YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

 

Image Before My Eyes tells the complex and wonderful story of what Jewish life was like in Poland for the young and the old; in small villages and in major cities; in religious families and in secular ones.  They illustrate important social, political and educational trends of what was once the largest center of Jewish culture.  They give a voice to those long since quieted.  From the traditional shtetls of the countryside to the freewheeling cultural revolution in the cities led by freethinkers, award-winning director Josh Waletzky (Partisans of Vilna) masterfully memorializes a proud culture that still inspires hope and reverence. Interviews with people as varied as a former mayor of Scarsdale, New York describing his youthful Polish patriotism and a Brooklyn housewife who touchingly sings the Yiddish songs of teachers, tradesmen, and beggars she learned as a child in Warsaw are particularly moving.

 
It began in the 1976 as a full-scale YIVO exhibition held at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan. Carefully assembled by the late Lucjan Dobroszycki and Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, in 1980 the groundbreaking exhibition telling a vivid story of Jewish life in Poland prior to the Holocaust was brought to life again in a VHS film format.  Today, Image Before My Eyes: A History of Jewish Life Before the Holocaust is being reissued in DVD format, complete with an illustrated study guide for classroom use.

Special features of the new YIVO DVD edition include commentary with Director Josh Waletsky, filmmaker biography, interactive menus and scene selections.

$26.95, (color, 88 minutes), released April 25, 2006 and distributed by New Media.

Available from:

Fanya Gottesfeld Heller CJH Book Store
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY  10011 
917-606-8220                                                                               

   The Jewish Book Center
   of the Workmen's Circle
   45 East 33rd Street
   New York, NY 10016
   212-889-6800
   800-922-2558