The historic Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, FL was awash with a bevy of influential Jewish American women yesterday morning when roughly sixty supporters of the Jewish Women’s Foundation of The Greater Palm Beaches gathered for a fundraiser keynoted by acclaimed filmmaker and documentarian Aviva Kempner. Kempner was in town to speak about her latest project, a biopic of former Sears tycoon Julius Rosenwald, and also to show her support for the Jewish Women’s Foundation causes.

The event, led by JWF Chair Gloria Fine, sought to educate women of The Greater Palm Beaches about the Foundation’s philanthropic work focused on Jewish women and young girls; the organization champions for these causes both locally and abroad. After a warm welcome and a lovely motzei led by Event Chair Joan Daniels, JWF co-chair Edith Gelfand introduced Ms. Kempner and informed the crowd of the filmmaker’s illustrious career and many well-deserved accolades.

In her speech, Kempner praised the courage and dedication of the women of the JWF, and noted the importance of social change—a goal that members of the Foundation take very seriously when discussing the importance of providing women and girls the opportunity to learn that they “have the power to nurture and heal, take hold of opportunities, and be a force for good.”

When discussing the inspiration for her films, Kempner explained that much of the motivation behind creating her illuminating documentaries (such as “Partisans of Vilna”, “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”, and “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg”) was initiated as a response to the perpetuation of unfavorable stereotypes of Jewish men and women in Hollywood. Be it the “nebbishy, bespectacled Jewish man” or the “ugly, overbearing Jewish mother”, Kempner sought to shatter such generalizations with her work – and shatter them she did. Kempner has received over twelve major awards, such as the 2008 National Endowment for the Arts, and the 2001 Media Arts award form the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, among many others, since the release of her first film in 1986.

To a rapt crowd, Kempner spoke about the importance of supporting Jewish causes, even in a time when the racial climate in America has been more accepting than ever. A large theme of Kempner’s speech was that we must not forget our history – be it the Holocaust, or important Jewish figures who have seem to somehow been forgotten in history textbooks.

In the case of Julius Rosenwald, the subject of her latest film, members of the JWF and supporters of the Foundation watched the twenty minute work in progress of Kempner’s new film, “The Rosenwald Schools”, a working title. In the film, we learn about the noble philanthropic determination of a self-made, wealthy Jewish man from Chicago. Rosenwald used his power as the head of Sears Roebuck & Company in order to change the landscape of primary and secondary education for African-Americans in the South during the height of the Jim Crow era. As of yet, the film is unfinished—donations to complete the film can be made at www.rosenwaldschoolsfilm.org.

Kempner tends to find unlikely Jewish heroes and heroines; be it the baseball player who refused to play America’s favorite pastime on the holiest day of the year, or the brilliant and talented woman who wrote 12,000 scripts while managing to invent the modern day sitcom; a woman so accomplished in the entertainment industry in the 1940’s-1950’s yet so undermined in today’s historical account of Jewish headline-makers.

Kempner’s speech and film were both a treat to enjoy. The JWF as well as Ms. Kempner were strong on their message: the support of Jewish causes has never been more important – and we must not forget our past in order to better facilitate our future.

Ariel Feldman, GWU Hatchet Staff Writer

photo by Edith Gelfand

Philip Loeb, accomplished actor and teacher, was one of the leading activists of the Actors’ Equity Association. At the height of his career in 1949 Loeb was blacklisted for his union activities as he was playing Jake Goldberg on the very popular Goldbergs show. Producer and co-star Gertrude Berg (Molly Goldberg) fought in vain to keep him on the show by attempting to get new sponsors. The demise of his career is featured in the film Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, a captivating, eye-opening documentary, excerpts of which will be shown along with other clips related to Loeb’s career.

Loeb committed suicide on September 1, 1955; this program commemorates the 55th anniversary of his death.

If you don’t know much about documentary—even if you love to see them so much that you will go out to the movies to see them—you probably have little idea how hard it is to make them.  All films are hard to make, but the writer and director of a fiction film about baseball doesn’t have to do enormous amounts of research about it, as Kempner has.  They can, but they don’t have to.  Kempner has thrown herself into extremely diverse fields of expertise in order to tell the stories she has—everything from the Holocaust to Native American rights, from the origins of television to voting rights.  This is to say that she knows a lot.  Whatever you see in her films is a very carefully crafted story, one that is deep and informative and often surprising.  But there’s so much behind that, every single time.

Something else it’s often easy to forget about documentaries is that, every time you see someone talking—every time you see one of those talking heads—there is a filmmaker behind that reflection who knew what questions to ask, how to draw a subject out, how to make that person comfortable enough to talk about things that might be difficult, how the keep things on track.  Kempner’s “talking heads” are never disembodied, never soulless—somehow she always manages to let the whole person come through even if the subject at issue is a relatively narrow one.

All of this is to remind us how unbelievably difficult it is to make an important, relevant, good documentary.  It is not for the faint of heart, not for the weak, not for those who give up easily.  And for being relentless, for caring so much, for her stamina, and for the remarkable films that resulted, Kempner has received awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. She has received a George Peabody Award and had been nominated for an Emmy.  This is, by the way, an incomplete list.  But it tells you that the Miller Reel Jewish Woman Award is moving into a very crowded neighborhood.

I want to signal what is my own crystallization of Kempner’s work.  In Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, the musical refrain of the tune of the Four Questions flits in and out of the picture.  It’s a tune most of us know and many of us have sung at some point in our lives. (I personally was loathe to give it up to my younger cousins, but life goes on.)  At first, we hear it only when Passover itself, or some other explicitly Jewish cultural practice is seen on the screen.  But then, as Kempner moves us through the story of how the first TV sitcom The Goldbergs—and its sui generis creator Gertrude Berg—articulated Jewishness, and a resolute, even gently defiant stance—ON NATIONAL RADIO—in the face of Nazi atrocities and domestic anti-Semitism, that refrain comes back.  And it reminds us what this film—and almost of all of Kempner’s films are really about.  Those four questions encapsulate the very notion of questioning that is so central to Jewish practice.  It is also, not coincidentally in this case, central to documentary practice.  Without questioning, and why we question, we’re doomed.

The Miller Reel Jewish Woman Award is funded by the Miller Foundation, which was establish by my grandparents, Avy and Roberta Miller, with the intention that subsequent generations would have the opportunity to support worthy causes. This grant that establishes the Miller Reel Woman Award for a Jewish Woman Filmmaker seems quite in keeping with their values. They had three daughters, and, like all Jewish parents, expected them to be smart and accomplished, and also to do good works. Without any bias at all, I can say that all three made their parents proud.  My mother was the first person in her family to go to college, and she became a contemporary art curator in a very traditional art museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, just down the street.  She’s always been aware of how difficult it is for women artists, and she and I both feel that it’s even harder for women filmmakers.  So the Miller Reel Woman Award recognizes that the excellence we’re going to see tonight is very, very difficult to achieve.

That it’s a Jewish filmmaker’s award gestures back to my grandparents, who were particularly alert to the needs of Israel and the need to sustain Jewish culture. They also understood the importance of contemporary cultural production—art and more.  And my grandfather, as an inventor, was always open to new ideas. So this award is our way of acknowledging the values and generosity of Avy and Bobbie, my grandparents. But that it is something we are so happy to do at the Charter Oak Cultural Center points to yet another family connection.  As it happens, it was my father, Tony Keller, who, in the early and mid-nineties, set Charter Oak solidly on the course to becoming an institution wholeheartedly committed to celebrating ALL of Hartford’s cultures.  This was a daring, unlikely new direction that wasn’t always popular with the dedicated preservationists whose determination had saved this beautiful structure—the first synagogue in Connecticut—from demolition.  So this is the literal place where my grandparents’ cultural affections and my father’s drive to serve the whole community have come to combine.

My grandparents would have loved Aviva Kempner’s work.  I mean really loved it.  My grandmother might even have developed an affection for baseball.  They would have loved its inclusiveness, its way of speaking intimately to Jews and convivially to everyone.  They would have loved how smart it is, how clear, how emotionally direct, how arresting the images can be.  The things that mattered most to my grandparents were love and education.  Aviva Kempner’s films educate us, but they also are so clear about specifically Jewish ways of affection.  There’s a moment in Hank Greenberg when the great ballplayer is told by a rabbi that it’s okay to play ball on Rosh Hashanah because somewhere in the Talmud there’s something about kids playing in the street on the New Year.  Hank plays ball, but on Yom Kippur he goes to shul.  What you only find out at the end of the story is that the rabbi declines to tell Greenberg that the kids in the street were Roman.  From start to finish that story is about love, and Aviva Kempner tells it masterfully.  I know she has lots more stories to tell today, so please join me in welcoming Aviva Kempner.

–Alexandra Keller

The woman in the window from “The Goldbergs” was comedienne Betty Walker. Born Edith Seeman in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Betty Walker was the daughter of Latvian immigrants who later appeared on many television programs.

Walker was known for a routine that involved a monologue to her friend “Ceil,” which also appeared in one of Walker’s comedy albums titled “Hello, Ceil It’s Me!” Over the course of her career, Walker released five comedy albums and appeared on prominent shows such as The Merv Griffin Show and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Her film career included “Exodus” starring Paul Newman, and “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” with Dustin Hoffman.

A great comedienne and even better neighbor, Betty Walker can be seen in Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg and in her supporting role throughout the duration of The Goldbergs series. Special thanks go out to Mitch Gallob for remembering Betty Walker.

Fifty-five years ago today, union activist and thespian Philip Loeb checked himself into the Taft Hotel in Midtown Manhattan under a false name and took a fatal dose of sleeping pills. Targeted by the insidious blacklist, Loeb could no longer find work in his beloved acting profession and had reached rock bottom.

Tonight, a panel of those who knew or have studied Loeb — including myself — will commemorate his career at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Loeb’s suicide was especially devastating considering how greatly he had fallen. Known as an actor’s actor, Leob taught his craft to the likes of Kirk Douglas, Rosalind Russell and Don Rickles. He also performed in such Broadway hits as “Room Service” with the Marx Brothers, and directed its signature food delivery scene.

Loeb reached the pinnacle of his career in 1949, when producer and writer Gertrude Berg cast him to play her husband Jake opposite her Molly character in “The Goldbergs,” which was then making a transition from radio to television. Loeb showed great dramatic range in the role, depicting the economic woes of a struggling Bronx family man and dress manufacturer.

Loeb was at the height of his popularity when the McCarthyist witch hunt reached Hollywood. The blacklist, which often targeted Jewish actors, had a devastating effect on the entertainment industry. Even better-known actors, directors and writers faced the destruction of their careers unless they snitched on others.

“The Goldbergs” ran into trouble when Loeb was falsely listed as a Communist in the anti-Communist pamphlet “Red Channels” because of his union activity. The show’s sponsors threatened to pull out, but Berg took a strong stand and refused to fire Loeb. Unfortunately, her efforts proved fruitless. In January 1952, a distraught Berg settled with Loeb, who left the show.

While the “The Goldbergs” recovered, it was never the same. Loeb could only work in summer stock theatre and his demoralization ultimately led to his suicide. Loeb’s friend Zero Mostel later memorialized the tragedy in the 1976 film “The Front,” in which a Loeb-like character is depicted jumping out the window.

Today, with family and friends in attendance, Actors’ Equity will re-dedicate the conference room named after Loeb that was created after his death. He is still revered for his contribution to the union’s efforts to make actors’ lives easier by advocating for rehearsal pay and better salaries.

What will not be written on Loeb’s plaque, however, is the true cause of his death. As actress Viola Harris noted at the time of his suicide, Leob died of “a disease called the blacklist.”

Have to say the discovered son in City Island is not quite as hot as Sammy Goldberg.

JCC in Manhattan – Thursday, July 8th @ 8pm

Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg had a marvelous and packed screening at the rooftop of The JCC in Manhattan on Thursday, July 8th.  Introducing the  film was director Aviva Kempner who was joined by interviewee Jack Urbont and sound mixer Skip Sorrell.  What was amazing about this screening is that the film was being shown among the New York skyline not far from where The Goldbergs fictionally took place in the Bronx.  A few days later, director Kempner got lost driving north from New York and ended up in the Bronx.  As if it was divine intervention, she found herself on Tremont Avenue, the very street where the Goldbergs lived.  Stranger than fiction.  Thanks to Ms. GPS she found herself back on the highway and tickled that she visited the Berg’s beloved Bronx by mistake.