JN: What is your message when
you introduce the film?
AK: I say that I'm committed to
making films that counter nega-
tive stereotypes about Jews. In the
first one, Partisans of Vilna, there'
were Jews that resisted. In the sec-
ond, there is a great role model
and hero for American Jews.
Greenberg's stand on Yom Kippur
(going to synagogue instead of
playing Major League baseball), I
consider to be a real pinnacle
moment in the practice of
Judaism in America.
JN: How do you feel about the
Detroit premiere?
AK: For me, opening-in Detroit is
a big homecoming. It's very spe-
cial for me to have the Detroit
premiere at the Detroit Institute
of Arts, not far from the new sta-
dium. My mother, Helen
Covensky, had a one-woman show
there, and as a child, I was often
taken to the DIA. My mother's
my inspiration. She started her
work mid-career, and I started
During a time of rabid antisemitism, "[my
making films after having three
father] could go to Tiger Stadium and .
degrees, including law, that had
watch a strong, tall Jewish New Yorker
who hit them out of the park, and that
nothing to do with filmmaking.
film, and they have been at
film showings. I've become
very close to the Greenberg
daughter, and we were at
Tiger Stadium for its clos-
ing weekend. I've gotten a
lot of the contributions
from New York Jews, who
really claim Hank. There
were some very generous
people in Detroit, too
numerous to mention. The
film could have been made
in three years, but it took
10 more to raise the
money. I had to stop and
start 50 times.
JN: How did you reach the
people who are in the film?
AK: I did research about
who [revered] Hank.
Walter Matthau was a dear
friend of Hank, and there
was no problem getting an
interview with him. Once I
heard Mandy Patinkin -
singing "Take Me Out to
the Ballgame" in Yiddish,
there was no problem with
him either. I saw the Levin
brothers socially through
seemed to make Greenberg the most impor-
the years and tracked them
tant Jew living in the 30s, "says Kempner
JN: How does this film reach
down, and they said they'd
back to your young years?
love to do it because Hank
AK: I grew up in a home where I
was their hero. The Hank
always heard about Hank from my immigrant
Greenberg Invitational Golf Tournament held every
Jewish father (Harold Kempner), who took my
summer in Michigan was very important. I was able
brother and me to baseball games. At a time when
to interview a lot of the people myself, and I'm real-
he was affected by the great antisemitism in Detroit
ly grateful to them for letting me do that. The
— from Henry Fordpublishing bigoted trash to
Tigers also let me film. I go to a chavura in
Father Coughlin spouting his demagoguery — he
Washington, and Jeffrey Colman came up to me
could go to Tiger Stadium and watch a strong, tall,
and told me about his mother, Harriet Colman, and
Jewish New Yorker who hit them out of the park,
that's how I got my groupie.
and that seemed to make Greenberg the most
important Jew living in the '30s. Every Yom Kippur,
JN: What's been most rewarding about taking the
I would hear about Hank, and it almost seemed that
film around the country?
his name was synonymous with Kol Nidre liturgy. .
AK What's interesting to me is a line Jay Carr wrote
in Boston, and I think it's absolutely true. He said
JN: How did you develop such strong religious
that you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate the
feelings?
film, and you don't even have to know baseball.
AK.: Although we didn't formally belong to a syna-
People are coming out of the film, men and women,
gogue, we went to the Jewish Community Center all
and they're crying. They're getting it. Through my
the time. We always attended the Jewish book fairs,
Web site, hankgreenbergfilm.org , I'm finding that
and that's where a lot of my Jewish identity stems
there are people in my generation and younger who
from. I still have very close contacts with the Jewish
grew up-with the same stories I did. I wasn't the
. community in Detroit, and a lot of friends still are
only one with a father who was fanatic about Hank.
there. I think Detroit is a great place to grow up in
I think people really want to recapture the history,
and a great place to grow Jewish in. A lot of journal-
and I'm glad to be able to do that.
ists have written that this film is my love letter to
Detroit, and that's absolutely true.
JN: Have you changed since taking on this project?
AK Sometimes I feel I didn't choose my life; my life
JN: Where did you raise the money?
chose me. It's a social responsibility..The film will be
AK: The whole film was made from charitable con-
out on video next year, and we're talking to people
tributions. Hank's family (second wife, Mary Jo
about television. There's also a possibility of a fea-
Tarola; two sons, Glenn and Stephen; and daughter,
ture film. I travel a lot, and I haven't had much of a
Alva) were the biggest donors, totally behind the
personal life, but I'm glad to bring Hank home. ❑
His People And His Bat
.
▪
e was a Moses," says baseball fan Don Shapiro
▪
in Aviva Kempner's The Life and h Tim es of
Hank Greenberg. "He wore his J 's ness on his
sleeve and he never tried to hide it."
Perhaps the reverence that Jews have for the
Detroit Tigers' first baseman/leftfielder is best
described in a brief on-screen appearance
by
Harvey Frank, a member of the board of the
Michigan Jewish Sports Hall
of Fame:
"I can remember listening
to the [1935] World Series
in school," recalls Frank.
"Hank Greenberg hit a home run and everyone
in the class turned to me.
me Hank was a hero and
therefore as a Jew] I was a hero.
Adds Harvard law professor Al an Dershowitz,
"Baseball was a way to show everybody we knew
how- to be American.
The Li/ and Times of ank Greenberg is aptly
named. It is more than a baseball movie,
.Q-1 it is a baseball movie. The 95-m inute
:rings to life the world of first- and second-
teation J ews in
r America tkA 1920s, '30s
Review
an d
e of
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,
I,L111.4! T...kAffaih '31
tatiNtzI
;
•
Cci3tis
The Lift and Times of Hank Greenberg will be
shown at 7 and 9:30 p.m. Friday, March 31,
and 1, 4, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday and
Sunday, April 1-2, at the Detroit Film Theatre,
Detroit Institute of Arts. Tickets are $5.50.
Aviva Kempner will introduce her film at all
the showings on Friday and Saturday, as well
as at the 1 p.m. Sunday screening. A panel dis-
cussion about Hank Greenberg follows the 4
p.m. Saturday screening. For tickets and infor-
mation, call (313) 833-3237.
3/24
2000
81