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Man Of Conscience
Jewish values and '60s perspective
drive documentary filmmaker.
Michael Fox
Special to the Jewish News
W
Jewish upbringing. It was never present-
ed by my parents as, 'You have a respon-
sibility, but it was just around."
Daniel Ellsberg's shift from avowed
hawk to antiwar activist was influenced
in part by his girlfriend (and later, wife)
Patricia, the daughter of Jewish toy mag-
nate Louis Marx. He arrived at his gutsy
decision to inform the public of the secret
history of Vietnam after what Goldsmith
characterizes as a quintessentially Jewish
hen upper-echelon military
analyst Daniel Ellsberg
leaked thousands of pages
of classified Pentagon documents about
the Vietnam War to the New York Times
and other newspapers in 1971, he was
embraced as a man of conscience by
many Jews — and attacked as
a Jewish traitor by President
Richard Nixon.
"I think everyone assumed
he was Jewish, and Nixon cer-
tainly did:' says Oscar-nomi-
nated documentary maker Rick
Goldsmith, who listened to
countless hours of Nixon tapes
as part of his research for The
Most Dangerous Man In America:
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon
Papers. "It had something to do
with his enmity and vindictive-
Daniel Ellsberg talks to the press outside the
ness to Ellsberg," whom the
Federal Building in Los Angeles, the site of the
president saw as sabotaging his
Pentagon Papers trial, on Jan. 13,1973.
administration.
In fact, Ellsberg was raised
process of examining everything from
Christian Scientist. Not that that would
every angle, from the point of view of
have mattered to the paranoid Nixon,
Pentagon officials to Thoreau's imperative
whose ranting, blanket denouncements
for civil disobedience.
of Jews always allowed for one excep-
Its a process that Goldsmith knows a
tion: Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
thing
or two about.
Goldsmith and fellow Berkeley film-
"One
of the things about documen-
maker Judith Ehrlich's fascinating,
tary filmmaking, as in journalism, as in
taut and timely film was one of five
writing in general, you're looking at your
nominees on this year's Oscar race for
subjects and your subject matter from
Best Documentary Feature. It will be
many points of view',' he explains. "I
screened April 9-11 and16-18 at the
think that's a Jewish thing and goes back
Detroit Film Theatre inside the Detroit
to the Talmud:'
Institute of Arts.
Filmmakers also must show their
Goldsmith was raised in what he
work to the world, and take responsibil-
describes as a Kennedy-Stevenson
ity for it. And that's exactly what Daniel
Reform Jewish liberal household on
Ellsberg consciously took on in 1971,
Long Island. He was imbued with
and has been taking on ever since with a
a sense of civic obligation that he
range of issues and causes.
gleaned from the culture as much as
"Step Two is going out on the world
from his parents.
"I grew up with that consciousness of stage,' Goldsmith asserts, "and that's
what Jews do. They're outspoken. They
the '60s — there was kind of a Zionist
don't care about fitting in. That's why so
aura to everything',' Goldsmith recalls.
many Jews are so active around the issue
"On some level you got involved with
of civil liberties!'
social issues. That was the heart of my
and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 9-11, and 9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 4:30
p.m. Sunday, April 16-18. $7.50/$6.50 seniors and students. (313) 833-
4005; tickets.dia.org .
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April 8 - 2010
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