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Price includes Public Performance License. |
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The story of the Jewish people in America has been a complex saga of assimilation and anti-Semitism, religious observance and secularism. The Jews' extended love affair with the land of opportunity led to a better life and exceptional contribution to American society, but at the expense, some would say, of the the spiritual faith and values that have sustained the Jews over the milennia. Combining a lavishly detailed assemblage of archival materials with contemporary interviews and recent footage of Jewish ritual and practice, Return Trips presents a fascinating look at the history of Jews in the U.S. and traces the religious revival among American Jews that began in the late 1960's and continues today. From the shtetls (villages) of Russia, where the Jews were subject to frequent violent persecution, to the slums on New York's Lower East Side and the assimilated milieu of Hollywood, to the optimistic, consumer-oriented suburbs of the 1950's, Return Trips describes the variegated and changing roles played by American Jews in the first half of the twentieth century. While many Jews continued to maintain a Jewish identity, Yiddish culture and socialist politics gradually supplanted dietary laws and synagogue attendance. The rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust served to remind American Jews of their tenuous place in the world, but assimilation into the mainstream continued, with little spiritual practice beyond the obligatory bar mitzvah and twice-yearly visits to temple. Then, in 1967, the Six-Day War in the Middle East awakened a new generation of American Jews -- many of whom had been active in the civil rights and anti-war movement -- to the Israeli cause and to their Jewish identity. In the aftermath of that stunning threat to Jewish survival and Israel's subsequent triumph, American Judaism began to flower anew. Return Trips celebrates this renaissance of Jewish faith and culture in its multiplicity of forms, from the experiemental and creative responses of the Jewish Renewal Movement, to the piquant observations of newly observant stand-up comedian Marc Weiner, to the personal experiences of the filmmakers in bringing trditional Jewish practices in to their family life. Interviews with Rabbi Shlomo Friefeld, and early and important figure in the Orthodox return movement, and with the founders of the havura movement, whose members meet outside of the traditional synagogue structure, eloquently illustrate the phhilosphy underlying the new vitality. Shot in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Michigan, and Chicago, Return Trips is an informative and colorful journey into the American Jewish experience - a joyful, sometimes poignant exploration of the evolution of a people. At once specific and universal, it provides a case study of the encounter between tradition and modernity that is common to all religions, and offers an inspiring portrait of one group's rediscovery of a rich and ancient heritage.
Running time: 60 min, Year released: 1991
Close captioned?: N, Color?: Y
Avail. formats: 16mm,VHS
ISBN: 1-59974-378-6
Language: English, Subtitled?: N
For classroom?: Y, Study Guide?: N
Grade level: 7th and up
Reviews: "A first=rate program for viewers of all religious persuasions."
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This title can also be found in: 1960's, Autobiographies/Self-Portraits, Cultural Studies, Europe, Holocaust, Immigrant Experience, Jewish Culture & History, Judaism, Religion, Russia, U.S. History, U.S.A. |
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