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these are interesting stories, many of
them well told.
But the two programs don't hang
together. They are alternately too
sketchy and too detailed. Their treat-
ment of the Jews of the West is typical.
A lengthy digression on the rise and
fall of a railroad boom town, Las
Vegas, N.M., seems to have been
included largely because it afforded
the Filmmakers an interview with a liv-
ing descendant of the town's once
thriving Jewish congregation — and
some nice visuals of Jews from
Albuquerque and Santa Fe restoring
the abandoned Jewish cemetery.
But there is little mention of the rela-
tionship between Jewish merchants and
the Native American communities in
which some of them operated, other
than the presence of some giggle-induc-
ing photos of Jewish men surrounded
by Indians in elaborate headdresses.
Transitions are awkward or non-
existent. The narrative jumps directly
from the role of nativist movements in
opposing immigration (primarily
Irish) in the 1840s directly to the
Gold Rush without any connection
being offered, and the issue of
nativism is abandoned utterly. One
presumes it will resurface in a future
episode when the anti-immigrant
movement of the early 20th century
targets Jewish arrivals.
The essential problem with this
series, if these initial episodes are an
indication, is that the filmmakers w ere
afforded neither the air time nor the
budget that Burns can command and,
regrettably, that they have neither his
overarching thematic vision nor his
sense of narrative architecture.
One senses repeatedly that they have
lost sight of their central theme or, in
the case of a lengthy segment on the
split between Isaac Leeser and Isaac
Mayer Wise, cannot articulate the
connection between liturgical innova-
tion and the pressures to be
"American."
Still, these two hours are not with-
out their felicities and points.
Foremost among these is an admirably
frank treatment of the place of Jewish
Americans in the debate over the slave
trade prior to the Civil War.
Although a section on August
Bondi, who fought with John Brown
in Kansas, seems a bit unfocused, the
presentation of rabbis arguing forceful-
ly both for and against the slave trade
and acknowledgment that a small
number of Southern Jews were slave-
holders (bur hardly on the scale of
their plantation-owning Christian
neighbors) represents an appropriate
bit of candor on a sticky topic, one
that has been relentlessly exploited by
fabricators of history emboldened by
the previous silence. El
The first two episodes of They
Came For Good: A History of the
Jews- in the United States pre-
mieres on WTVS-Channel 56
Sunday, April 8. "Present at the
Creation, 1654-1820" airs 5-6
p.m. and "Taking Root, 1820-
1880" airs 6-7 p.m. Check your
local listings. Sanachie
Entertainment releases the first
two episodes of They Came for
Good: A History of the Jews in the
United States on video and DVD
April 10. Future films in the con-
tinuing series will cover the years
from 1880-1920 and 1920-pres-
ent. To order, call (800) 497-
1043 or visit wvv-w.shanachie.com