Eric Goldman is founder of Ergo Media, a distributor of Jewish film and adjunct professor of cinema at Yeshiva University. In 2014, Eric co-hosted the series, The Projected Image: The Jewish Experience on Film on the Turner Classic Movies television network. Last June, he curated the 37-film program at KulturfestNYC, a celebration of Jewish culture.

Eric is the author of Visions, Images and Dreams: Yiddish Film Past and Present (Holmes & Meier) and The American Jewish Story through the Cinema (University of Texas Press). He is currently writing a book on Israeli society through the lens of cinema.

See Eric’s website at http://www.eric-goldman.com/eric-goldman/Jewish_Film_Educator,_Historian,_Critic.html

Ukraine SIG Luncheon*: “‘Hester Street:’ Where Eastern Europe Meets America” (Tues-119), 11:45-1:15 P.M.

Hester Street was adapted from Abraham Cahan’s 1896 novel, Yekl: A Tale of a New York Ghetto. Cahan, founder of the The Jewish Daily Forward, dealt with the challenge for immigrant Jews to assimilate in their new adopted country.

With Congress reopening America to immigrants in 1965, Silver saw Yekl as a story that would resonate for all Americans. After all, Cahan’s main character Jake, like other new immigrants, was having an identity crisis stemming from the outright contrast between the freedom that America offered and the religious tradition that he brought with him to this country— a nineteenth century story that still resonated in the 1970s!

The film provides us with important questions about our heritage and Jewish identity that still challenge us today. Eric Goldman will explore the film and the questions that emerge about the hardships endured and the tensions faced upon arrival in the “Goldene Medine.”

*Note: Attendance at SIG luncheons requires registration for the event and an additional fee of $44 (non-Kosher meal) or $54 (Kosher meal) per person.