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Against the Tide: New film Explores U.S. Response During the Holocaust
Rabbi Irwin Kula Moderates Debate Following Tribeca Film Center Screening

Did the organized American Jewish community do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust? Did the established Jewish leaders challenge President Roosevelt as hard as possible or were there mitigating factors that prevented them from doing more?

These and other compelling questions are addressed in a new provocative film, Against the Tide, which was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April. The documentary, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, highlights how a young activist, Peter Bergson, confronted Washington and the leaders of the established Jewish community to demand that the rescue of European Jews be made a top priority. The more successful Bergson was in his efforts -- reaching out to Hollywood and to non-Jewish members of Congress -- the more resentful the organized Jewish world became, ostracizing him in the process. The film, produced by Moriah Films, a division of The Simon Wiesenthal Center, explores the American Jewish response during the war years, and the fear people felt that their own American identity would be questioned if they spoke up.

Following the screening of the film, a talk moderated by CLAL President Irwin Kula was held with film director Richard Frank and Rabbi Marvin Heir, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Kula raised the point that even though the Jewish leaders were well established in the U.S, they still felt marginal. Ironically, it was Bergson, an outsider of the community, who was confident enough to take on President Roosevelt. This point became the focus of a larger conversation: How do Jews experience themselves in America today — as marginal or powerful, and how much we are willing to "rock the boat" in the face of a perceived threat of genocide to us or to others? When do we expend our political capital, and what does this say about how we see ourselves and the construction of our own American Jewish identity? What is the relationship between exercising political power and being an established, powerful leader with access and therefore something to lose, or being a marginal relatively powerless "leader" who has nothing to lose?

In addition to these questions, Rabbi Kula raised the issue of why the film was made now and what message did it offer us today? Rabbi Heir suggested that American Jews are faced with deciding how to respond to genocides like Darfur and the existential threat of Iran. Will American Jewish leadership which is more powerful than it has ever been "rock the boat?" Who will be the model, Roosevelt or Bergson? Rabbi Kula asked the speakers about the legitimacy of making an analogy between the Nazis and Iranians, between the condition of Jews during the Holocaust and today, and the concern with politicizing the Holocaust. Discussion ensued about the inevitability of politicizing the Holocaust as it becomes part of the collective memory, as memory is always constructed, plural, and contested. Therefore, rather than imagine there is some pure, objective, unpoliticized memory of the Holocaust, we need to wrestle and argue openly about the ways we remember and use the memory of the Holocaust and the consequent policies we develop in light of our memory.

At the end of the program, which was attended by a full house, Rabbi Kula suggested that one of the key lessons of the film was to look at the relationship between our own sense of security and our willingness to "do what it takes" and risk our security for others. How far would we go in risking our own security? What do we expect from our leaders? What do we learn from history?

Responding to why CLAL was invited to moderate, Rabbi Kula said that, "CLAL faculty has the unique vantage point of having been, under its founder Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, at the forefront of thinking about the implications of the Holocaust and the use of power." Moreover, the film suggests there was a serious dangerous fight between two parts of the American Jewish community in the 1940’s that continues to be a source of polarization today. CLAL was invited to participate because our faculty is expert in "seeing the partial truths on all sides of a passionate debate and offering creative analysis that eases the polarization by combining the truths of each side into new insights." .

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