18 years ago today: Leo’s 1st day of Pre-K, Marcello was 2, Michael was on his way to his studio & I was a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, Newsday (when it had a N.Y. edition) & New York magazine, heading to fashion week when I suddenly had to change beats. Of my 9/11 reporting, I like this Newsday feature best. It’s a reminder of New Yorkers’ courage, grit, resilience & humanity that enabled us to rebuild our city and our lives following this devastation. 18 stands for life in Hebrew. Let the spirit of renewal guide us through our tears today. I read that Jacques Capsouto eventually left NY after his restaurant was badly hit by Sandy. He’s now a winemaker in the Galilee region of Israel, employing a diverse group of workers, his small way of working toward peace & rebuilding our fractured world, or #tikkunolam A true mensch who inspires me still. Link in bio for the full story. #911 #18 years
Happy #LaborDay a holiday we wouldn’t have without the courage & self sacrifice of #Jewishgirls & young #women like #ClaraLemlich who fled the #pogroms of her native #Ukraine (like my paternal grandparents) & rose from the ashes of the #triangleshirtwaistfactoryfire to demand workers rights & ignited our labor union movement (of which my grandfather was a major member). Sadly 30 years later on this day, Poland would be invaded by Germany and my mom & her #Jewish #teenage peers would fall prey to #Nazi #slavelabor. She, too, rose & founded a nation #Israel. #refugeestories #HerStory #neverunderestimatethepowerofawoman #neverunderestimateagirl #neverunderestimateyourself #sheroes #womenslavelabor #freedomfighter #girlpower #labordayweekend #strike Let’s remember the girls who died & fought selflessly for freedoms we should never take for granted. ❤️🙌🏼💪🏽💓
On #womensequalityday pledge to support #films by & about #women who make up 51% of the movie going public but are only 4% of directors, 3% of cinematographers, 15% of writers, 18% of producers in Hollywood. Things aren’t much better in the indie film world: #Women make up less than 28% of feature directors at Sundance. The #gender imbalance is also pervasive in #film #funding, which is where you enter the scene. Get women in the picture & on screen. Donate & disrupt the patriarchy. Link in Bio⬆️ ❤️Thanks for your support 🙌🏼💙#womendirectors 💓#documentary #HerStory #centerforindependentdocumentary #womenmakemovies #GirlsLife #ReelLife #HolocaustHERoism #Shoah #shero #survivorstories #SheDoc #dword #sisters #thegirlstaysinthepicture #newyorkwomeninfilmandtelevision #EqualityNow #EndGenderDiscrimination
Two incredible days of filming in #LA culminating in a heart to heart with the man #holocaustscholar Michael Berenbaum, a true great who helped me make sense of my 7-year breadcrumbs’ trail search over turkey & tuna melt at the fab Greenlbatt’s Deli, and that began at @uscshoahfoundation with its archivist supreme Ita Gordon & incredible executive director @stephensmithusc who celebrated his 10th anniversary that day. #bashert These folks have been my North Stars, guiding me as I stumbled through the dark and igniting my quest with their profound knowledge, humanity and passion. I’m so honored to call them my advisors & exec producer. I’m also so grateful that I got to work w/the super talented DP & Director @drrobvan Truly #verklempt & stuffed! #shabbatshalom❤️ #LAStories #ReelLife #documentary #holocaustherstory #truestory #Nonfiction #truthbetold💯 #toda
Such a joy filming at @uscshoahfoundation on @stephensmithusc’s 10th anniversary as its exec director. Wow! What an accomplishment! Mazel Tov. A true honor having you as my film’s advisor and a friend. It was also serendipitous shooting w/DP & editor @RobVanAlkemade who began his career filming SF testimonies, realizing today as he stood there that it was his way to heal from the suicide of his father, a Dutch survivor. That’s the incredible thing about this work. It’s a life and soul saver. People think Holocaust research is depressing. It’s true that it’s intense, all consuming and deeply painful, but it’s also the most inspiring, therapeutic and life affirming thing you can do. As Stephen said: it gets him out of bed every day. It was fabulous also reconnecting w/my sister from another mother, head archivist extraordinaire Ita Gordon, who’s been at SF since it was housed in a Jurassic Park costume trailer. Blown away by their new home - the whole 4th floor of the @uscleaveylibrary — full of interactive displays (yes that’s moi on a video screen), textiles designs from the various regions represented in its survivor testimonies database, and inspiring art exhibits. Thanks to everyone for such a rewarding & beautiful day. L’chaim 🥂🎂❤️💜💕🧡💛💙🙏🏻👊🏽
A year ago, I was thrilled to celebrate Harry Berman- or Hirschi’s 95th birthday. Today we sadly said goodbye to him. Yes, this was my 2nd funeral this week. Sadly we are losing our sacred survivors, which is what makes obtaining, editing and producing a film with their testimony so vital. I met Harry through his niece Eva Kraus who found me on Facebook after reading about the monument I curated in #Trutnov honoring the 5,000 mainly Polish Jewish girls who were trafficked to this #Sudetenland (now #CzechRepublic) town. Eva was born & raised in Trutnov, along with her twin sister Hanna, brother Josef and cousin Miriam, Harry’s daughter. Born in #Munkacs, a densely Jewish town in the Subcarpathian mountains between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Harry survived the #Holocaust in hiding in Budapest and in slave labor, somehow managing to protect two of his sisters. After liberation, he learned his parents were murdered in #Auschwitz, but that his youngest sister Bella survived in a women’s camp called #Parshnitz or #Porici in #Trutnov. Hirsch, Frida & Sara found her and remained there, too ill to board a boat to Palestine or emigrate elsewhere. In Trutnov, Hirschi worked as a railroad engineer, while Eva’s father fixed the textile machines in the very factory where my mom had slaved away for nearly 5 years. Eva had no idea it had once been a camp called Gabersdorf, or that all the area’s mills had once been sites of Nazi persecution. How quickly history gets buried and erased. One of the only Jewish families there, they were all forced to flee in 1967-68. I was blessed to interview and get to know Hirschi and Eva’s mom Frida, who died shortly after I filmed her. Eva also linked me to #Gabersdorf survivors in Detroit, where she lives. Hirschi was a super mensch with the kindest eyes and a beautiful soul. May his memory be a blessing. ברוח דין האמת
Yesterday we said goodbye to the incredible Bella Tovey, my mom’s close friend from prewar #Sosnowiec & one of the last people to be in touch with her right when she changed her name. I like to think we found each other. When we met 2 years ago, she showed me photos she took of my mom w/her kids from 1956 when my mom immigrated to the US. I remembered seeing those same photos as a kid & wondering who those kids were. But my mom never told me. Yesterday I met those kids-Roberta & Craig Tovey, and the man who gave me Bella’s number, Harvey Luksenburg, the son of a #Sosnowiec survivor who I was trying to find. I also was reunited with Tammy Schmidt, Bella’s devoted neighbor, who scanned and emailed me those photos on her behalf. Meeting Bella completed a circle for the two of us, and her scenes in the film are key. But more than anything, it was an honor to meet someone of Bella’s caliber. She was an intellect & humanitarian who gave with all her heart. One story she told me was how she shared books with my mother in the ghetto, and by share I mean they’d take something like “Remembrance of Things Past” & rip it in half, each one taking one half before swapping. They couldn’t go to school or to the library. Ever resourceful, keenly bright, deeply compassionate, Bella reminded me so much of my mom. The 2nd to last photo is of Bella (front row center) & my mom (braids in the back) w/their Hanoar Hazioni group in the #Sosnowiec ghetto. Unlike so many others in that photo, they survived, believing in a Jewish homeland & living to see that dream turn into a reality. Israel was everything to them. I loved hearing the many stories about Bella that Craig & Robbie told, and I loved getting to know her, however briefly. It’ll be an honor bringing her back to life through my film. Beautiful Bella’s memory is a blessing to me and so many others. #BaruchDayanHaEmet
Happy #Pride! Though I used to wonder if I’ve become my mother, I now realize it skipped a generation. The love of reinvention & rising from hardship to become your fantasy self was what my mother was about & in many ways is also the essence of my colorful @officialobscura As my mother tearfully remarked after watching the film #ParisIsBurning: “There’s nothing worse than feeling like you can’t be who you really are. “ Let’s celebrate all of who we are from the skin we’re in to the dreams we all dare to embody. #ProudMary #dontdreamitbeit 🧚🏼‍♀️ #LoveIsLove #ProudMom #YouthDrag 🦄 #identity #Stonewall50 🌈 #beseen #befearless #beunapologetic #beyourself #befabulous #worldpride2019 💛🧡💚
Happy #MothersDay to the #Gabersdorf girls (shown at one of their many reunions) who birthed us & regenerated a nation from the ashes. This film is very much a #motherdaughter odyssey but it’s not just mine. Here are some of the many mother’s, daughters, sons & granddaughters I’ve met along the way who have joined me in my quest to uncover & understand my & our mothers’ overlooked past. As you can see, these women embody the very essence of what #motherhood is about: #Resilience #hope #reinvention. Lastly, there’s my mother as a teen juxtaposed w/my daughter who resembles her so, but is also very much her own woman. Her grandma wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Here’s to all these women’s #maternal #love #strength, #stamina & #indomitable spirit. They didn’t just survive, they thrived. #2ndmothers #sistersfromanothermother #happymothersday❤️
Happy Birthday mom wherever & whoever you are - #PolishJewish girl, Nazi trafficked #teen #slave, #Holocaust #survivor, #Israeli #freedomfighter, #terrorist #femmefatale, #refugee, #mostwanted, #war #orphan, #teacher for new immigrant children in Israel’s many absorption centers, army #medic, #sniper, #spy #doubleagent, US student visa holder, #sixties bride, #mother .... A dizzying array of personae she played so brilliantly none of knew. We are all many things to many people but my mother turned it into an art form. To me, you were simply mommy. I miss you & your hot pink lipstick traces everyday. Love & lilacs 💜💗🎂💋