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Projects: Movie Before Our
Eyes
In the fall of 1966 we set out to create an up-to-date film on the
historic and present day problems of
Jews in the USSR, a film that could be used as a springboard for
public discussion, an educational aid
in schools, or a television feature. Our project was completed the
summer of 1968. The professional
production team — all but one being volunteers — consisted of Mort
Epstein, artistic director;
Art Laufman (head of the Motion Picture Section, NASA Lewis Research
Center), camera
and sound; Ernie Walker, (NASA LeRC), camera. To complete the
roster, I (a non-pro) took on the job of producer. I was able to
enlist the help of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel to provide comments
on Soviet Jewry. Rabbi Heschel, one of the most significant thinkers
of our time and a civil rights activist, was then Professor of
Ethics at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. We filmed Heschel’s section of the movie on location at JTS. Finally, Dorothy Silver, a
distinguished Cleveland actor, lent her voice for the voice-over
sections of the film. The JCFC
provided a grant of funds to cover the cost of film, processing and
travel.
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Rabbi Heschel during
filming
Photo by Mort Epstein |
Dorothy Silver |
We titled the 13˝-minute, 16mm, color, sound film,
Before Our Eyes,
after Rabbi Heschel’s remark in
the movie, ”Before our eyes a people and a culture are being made to
vanish.” The CCSA rented, or sold outright, copies of the movie. By
far organizations or individuals chose to rent. Between 1968 and
1978, there were about 450 rentals. Several copies were sold: a half
dozen to the South African Jewish
community and a couple each to Jewish organizations in Canada and
England.
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Setting up for a
take: left to right - Lou Rosenblum, Art Laufman, Ernie
Walker.
Photo by Mort Epstein |
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The
movie theme photo
Filming in the USSR, in the 60s, was not
an option. So, casting was done close to home and the
filming was in Cleveland and New York. This photo, the
theme shot for Before Our Eyes, was taken in the
home of Charles and Elizabeth Hoffman in Rocky River, a
suburb west of Cleveland. We brought in props like the
samovar and the Chagall portrait of a rabbi.
Four members of Cleveland’s Beth
Israel-The West Temple were enlisted to model “a Soviet
Jewish family.” They are, from left to right: Ed Ault who
owned an electrical fixture business in Parma Heights,
my daughter, Miriam who was then in high school, Bob
Hoffman, also in high school, and Alice Mark, a social
worker who lived in Berea.
The photographer was a pro, John Szilagyi, Mort
Epstein's business partner. John did the photo shooting
and production pro bono.
How authentic was the photo? At least one Cleveland
Jewish organization thought it was the real McCoy. In
the late 1990's the Jewish Family Service Association
ran a large ad in the Cleveland Jewish News that
featured it as a typical Russian immigrant family aided
by their organization.
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Play "BEFORE OUR EYES"
On September 1, 2020 the Western Reserve
Historical Society added the film
"Before Our Eyes" to its digital archive.
To view
the movie,
click here.
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next > Projects:
Leadership Conferences |
