National Center for Jewish Film
Encyclopedia
The National Center for Jewish Film is a non-profit motion picture archive, distributor, and resource center. It houses the largest collection of Jewish-themed film and video outside of Israel
. Its mission is to collect, restore, preserve, catalogue, and exhibit films with artistic and educational value relevant to the Jewish experience, and to disseminate these materials to the widest possible audience.
Founded in 1976, the National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF or the Center) became an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 1979. The Center is located on the campus of Brandeis University
in Waltham, Massachusetts
.
European Jewry, the Holocaust
, Judaism
and the arts and music, relations between Jews and other groups, Sephardic culture, Israeli history, and Hollywood portrayals of Jewish life.
The Center’s collection includes ethnographic studies of past and present Jewish communities in China, Mexico, Morocco, Australia, Tunisia, Russia, Argentina, Bosnia, India, Romania, Greece, and Egypt, travelogues depicting Jewish life in Poland before World War II, U.S. government World War II newsreels, studies in Israeli history, Holocaust films exploring little-known sites of genocide like Transnistria
and Babi Yar
, anti-Jewish propaganda, and Yiddish-American feature films. Individually and collectively, the films distributed by NCJF dispel stereotypes about Jews and educate audiences about the diversity and cultural richness of Jewish life.
and restoration of rare and endangered nitrate and acetate films. NCJF preservation activities began 30 years ago with the rescue of a languishing Yiddish language
film collection. Since that time, NCJF has preserved and restored 36 Yiddish feature films, making them available in 35mm, 16mm, video, and DVD formats.
The Center's other archival and preservations projects include features and documentaries from around the globe; early American silent film comedies and features; rare early Russian films; pre–World War II home movies of Yurburg, Horodok
, Novogrudok, and Berlin
; travelogues of Bialystok
, Krakow
, Warsaw
, Vilnius
, and Lviv
; industrial and fundraising films produced by Jewish agencies; early documentary footage of Palestine/Israel. NCJF’s most recent restorations include the Yiddish feature films The Cantor’s Son and The Living Orphan, the preservation of rare home movies documenting the way of life in several small communities of Eastern Europe, Jewish chicken farmers in New Jersey
, and merchants in Massachusetts, and film of President Harry S.Truman addressing the issue of Middle East politics at an Israel Bonds
dinner in 1956.
NCJF was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts
and the National Film Preservation Foundation
to participate (with nine other institutions) in the millennium film preservation program, "Treasures of American Film Archives." NCJF is a founding member of the Association of Moving Image and a member of the International Film Archives Association and The Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies.
The Center’s rare film materials are made available to scholars, curators, journalists, teachers, authors, artists, filmmakers, and the general public, and have been exhibited and screened worldwide. They have been used as the basis for numerous books and articles, and have been included in many museum exhibitions and film productions, including The Winds of War
, Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, Chasing Shadows, The Last Days, The Struma, Hollywoodism, and scores of independent documentaries.
NCJF distributes 350 films, including the productions of over 100 contemporary independent filmmakers. The Center produces and sells videocassettes and DVDs of its titles for both home and educational use and licenses its films for television broadcasts; recently stations include Turner Movie Classics, Jewish Broadcast Network, Shalom TV
, ARTE [France/Germany], SBS [Australia], NOGA [Israel], and Four Films [UK].
NCJF began organizing its own film festival -- JEWISHFILM-- in 1998 at the Edie and Lew Wasserman
Cinematheque at Brandeis University
.
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Its mission is to collect, restore, preserve, catalogue, and exhibit films with artistic and educational value relevant to the Jewish experience, and to disseminate these materials to the widest possible audience.
Founded in 1976, the National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF or the Center) became an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 1979. The Center is located on the campus of Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
in Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham, Massachusetts
Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, was an early center for the labor movement, and major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning,...
.
Collections
The NCJF archive exclusively owns an estimated 10,000 cans of film (35 mm, 16 mm, 8 mm, super 8) and thousands of master videotapes. This collection of feature films, documentaries, fiction and non-fiction short films, newsreels, home movies, and institutional films includes material dating from 1903 to the present. These films address a wide range of topics, including: the Jewish immigrant experience in America, Yiddish theater and cinema, pre–World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
European Jewry, the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
and the arts and music, relations between Jews and other groups, Sephardic culture, Israeli history, and Hollywood portrayals of Jewish life.
The Center’s collection includes ethnographic studies of past and present Jewish communities in China, Mexico, Morocco, Australia, Tunisia, Russia, Argentina, Bosnia, India, Romania, Greece, and Egypt, travelogues depicting Jewish life in Poland before World War II, U.S. government World War II newsreels, studies in Israeli history, Holocaust films exploring little-known sites of genocide like Transnistria
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...
and Babi Yar
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
, anti-Jewish propaganda, and Yiddish-American feature films. Individually and collectively, the films distributed by NCJF dispel stereotypes about Jews and educate audiences about the diversity and cultural richness of Jewish life.
Film preservation
NCJF's first priority is the preservationFilm preservation
thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
and restoration of rare and endangered nitrate and acetate films. NCJF preservation activities began 30 years ago with the rescue of a languishing Yiddish language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
film collection. Since that time, NCJF has preserved and restored 36 Yiddish feature films, making them available in 35mm, 16mm, video, and DVD formats.
The Center's other archival and preservations projects include features and documentaries from around the globe; early American silent film comedies and features; rare early Russian films; pre–World War II home movies of Yurburg, Horodok
Horodok
Horodok may refer to:*Horodok, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine*Horodok, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine*Horodok -See also:*Gorodok, name of several rural localities in Russia*Haradok, a town in Vitebsk Region, Belarus...
, Novogrudok, and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
; travelogues of Bialystok
Bialystok
Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Located on the Podlaskie Plain on the banks of the Biała River, Białystok ranks second in terms of population density, eleventh in population, and thirteenth in area, of the cities of Poland...
, Krakow
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
, Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, and Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
; industrial and fundraising films produced by Jewish agencies; early documentary footage of Palestine/Israel. NCJF’s most recent restorations include the Yiddish feature films The Cantor’s Son and The Living Orphan, the preservation of rare home movies documenting the way of life in several small communities of Eastern Europe, Jewish chicken farmers in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and merchants in Massachusetts, and film of President Harry S.Truman addressing the issue of Middle East politics at an Israel Bonds
State of Israel Bonds
State of Israel Bonds are debt securities issued by the Government of Israel.State of Israel Bonds is also the more familiar name of the underwriter of the bonds in the United States. The company is officially known as Development Corporation for Israel...
dinner in 1956.
NCJF was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
and the National Film Preservation Foundation
National Film Preservation Foundation
The National Film Preservation Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. Growing from a national planning effort led by the Library of Congress, the NFPF began operations in 1997. It supports activities nationwide that...
to participate (with nine other institutions) in the millennium film preservation program, "Treasures of American Film Archives." NCJF is a founding member of the Association of Moving Image and a member of the International Film Archives Association and The Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies.
Other activities
NCJF’s other activities include film distribution, producing public programs, and providing programming, consultation, and research assistance to approximately 2000 individuals and institutions a year.The Center’s rare film materials are made available to scholars, curators, journalists, teachers, authors, artists, filmmakers, and the general public, and have been exhibited and screened worldwide. They have been used as the basis for numerous books and articles, and have been included in many museum exhibitions and film productions, including The Winds of War
The Winds of War
The Winds of War is Herman Wouk's second book about World War II, the first being The Caine Mutiny . Published in 1971, it was followed up seven years later by War and Remembrance; originally conceived as one volume, Wouk decided to break it in two when he realized it took nearly 1000 pages just to...
, Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, Chasing Shadows, The Last Days, The Struma, Hollywoodism, and scores of independent documentaries.
NCJF distributes 350 films, including the productions of over 100 contemporary independent filmmakers. The Center produces and sells videocassettes and DVDs of its titles for both home and educational use and licenses its films for television broadcasts; recently stations include Turner Movie Classics, Jewish Broadcast Network, Shalom TV
Shalom TV
-Overview:Shalom TV, Free on Demand, is the Jewish television cable network in North America. A mainstream network, it addresses the entire spectrum of Jewish life with cultural programming for the entire Jewish community. Shalom TV is available on cable providers serving more than 41 million...
, ARTE [France/Germany], SBS [Australia], NOGA [Israel], and Four Films [UK].
NCJF began organizing its own film festival -- JEWISHFILM-- in 1998 at the Edie and Lew Wasserman
Lew Wasserman
Lewis Robert "Lew" Wasserman was an American talent agent and studio executive, sometimes credited with creating and later taking apart the studio system in a career spanning more than six decades...
Cinematheque at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
.