COMMUNITY
Dybbuk Makes A Haunting
Appearance In Ann Arbor
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Features Editor
—
A scene from The Dybbuk.
Charleston Disaster Fund
Receives Detroit Grant
A $10,000 grant to the
Charleston Jewish Disaster
Fund was approved by United
Jewish Charities of Detroit in
response to a nationwide ap-
peal for help to the South
Carolina community struck
by hurrican Hugo.
The appeal, coordinated by
the national Council of
Jewish Federations, was
created to help rebuild the
Jewish institutions and assist
individuals and families. Part
of the Conservative Con-
gregation Emanuel was
destroyed and a Jewish Com-
munity Center building was
badly damaged. Many
families -lost their homes and
life's belongings, as well as
their businesses.
Detroit's United Jewish
Charities, which provides
funding support for special
needs and programs of the
Jewish Welfare Federation
and its beneficiaries, approv-
ed the grant at a meeting of
the board of directors, chaired
by Samuel Frankel.
In other action, the board
approved grants of up to
$60,000 to enable Detroiters
to take advantage of educa-
tional opportunities in israel.
The first is a grant of up to
$30,000 for scholarships to
young people participating in
the High School in Israel pro-
gram. In its first year, the pro-
gram drew 13 participants
from Detroit.
The second grant, totaling
up to $30,000, will go toward
subsidies for individuals who
wish to participate in Israel
study programs.
ORT's Latin Director
To Speak In Detroit
Joshua Flidel, director of
the World ORT Union for La-
tion America, will be - the
featured speaker at the
Michigan Region Capital
Funds Event, 8 p.m. Oct. 26th
at the home Sharon and
Stephen Schaffer.
Flidel was appointed assis-
tant director general of ORT
Israel in 1980, and was nam-
ed director of ORT, Latin
America in 1983.
The honoree will be
Eleanor Thal Wolf, an ORTist
for more than 27 years. She is
a past chairman of the ex-
ecutive committee of District
VII, past president of the
Michigan Region and Subur-
ban Hills Chapter, and has
held various positions on the
region executive committee.
She is ORT's Jewish Book
Fair chairman.
Joshua Flidel
For information, call Mary
Lee Fishman, 646-3553.
crowd has gathered in
the middle of town for
a wedding. Women
with scarves tied tightly
around their chins push
beside men in workers' caps;
children hang over the edge
of the balcony. They all stare
quietly and with disbelief at
the mystical sight before
them.
No ordinary groom and
bride stand there. Instead,
the townspeople see a
woman wearing a thin white
dress, black braids hanging
below her waist. She is danc-
ing with a skeleton. .
The scene is from the 1937
Yiddish film The Dybbuk.
Newly restored by the Na-
tional Center for Jewish
Film at Brandeis Univer-
sity, The Dybbukpremiered
last month in Boston. It will
be shown Nov. 11 and 12 at
the Michigan Theater in
Ann Arbor.
The Dybbuk, in Yiddish
with English subtitles, tells
the story of a young man and
woman; bound before birth
by a promise their fathers
made that the two would
marry. This promise was
made despite the warning of
the local rebbe that "man
does not make decisions."
As time passes, one of the
fathers forgets his vow and
finds a wealthy suitor for his
daughter, Leah. Then
Khonnon, the young man to
whom she originally was
promised, arrives in town.
Unaware of their parents'
pledge to each other, the two
fall in love.
Leah's father is unim-
pressed by Khonnon, a
yeshiva student. He insists
his daughter wed the well-to-
do gentleman he has found
for her.
Desperate, Khonnon ap-
peals to mystical, evil forces
for help. Instead, they kill
him. As Leah prepares to
marry the man her father
has chosen, the dead
Khonnon appears. He enters
Leah's body as a dybbuk — a
soul which, unable to find
rest, fills the body of a living
person.
Although Leah's father
realizes his error, it is too
late. Leah and Khonnon are
united in death.
Shot on location in
Kazimierz, Poland, and in a
studio in Warsaw, the film is
based on a play by S. Ansky,
who was born in 1863 in
White Russia. A blacksmith,
factory worker and teacher,
he researched and wrote a
number of legends and folk
tales.
His work The Dybbuk,
written between 1912 and
1917, was first produced by
the Vilna Troupe in 1920,
one month after Ansky's
death. Originally scheduled
for a brief showing, it con-
tinued for 300 performances.
It reportedly was so
popular trolley conductors
had merely to yell "Dybbuk
stop" near the theater.
Later, it would be performed
in Moscow and Berlin and
was translated into French,
Japanese, Bulgarian,
Swedish and Serbian.
The film version of The
Dybbuk became an im-
mediate success after its
U.S. premiere in New York
in 1938. Time and
Newsweekcame to review it.
Most film historians
believed (The Dybbuk had
been destroyed in World
War II or, as was true for
many of the some 100
Yiddish movies produced on
nitrate film, disintegrated.
The National Center for
Jewish Film, which gathers
and preserves films of
Jewish interest, discovered a
nitrate duplicate negative of
The Dybbukwhen it opened
in 1976. Yet the sound track
was of poor quality and
many scenes, including one
in which a rebbe exorcises
Khonnon's dybbuk from
Leah's body, were missing.
After five years' work,
researchers pieced together
a complete film from nu-
merous versions located in
Canada, California, England
and Australia.
And just as the film sur-
vived, so did most of its cast,
many of whom happened to
be abroad during the Nazi
invasion of Poland.
Leib (Khonnon) Liebgold,
deprived in The Dybbuk of
his beloved, married Lili
Liliana, the actress who
played Leah.
Director Michal Waszyn-
ski moved to Rome and
eventually worked as art di-
rector on Roman Holiday.
And popular Yiddish actor
Max Bozyk, who stars as
Note in the film, escaped to
Argentina. Bozyk has since
died, but his love of theater
carried on. His widow, Reizl,
starred as Amy Irving's
grandmother in Crossing
Delany. ❑
LZA To Host Seminar
On The Zionist Legacy
The Labor Zionist Alliance
of Metropolitan Detroit will
host the fifth Annual LZA
Midwest Seminar Nov. 10-12
at the Holiday Inn Northwest
in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Chaverim from Detroit,
Chicago, Cincinnati and-
Cleveland will meet to
discuss this year's theme,
"The Labor Zionist Legacy —
From Generation to Genera-
tion."
'Ibpics will include "The
Labor Zionist Legacy — Is It
Being Passed On?;" "Perspec-
tives on Today's Issues;" The
Partnership Between Israel
and the Diaspora;" "Women's
Issues;" "The American
Scene — Where Does Labor
Zionism Stand?: Values,
Coalitions, Jewish Education,
Young People's Issues;" and
"Implementation and Action
Plans!'
Among the speakers and
leadership scheduled to par-
ticipate are Menachem
Rosensaft, national president,
Labor Zionist Alliance;
Chuck Buxbaum, national
secretary, Habonim/Dror; Ma-
jor General Shlom Gazit, Jaf-
fee Center for Strategic
Studies, Tel Aviv University;
Dr. Jacqueline Zeff, Dean,
division of arts and sciences,
Mercy College of Detroit; Dr.
Ezra Spicehandler, national
past president of LZA; and Dr.
Jeffry Mallow, national vice
president, LZA Midwest
Region.
The seminar will include
social programming and
entertainment. The planning
committee of this year's
seminar is co-chaired by Leah
and Sol Drachler and Helen
and Norman Naimark.
Hillel Schedules
Annual Auction
Shjelley Shindler and
Diane Chambers Lutz have
been named co-chairs of
HIllel Day School's annual
auction, to be held 8 p.m., Oct.
28 at the school. There will be
a silent as well as live auc-
tion, a dessert buffet and a
50/50 raffle drawing.
for information, call Rhona
Fidler, 851-2394.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
45