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Abschied von gestern: Anita G = Yesterday Girl. 1966. Alexander Kluge collection. 1 videodisc (88 min.). A young German girl passes through the Berlin Wall to look for a better life in West Germany. Unfortunately her dreams elude her because she can't let go of the past. Includes two short films and a news clip from the Venice Film Festival in 1966. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 83
Affaire Blum = The Blum affair. 1948. 1 videocassette (110 min.). Dramatic film that looks at institutional antisemitism in pre-Hitlerite Germany. Based on actual events which occurred in the 1920s. An accountant responds to an advertisement and is murdered for his money. Mr. Blum, a Jewish businessman, is blamed for the murder by antisemitic police because the accountant was about to give evidence about a tax fraud involving Blum's company. The investigation and trial lead to a scandalous political affair. DVD 15269
Alles auf Zucker! = Go for Zucker. 2004. 1 videodisc (91 min.). Pool shark and hustler Jaeckie Zucker is up to his ears in debt. In a stroke of luck, his mother dies and leaves an inheritance. Before he can cash in, his mother has requested the difficult task of reconciling with his estranged Orthodox brother Samuel . HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 5617
Almonds and raisins: a history of the Yiddish cinema. 1988. 1 videocassette (90 min.). DOCUMENTARY A documentary on the Yiddish cinema in America, primarily in New York City from 1927 to the 1940's. Has contemporary footage of New York City and Eastern European village life. Includes interviews with those who have participated in the Yiddish cinema. Features extensive excerpts from Yiddish films (most subtitled in English) including "The Cantor's Son," "Overture to Glory" with Moishe Oysher, "Yidl Mitn Fidl" with Molly Picon and "Tevye" with Maurice Schwartz. DVD 15520
An American tail. 1986. 1 videocassette (81 min.). Follow the humorous and dramatic adventures of Fievel, a little boy mouse who journeys from Russia to America with his family to seek a new life free of cat persecution. During the stormy boat trip Fievel is lost at sea, finally washing up ashore in New York Harbor, where he vows to find his family. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7796
Andrzej Wajda: three war films. 2005. 3 videodiscs (286 min.). Pokolenie: Film follows the fortunes of one boy under the German Occupation who, along with an entire generation of Polish youth, took up the fight against the Germans with whatever means were at hand. A cocky Polish youth decides to fight the Nazis after he falls for a pretty resistance leader. As he and his friends help escapees during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the innocence of a generation is lost under the grueling conditions of war. Kanal: Set in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, a detachment of the Home Army is forced into the sewers where conflict and tension arise from the claustrophobic atmosphere below and the physical pressures of the German persecutors above. Popiól i diament: On the last day of World War Two in a small town somewhere in Poland, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland. In this incendiary environment we find Home Army officer Maciek Chelmicki, who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar. But a mistake stalls his progress and leads him to Krystyna, a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this director approved edition, with new transfers and extensive interviews with the director and his colleagues. Includes: Generation, Kanal, & Ashes and Diamonds. Descriptions are under each title. DVD 2851 - 2853
Annie Hall. 1977. 1 videodisc (93 min.). Woody Allen's semiautobiographical portrait of his amorous, but ultimately mismatched, relationship with co-star Diane Keaton. Allen uses satire and comedy to portray this "nervous romance" for modern times. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 126
The apartment. 1960. 1 videodisc (125 min.). An ambitious office clerk plans to get ahead by lending out his apartment to his boss, but falls in love with the boss's girlfriend. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2761
The apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. 1974. 1 videocassette (121 min.). The story of a young man in the Montreal Jewish ghetto of the 1940s who works and schemes his way out of the clutter and poverty of his surroundings. In his search to be "somebody," he uses those around him and resorts to lying and cheating yet he remains a sympathetic character. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 10777
Arranged. 2007. Film Movement series. 1 videodisc (89 min.). "[C]enters on the friendship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who meet as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common - not least of which is that they are both going through the process of arranged marriages."--www.imdb.com. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 3062
Avalon. 1990. 1 videodisc (128 min.). The story of several generations of a family, from the arrival of immigrant Sam Krichinsky in the suburb of Baltimore called Avalon down through his children and grandchildren. The family goes from poverty to prosperity and the world changes around them, but their love and humor hold the family together. Directed by Barry Levinson. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 5796
Bananas. 1971. 1 videodisc (82 min.). Absurd humor borders on insanity as a tester of strange gadgets quits his Manhattan job and flees to South America to eventually become leader of a mythical country. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 122
Barton Fink. 1991. 1 videodisc (116 min.). A trendy playwright is trying to write a simple movie script, but to his misfortune has a bit of writer's block. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1877
Bikur ha-Tizmoret = The band's visit. 2007. 1 videodisc (87 min.). The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrives in Israel from Egypt for a cultural event. Once there, they find the expected delegation is not there to meet them. Arrangements to get to their destination of Petah Tiqva have not been taken care of either. They find their own ride and arrive instead at the remote town of Beit Hatikva. Stuck there until the next morning's bus, the band, lead by the repressed Tawfiq Zacharaya, gets help from the worldly lunch owner, Dina, who offers to put them up for the night. As the band settles in the best it can, each of the members attempts to get along with the natives in their own way. What follows is a special night of quiet happenings and confessions as the band makes its own impact on the town and the town on them. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2755
The boy in the striped pajamas. 2008. 1 videodisc (94 min.). Set in Poland during World War II. Innocent and naive 8-year-old Bruno is bored and restless in his new home. Ignoring his mother, he sets off on an adventure in the woods. He comes across a high fence which separates him from the people he can see through it. Soon he meets a young boy in striped pajamas, and a surprising friendship develops. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 6278
But where is Daniel Vax? = Lean neelam Daniel Vax? 1974. 1 videocassette (95 min.). After many years of separation, two men, a successful doctor and a popular singing star who returns to Israel from abroad, meet at a high school reunion. Both men fantasize about their youth and the hero worship they once shared for Daniel Wax, the popular hero of their school class. Both emerge sadder but wiser when they find that Wax is now a professor with little hair and even less charisma. DVD 16314
Cabaret. 1972. 1 videodisc (124 min.). An egocentric American girl dreams of becoming a star while working in a third-rate Berlin cabaret. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 41
Campfire. 2005. Film Movement series. 1 videodisc (96 min.). A 42 year-old widowed mother of two teenage daughters wants to join the founding group of a new settlement in the West bank. This is about their struggles with the acceptance committee and their living as an outcast in the settlement. DVD 4119
Le chant des mariées = The wedding song . 2008. 1 videodisc (100 min.). Two 16-year-old girls have an intense friendship while living in Nazi-occupied Tunis in 1942. Nour is a Muslim who eagerly anticipates her wedding to a handsome cousin. Myriam is a French Jew who is furiously resisting her betrothal to a much older doctor. However, his money is needed by her family to pay fines imposed by the Nazis. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7288
The chosen. 1981. 1 videodisc (107 min.). The story of two teenage boys who become best friends despite huge differences in their upbringing. Danny is the son of an orthodox Hasidic Rabbi. Reuven comes from a progressive Jewish family whose father stands at the forefront of the battle for Israeli statehood. Danny's every moment is devoted to religious study, while Reuven plays jazz piano and is intensely interested in the changing world around him. Their family differences soon force both to make difficult choices. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 8315
Crimes and misdemeanors. 1989. 1 videodisc (104 min.). Weaving together several different stories about people's lives, loves, perceptions, and ideals, this examines some of the toughest questions surrounding human nature. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1648
Das boot ist voll = The boat is full. 1981. 1 videocassette (104 min.). Set in 1942 during World War II. The Swiss government, alarmed at the vast numbers of people fleeing Nazi Germany, has declared the country "a full lifeboat" and set up stringent immigration policies. When a Swiss innkeeper's wife finds a group of refugees hiding on her property she takes them in over her husband's objections. When the authorities are alerted, she, her husband and the townspeople must decide what to do. DVD 15493 and Streaming video
Deconstructing Harry. 1998. 1 videodisc (ca. 96 min.). Harry Block has gone through three wives, six psychiatrists and dozens of girlfriends during his long literary career. But when Harry writes a bestseller about his best friends, his best friends become his worst enemies. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 148
Defiance. 2009. 1 videodisc (136 min.). The deep forests of Poland and Belarus are the domain of the occupying Germans during World War II. The three Bielski brothers go into the forests to undertake the impossible task of foraging for food, weapons and survival, not just for themselves but for a large mass of Polish Jews fleeing from the German war machine. The brothers, living with the fear of discovery, must contend with neighboring Soviet partisans and deciding whom to trust. They take on the responsibility of guardians and motivate hundreds of women, men, children and elderly to join their fight against the Nazi regime while hiding in makeshift homes in the dark, cold, unforgiving forest. At the same time, the brothers turn a band of war defectors into powerful freedom fighters. Based on true events. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 8334
Démanty noci = Diamonds in the night; Sousto = Der Bissen = A bite to eat. 1964. 1 videodisc (74 min.). Diamonds of the night: Set in Czechoslovakia during World War II, film is a study of two Jewish boys who escape from a train which is taking them from one concentration camp to another only to be caught by local peasants and charged with stealing bread -- A Bite to eat: A short film with minimal dialogue that shows a feverish attempt to steal a loaf of bread from a Nazi-guarded train. DVD 7396
Der golem: wie er in die Welt kam = The Golem: how he came into the world. 1920. 1 videodisc (86 min.). Based on the legend of the golem, a popular figure in Jewish tradition. In medieval Prague, the Rabbi Loew gives life to the golem, a clay monster. The golem falls in love with the Rabbi's daughter and brings fear to the emperor's court, but is eventually destroyed by an innocent child. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 4650
The diary of Anne Frank. 2004. 1 videodisc (180 min.). A true story based on events recorded in the diary of a young Jewish girl during two years of hiding from the Germans in an Amsterdam attic. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 8690
Diary of Anne Frank. 2008. 2 videodiscs (150 min.). The story of a young girl who had to go into hiding during World War II for being different. Anne Frank's diary manages to create a truthful and timeless picture of domestic life in all its pettiness and normalcy, while never letting us forget the extraordinary threat of death that awaits the characters if they are discovered. This is the first authorized film based on actual entries of the real diary. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7037
Die Fälscher = The counterfeiters. 2008. 1 videodisc (99 min.). Germany, 1936. Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a life of cards, booze, and women. Suddenly his luck runs dry when he is arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. He is immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Berhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany's opponents. But, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop the operation. Now faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions are ultimately the right ones. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 4699
Diner. 1982 1 videodisc (110 min.). Set in 1959, a band of long-time buddies since high school gather at a local diner to share their escapades and make sense of their lives. As one by one they drift off to join the mainstream of life they still cling to their shared boyhood dreams. Directed by Barry Levinson. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2156
Dirty dancing. 1987. 1 videodisc (105 min.). Summer romance between a dance instructor and a guest at a hotel in the Catskills. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 296
The disputation: a theological debate between Christians and Jews. 1991. 1 videodisc (65 min.). Recreates a public theological debate between Christians and Jews, which were common during the Middle Ages. This one, held in Barcelona in 1263, was unique, being a genuine debate between Christianity and Judaism which brought to light the basic differences between the two religions. DVD 8659
Driving Miss Daisy. 1989. 1 videocassette (99 min.). Miss Daisy is white, Jewish, and no longer able to be trusted behind the wheel of a car. Hoke is the black man hired by Boolie, Miss Daisy's son, to be her chauffeur. The film covers their 25 year relationship in which they build the friendship of a lifetime. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 9738
Einayim Petukhoth = Eyes wide open. 2010. 1 videodisc (90 min.). Aaron, a butcher and devout family man in Jerusalem's ultraorthodox Jewish community, has his quiet life interrupted when Erzi, a handsome, young Yeshiva student, happens on his shop. Intrigued by the young man, Aaron offers Erzi a job and becomes his friend and mentor. The two grow closer, and soon other feelings surface. As their forbidden desire grows, Aaron begins to neglect his business and his family. But guilt, torment, and pressure from the community lead him to make a radical decision. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7738
The fearless vampire killers, or, pardon me, but your teeth are in my neck. 1967 . 1 videodisc (107 min.). A spoof of old vampire films finds a young maiden kidnapped by a Jewish vampire and his gay son. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 6513
The front. 1976. 1 videodisc (95 min.). Howard Price, a restaurant cashier, poses as a writer so that blacklisted authors can submit their work through him, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand when he is forced to testify at an investigative congressional committee hearing. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 343
Goodbye, Columbus. 1969. 1 videocassette (105 min.). A witty social satire. A young man from the Bronx, two years out of the army and still trying to decide what to do with the rest of his life, meets a wealthy young woman from Westchester County who has everything. They fall in love and the battle of values between the "haves" and the "have-nots" begins. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 12618
La grande illusion = Grand illusion. 1937. The criterion collection. 1 videodisc (114 min.). In this classic tale of adventure duty and honor conflict in a German prisoner-of-war camp when an aristocratic French officer becomes friends with the commandant while cooperating with his comrades in a daring escape. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 213
The great dictator. 1940. 2 videodiscs (125 min.). In Chaplin's first talkie, he plays the dual role of dictator Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who is a dead-ringer look-alike for der Nutsie...and who thwarts his plans for world domination. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 3796
ha-Hesder = Time of favor. 2000. 1 videodisc (101 min.). A taut thriller about the tense relationship between the orthodox nationalists and the Israeli military in the West Bank. Both a politico-psychological drama and a love story between a passionate woman and two best friends. Raises questions of faith to one's religion, duty to one's nation, and love for oneself. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 4053
Ha-Sodot = The secrets. 2008. 1 videodisc (127 min.). While studying at a women's religious seminary in Safed, Naomi and her new friend explore the complexities of a religious lifestyle in a vibrant environment of youth, rebellion, and desire as they befriend a beautiful, mysterious older woman. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 6500
La haine = Hate. 1995. 2 videodiscs (97 min.). Three young, unemployed Frenchmen living in the ghettos surrounding Paris get embroiled in a violent conflict with the local police. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1639
Hanna K. 1984. 1 videocassette (111 min.). Melodrama about a woman's search for identity in strife-torn Israel. Hanna Kaufman (Clayburgh), an Israeli defense attorney, is pregnant as a result of an affair with Joshua Herzog (Byrne), the zealous District Attorney of Jerusalem. The two wind up on opposing sides when she attempts to exonerate an accused Palestinian terrorist (Bakri) who is attempting to claim his ancestral home. DVD 15651
Haverim shel Yanah = Yana's friends. 1999. 1 videodisc (90 min.). Yana and her husband have just left Russia for Israel when the Gulf War starts. Yana's husband flees, but she stays behind, and when she's forced to share a room with her attractive neighbor, things quickly heat up. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 8617
Hester Street. 1975. 1 videodisc (90 min.). A young Jewish woman comes to America in the 1890s, only to discover that her husband, Jake, has given up the ways of the old country, and taken up with a new girlfriend, and a new life. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1168
Holocaust: the story of the family Weiss. 1994. 3 videocassettes (450 min.). "The time is the decade spanning the turbulent years of 1935 to 1945 -- an era that saw the extermination of over six million innocent people. As the action unfolds, two families living in Nazi Germany struggle to survive amid the chaos and horror of war. In the Weiss household, Inga watches helplessly as her family is split apart and scattered across the war-torn country. Choosing a different path to survival, the Dorf family joins the German war effort, as Erik Dorf becomes part of Hitler's dreaded SS. Deeply moving, unforgettably powerful, it's a story of the total devastation of war -- and the compelling power of the human spirit!" --from container. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 13169
The Holy land. 2004. 1 videodisc (101 min.). Set in Jerusalem, The Holy Land is a story of Mendy, a young rabbinical student who is restless to learn about the bigger world. On the unconventional advice of his teacher, Mendy visits a brothel in order to exhaust his lust and restlessness, but instead falls in love with a Russian prostitute, Sasha. Mendy plummets further when he discovers Mike's Place, a bar on the edge of society run by an American expatriate, where Muslims, Christians and Jews all mingle to unseen ends. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 6490
Homicide. 1992. 1 videocassette (100 min.). A tough cop in assigned to what appears to be a routine homicide case, only to be drawn into the center of a deadly conspiracy which causes him to question his personal beliefs and his loyalty to the force. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 13039
Hu halakh ba- sadot = He walked through the fields. 1967. 1 videodisc (93 min.). In 1946, a young man returns home from college to his kibbutz to find that his father has joined the British army and his mother is with another man. He meets a young Holocaust refugee and falls in love with her, but he is called to duty as the political turmoil in Israel, on the verge of statehood, reaches a boiling point. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1958
Hungry hearts. 1922. 1 videocassette (80 min.). Bittersweet classic that captures the hopes and hardships of Jewish immigrants in the New World. Focuses on the Levin family who emigrate from Eastern Europe to New York City. Abraham, the pious father, learned in religion but uninterested in business, has difficulty earning a living and adjusting to life in America. The daughter, Sara, scrubs floors in the tenement in order to earn money and "become a somebody." Hannah, the noble matriarch, scrimps and saves to paint her dingy kitchen white only to have her landlord raise the rent because of the improvement. DVD 9685 and Streaming video
Infinity. 1999. 1 videodisc (ca. 120 min.). True-life story of physicist Richard Feynman, who, as a young man fell madly in love with a beautiful young woman, Arline Greenbaum, with whom he shared a very special bond. In 1941, when the United States plunged into World War II, Feynman was recruited to work at Los Alamos on the top-secret government project that was to develop the first atomic bomb--a job he accepted, in part, because it allowed him to resolve the crisis that he and Arline would face alone. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 252
Inglourious Basterds. 2009. 2 videodiscs (153 min.). During World War II, a group of Jewish-American guerilla soldiers, led by Lt. Aldo Raine, become known as "The Basterds." They are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish woman who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers. A plot is set in motion to kill the Nazi leadership, including Adolph Hitler, at a movie premiere. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7555
Iskateli schast ia = Seekers of happiness. 2007. 1 videodisc (84 min.). During the late 1920s, many impoverished Jews searching for a better life made their way to Birobidzhan, the Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region on the Chinese border. The story of a Jewish family's immigration to Birobidzhan and their experiences as settlers on a collective farm in the area. While the family encounters hardships in adjusting to this new way of life, their search for assimilation is ultimately shown as positive. While the film is essentially a Soviet propaganda piece emphasizing the utopian dream of Birobidzhan, the reality of the area was harsh and inhospitable. DVD 4812
Jacob the liar. 1975 1 videodisc (96 min.). Trapped in a Polish ghetto with thousands of other Jews facing starvation or deportation to the death camps, Jacob is detained one evening at the local Gestapo headquarters. Eavesdropping, he overhears a radio report about a nearby Russian victory. At first he is silent, but circumstances compel him to pass on the good news of hope. In order to be believed, he feigns access to a hidden, strictly forbidden radio. Quickly he becomes a one-man bulwark against despair, a reluctant hero, but a tragic figure still-- a man ultimately powerless to see or change the fate of his people. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 349
The jazz singer. 1927. 3 videodiscs (89 min.). A Jewish cantor's son breaks with his family to become a popular music singer. DVD 3306
Jud Süss. 1996. 1 videocassette (ca. 95 min.). Based on the character of Josef Süss Oppenheimer who was tax advisor to Karl Alexander during the early 1700's and was publicly executed in Stuttgart for manipulation of state funds, film was made at the behest of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. In this version a power seeking Jewish man victimizes innocent Aryans. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 10836
Judgment at Nuremberg. 1961. 1 videodisc (186 min.). American judge Daniel Haywood presides over the trial of four German jurists accused of "legalizing" Nazi atrocities. But as graphic accounts of sterilization and murder unfold in the courtroom, mounting political pressure for leniency forces Haywood into making the most harrowing and difficult decision of his career. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1887
Jules et Jim = Jules and Jim. 1962. 2 videodiscs. Story of friendship between two artists and their mutual love for the same woman. Considered Truffaut's greatest film. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2657
Kadosh. 1999. 1 videodisc (117 min.). "Set in the Mea Sherim quarter of Jerusalem, an encalve of the utlra Orthodox, Kadosh explores a hermetic world almost never seen on the screen. Here for ten years the pious Rivka has devoted herself to her husband Meir, but their marriage remains childless. Presumed barren, she is rejected in her community, which prizes children above all else. The story that follows relates the harrowing fate of Rivka, and also her beloved sister Malka -- in love witha young man who has fled the community to lead a secular life"--Container. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 4239
Kanal = Canal. 1957. 1 videodisc (96 min.). Contains disc 2 of the three disc special ed. set from Andrzej Wajda. Set in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, a detachment of the Home Army is forced into the sewers where conflict and tension arise from the claustrophobic atmosphere below and the physical pressures of the German persecutors above. DVD 2582
Kedma. 2002. 1 videodisc (100 min.). A group of European Jewish refugees arrive in Palestine in the critical year of 1948. Carried on deck of the freighter, Kedma, they come ashore to find not the Promised Land, but a war torn desert in the bloody throes of transformation into the state of Israel. Rescued from a British Army ambush at beachside by Palmach Jewish guerrillas, the refugees are remade into soldiers expected to offer their lives to defend a nation that does not yet exist in a land they have never known. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 4055
Komissar = The Commissar. 1967. 2 videodiscs (105 min.). Set against the Russian Civil War. Vavilova has to make a decision between motherhood for revolutionary martydom. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2728
Korczak. 1990. 1 videocassette (118 min.). Tells the true story of Janusz Korczak, a renowned physician and author who ran a home for Jewish orphans in 1930's Warsaw. Eventually he is forced to move his home to the Warsaw ghetto. Though the children will be deported to concentration camps, Korczak vows to remain with them till the end. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 10546 and Streaming video
Lacombe Lucien. 1974. 1 videodisc (138 min.). Traces a young peasant's journey from potential Resistance member to Gestapo recruit. At once the story of a nation and one troubled boy's horrific coming of age, the disquieting portrait of lost innocence and guilt. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2020
The last butterfly. 1991. 1 videocassette (106 min.). A French actor is taken prisoner by the Gestapo and sentenced to perform in the "model city" of Terezin, a concentration camp filled with artists and children to prove to the world how well the Nazis treat the imprisoned Jews. But the actor discovers the horrifying truth and as he rehearses with a group of children in what is to be the last performance of their lives, he refuses to play a role in the Nazi's charade. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 3914
Lenny. 2009. 1 videodisc (111 min.). Depicts the rise to stardom of comedian Lenny Bruce and his fatal decline through drug addiction. HOME USE COLLECTION 5753
The life and times of Hank Greenberg. 1998. 1 videodisc (95 min.). Biography of Hank Greenberg, the first Jewish baseball star. DVD 267
Manhattan. 1979. 1 videodisc (96 min.). Allen portrays Isaac Davis, a successful comedy writer whose wife, having left him for another woman, is now embarking on a book about their failed marriage. Isaac happily consoles himself in the arms of an adoring 17 year-old schoolgirl until he meets someone closer to his own age, who happens to be his best friend's mistress. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 128
Marjorie Morningstar. 1958. 1 videodisc (ca. 125 min.). Marjorie Morningstar leaves her family and fiancé for a season of summer stock at an east coast resort, where she meets and falls in love with a handsome producer. He sweeps her off her feet and into a once-in-a-lifetime love affair and teaches Marjorie her first lessons about the theater and love. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 410
Mary and Max. 2009. 1 videodisc (92 min.). Mary is a lonely eight-year-old in the suburbs of Melbourne. Struggling with questions that no one can answer, she writes to Max, an obese 44-year-old Jewish man with Asperger's Syndrome living in New York City, which starts a friendship that spans 20 years and two continents. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 7589
Masada. 2007. 2 videodiscs (383 min.). In the first century A.D., Flavius Silva, commander of the Roman Tenth Legion in Palestine, leads his forces in combat against the remaining Jewish Zealots who have taken refuge in the seemingly impregnable fortress of Masada. There, the engineering and military might of Rome faces the passion and ingenuity of Eleazer ben Yair and his people. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 8620
Me-ahorei hasoragim = Beyond the walls. 1986. 1 videocassette (103 min.). The struggle between Arabs and Jews within the confines of an overcrowded Israeli maximum security prison is the focus of this film. In a joint effort, the two factions (headed by Israeli Arnon Zadok and Arab Muhamad Bakri) unite in a mutiny to halt the prison's increasingly inhumane regulations and conditions. DVD 4526
Mephisto. 1981. 1 videodisc (144 min.). An actor of the Art Theatre Company of Hamburg, who subordinates everything to his success, befriends a principal figure in the Nazi power machinery and is drawn into the poisonous circle of evil from which he can no longer escape. DVD 328
A mighty heart. 2007. 1 videodisc (108 min.). Jewish-American journalist, Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan in January of 2002. The violent act became an international scandal as the group that claimed responsibility for the crime demanded the liberation of prisoners from the American detainee prison in Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba. The American government does not give in to the terrorists' demands. Mariane travels to Pakistan and is alone, searching for the most important person in her life. Knowing the odds are against her, holding on to hope becomes all the more complicated when she is surrounded by a chaos that is absolutely inescapable. Yet still, Mariane must remain calm. After all, she is the heart of this operation. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 3326
Mizreḥ un Mayrev: East and west. 2006? 1 videodisc (85 min.). In a comedic film about assimilation and Jewish values, sophisticated New Yorker Morris Brown travels back to his village to attend his niece's traditional wedding. There he encounters the rambunctious Mollie, whose hijinks include boxing, and teaching other young villagers to shimmy. Mollie meets her match, however, in an engaging young yeshiva scholar who forsakes tradition and joins the secular world to win her heart. DVD 1030
Modlitba pro KaterÌŒina Horovitzovou = A prayer for Katerina Horovitzova. 1965 . 1 videocassette (90 min.). Tale of a Polish singer who becomes a pawn in a nefarious arrangement which entails exchanging Jewish captives for Nazi officers held in American prisons. DVD 13535
Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. 2004. 1 videodisc (95 min.). An elderly Turkish Muslim grocer befriends a lonely teenage Jewish boy in a working class section of Paris. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1551
Mother night. 1997. 1 videocassette (113 min.). An American playwright living in Germany is persuaded by a mysterious American to become an allied spy within the Nazi Party, with destructive effects for his life. He becomes a notorious spokesman for the Nazi's anti-American and anti-Semitic agenda. After the war, the writer begins to struggle with his shocking past - is he a hero, a villain, or both? HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 9305
Mr. Death: the rise and fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. 1999. 1 videodisc (92 min.). Provocative and chilling true story of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., the son of a prison worker and a self-taught execution expert who consulted with prisons across the country to make capital punishment more humane. When Leuchter is called in as a high-profile expert in a sensationalistic Canadian trial, his ego, bravado, and absurd testimony reach national media prominence. Ironically, what Leuchter thought was going to be an apex in his career only ruins it. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 449
Munich. 2006. 1 videodisc (ca. 164 min.). It's the 1972 Olympics and PLO terrorists have just kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes. After the tragic incident is over and several of the terrorists have gone free, the Israeli government of Golda Meir recruits Avner to lead a team of undercover agents to hunt down those responsible throughout Europe, and eliminate them one-by-one. It is physically and emotionally messy work, and conflicts between Avner and his team's handler, Ephraim, over information Avner doesn't want to provide only make things harder. Soon the work starts to take its toll on Avner, especially as it becomes clear that Avner is being hunted in return, and that his family's safety may be in jeopardy. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 2172
My favorite year. 1983. 1 videocassette (92 min.). Alan Swann is a legendary movie idol forced by the IRS to face the music--deportation or a TV appearance to pay up. Benjy is in charge of making sure Swann shows up sober. You are taken behind the scenes during the early days of live variety shows. DVD 15681
The myth of Masada. 1993. 1 videocassette (22 min.). Scholars and archaeologists examine the story of the defense and mass suicide at Masada and question the accuracy of Josephus' account of the mass suicide. DVD 15302
Nadyah = Nadia. 1996. 1 videocassette (90 min.). Nadia, a 16-year-old Arab girl from an Arab village in Israel, enrolls in Jewish boarding school to improve her chances to be accepted into medical school. Both Arab and Jewish classmates react to her with uncertainty and prejudice. DVD 8731
New York stories. 1989 1 videodisc (124 min.). A trilogy about life in the big city. "Life lessons" is the tale of a passionate painter torn between his obsession for his art and his infatuation with his sultry assistant. "Life without Zoe" is a whimsical fantasy of a very grown-up 12-year-old who brings charm and magic to life in New York. "Oedipus wrecks" is the story of a neurotic lawyer who cannot escape the influence of his mother. Directed by Woody Allen. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 5370
Norma Rae. 1979. 1 videodisc (118 min.). Norma Rae, a textile worker in a small Southern town, discovers that she has a social conscience when a labor organizer arrives at her mill to establish a union. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 440
Novia que te vea. 1993. 1 videocassette (ca. 114 min.). Two young Jewish women growing up amid the social turmoil of 1960s Mexico follow their separate paths toward marriage in defiance of tradition and their families' expectations. DVD 9750
Obchod na korze = The shop on Main Street. 1965 1 videodisc (125 min.). In 1942, Tono and his wife are struggling because of his antipathy towards the fascist regime. His brother-in-law, the local fuehrer, chooses Tono to oversee a button shop owned by a sweet, harmless Jewish widow, Mrs. Lautman. Unable to explain his position to Mrs. Lautman, Tono gradually accepts her belief that he is her assistant. When the Jews are ordered deported, the well-meaning Tono decides to shield her from the Nazis. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 5784
Oliver Twist. 1948. 1 videodisc (116 min.). After escaping from the dreary workhouse where he has spent his childhood, Oliver runs away to London, only to fall in with Artful Dodger, Fagin, and their gang of young thieves. It is only with the revelation of Oliver's true identity that his troubles finally end. Includes original theatrical trailer. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 633
Oliver Twist. 2006. 1 videodisc (ca. 130 min.). Director Roman Polanski offers a slightly darker version of the classic Charles Dickens tale. After living in poor conditions, Oliver runs away to the streets of London. There he meets a gang of pickpockets and soon Oliver's life is changed forever. HOME USE COLLECTION DVD 1773
One day in September. 1999. 1 videodisc (91 min.). This is the shocking and incredibly true story of the brutal massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by a team of extreme Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. From terrorist training in Libya to the terrorists sneaking into the Olympic Village to the tension-filled negotiations to the shocking conclusion at a German airport. Told with actual video shot during the crisis. DVD 450
Onḳl Mozes = Uncle Moses. 1932. 1 videodisc (83 min.). The perspective of Uncle Moses, the flamboyant, benevolent despot and self-made patriarch, changes as he becomes involved with romantic difficulties and labor union struggles. Portrays the lives of East European shtetl Jews transplanted to turn-of-the-century New York's Lower East Side. DVD 5973