* * * * - * * * * * * * * STOP IN NOW FOR MATZAH MANIA On The Tube COMING To AMERICA from page 80 Phone o us Yo ours Orders Phone or Fax Us Your Order' Illustration: America's successful Jews reach out to their brethren across the sea, from "Present at the Creation, 1654-1820." (4" Passover Catering! re/ 'VI M -4( NI / I P N I A49800 • FAS. 00 • 13' .4( 9( - -42 '1VIAPLE THERE IS STILL TIME TO ORDER PASSOVER WEEK DINNERS! * * * * * * * * * * * Marty and Karen Wilk and their Employees Most Sincerely Extend Wishes To Our Customers and Friends For The Utmost In Health and Happiness May everyone rejoice on this Passover Festival- ffreedom ww.theexcalibencom 28875 Franklin Rd. at Northwestern & 12 Mile Southfield, MI • (248) 358-3355 A FOOD & SPIRITS JOE AND HELMA BERNARDI AND FAMILY WISH ALL OUR FRIENDS A VERY HAPPY PASSOVER 4/6 2001 82 118 W. WALLED LAKE DRIVE, CORNER PONTIAC TRAIL • (248) 624-1033 WALLED LAKE 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