The Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival and Generations After are excited to co-host the Southwest premiere of the new documentary film, “The Return”, at the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Historical Society on Tuesday, May 19, 2015 at 7:00pm.
“The Return” is the fascinating story of four young Polish women who were raised Catholic, only to discover in their teens they were actually Jewish. Alongside the film’s quartet of dynamic twentysomethings, Zucker invites audiences to explore a tiny but growing sector of young Poles attempting to pioneer an authentic Jewish identity with little knowledge of their long-buried ancestry in a country still regarded as a “Jewish graveyard.”
Before World War II, Poland was the epicenter of European Jewry and home to 3.5 million Jews. In the aftermath of the Holocaust and through the fall of communism in 1989, only an estimated 20,000 Jews remain.
The Return’s award-winning director Adam Zucker will be present at the premiere and conduct a post-film question and answer session with the audience.
More information at www.gpjff.org. Phone orders only: 602-753-9366
The Center for Holocaust Education and Human Dignity of the East Valley JCC presents “Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi: The Gray Zone of Holocaust Survival” 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 18, at Chandler Center for the Arts.
Professor Nancy Harrowitz of Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies will read written works by two Auschwitz survivors, Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, and discuss how they started a new life after the Holocaust.
Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi are the two most widely read authors on the subject of the Holocaust. They share their harrowing and deeply moving stories in very different ways, but are tied together through a deeply philosophical perspective, an emphasis on social justice, and the meaningful legacies they have left behind. How do they create an approach to the Holocaust that brings readers to appreciate its importance in today’s world? How can looking at their stories and how they tell them help us understand their relevance? What can we learn from these two writers/survivors? The program is the debut of a partnership with Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.
Nancy Harrowitz is a professor of Italian and Jewish studies at Boston University. She has published widely on anti-Semitism and gender in the modern period. Her most recent work includes the book “Primo Levi and the Identity of a Survivor.” At Boston University, she teaches courses on modern Italian literature, film and literature produced under fascism, and representations of the Holocaust in literature and film. She also directs the school’s new minor in Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies.