of the poet’s bygone world and confront the personal responsibility of preserving her grandfather’s literary legacy.
After the film there will be a Q&A via Zoom with one of the directors, Christa P. Whitney
Christa P. Whitney is an oral historian and documentary filmmaker whose work focuses on language, culture, and identity. Originally from Northern California, she discovered Yiddish while studying comparative literature, Jewish studies, and dance at Smith College. Since 2010, she has traveled near and far in search of Yiddish stories as the director of the Yiddish Book Center’s Wexler Oral History Project, a growing collection of more than 1,300 in-depth video interviews. These full-length oral histories and curated excerpts are freely available online to all who seek a fuller understanding of the place of Yiddish in Jewish past, present, and future. In recognition of this work, Christa was named on the 2020 Forward 50 list of “people we needed in a year we definitely didn’t.” Her personal research focuses on Yiddish cultural transmission among descendants of Yiddish writers and Jewish history in the Samogitia region of Lithuania. Among other things, she is currently working towards an MBA from the Isenberg School of Management at UMass.
In partnership with YIVO Chicago.
