arts & entertainment >> on the cover
Riveting
Portrait
Detroit native Joseph Dorman's
new film tells tale of a literary giant.
44-
When Sholem Aleichem died in 1916, his funeral was attended by 200,000
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
he created this kind of folksy persona.
And that folksy persona ultimately was so
successful that people mistook the per-
sona as the man.
"Even Jewish critics at the time
Dorman elaborated, "perceived him as
someone who was kind of a stenographer
for poor Jews, who wrote what he heard,
and they didn't realize that he was, in fact,
an extremely canny, sophisticated, bril-
liant modern writer:'
Solomon Naumovitch Rabinovitch,
pen name Sholem Aleichem, came to
prominence at the moment when Jews
were leaving the shtetl and migrating to
big cities, both in Eastern Europe and
the diaspora. Adapting, assimilating and
refashioning themselves, they embraced
various utopian movements, including
socialism, Bundism and Zionism.
people — the largest-ever public funeral New York City had ever witnessed.
"Sholem Aleichem is so relevant now
because he was dealing with the myster-
ies of modern Jewish identity," Dorman
says. "Marx said in the modern world
everything that's solid melts into air. And
it's true today. Our generation may be
more adept because we've experienced
the rapidity of change much more than
previous generations. But we still have
to deal with it; we're still in that flux of
things. So I think we're all Tevyes."
Dorman was born in Detroit to parents
who read the New York Times every week-
end. It was perhaps inevitable he would
eventually move to New York, where he
became a writer, producer and occasional
director of documentaries. His 1998 film,
Arguing the World, portrayed the New
York intellectuals Irving Kristol, Irving
Howe, Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer.
Home Grown
Sholem Aleichem filmmaker chats about
his Detroit Jewish roots.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
ture from Brown University. The former
Tanuga camper taught for three years
before enrolling in a film workshop rec-
ommended by a friend he met
on a kibbutz.
An internship at a PBS sta-
tion in New York launched a
serious switch in career corn-
mitment, and he briefly looked
back and ahead during a phone
conversation with the Detroit
oseph Dorman
remembers at least
one Sholem Aleichem
book on the shelves of his
childhood homes in north-
west Detroit and Bloomfield
Township, but he doesn't
remember any family member
dit
reaching for it.
Jewish News:
With his new film, Dorman Filmmake r
Joseph D orman
hopes to awaken interest in
IN: Did you bring any-
the intellect of the famed
thing from your Michigan
author and encourage exploration of
background to this film?
both the writings and their relevance to
JD: It's been years since I've been
contemporary Jewish life.
to Michigan, but I feel that the area is
Dorman, who attended Detroit's
still deeply in me. I think the Michigan
• Hampton Elementary School and gradu-
Jewish community has been very strong,
ated from Cranbrook, earned a bachelor's and I grew up with a strong Jewish iden-
degree in English and American litera-
tity that my late parents (Jack, a psycho-
j
50
October 13 • 2011
A professor pal pointed Dorman toward
Sholem Aleichem, about whom he was
essentially ignorant.
"I thought this was a way station for
me the 53-year-old filmmaker confides.
"I didn't think it was a destination. I
thought it was a film I would do while I
figured out what I really wanted to do.
And I spent 10 years on it, and it took up
everything. It infused me."
Aleichem's stories of the challenge of
balancing tradition with the modern
world speak to every culture and every
people. But they have ongoing resonance
for American Jews, who redefine their
identity with every generation.
"Unless you are an absolute Orthodox
Jew and follow the traditional path:'
Dorman asserts, "no matter how Jewish
we feel and how much we found certain
Jewish identities for us, I don't think they
can ever be as stable or solid as they once
were, or once appeared to be. That's a very
powerful and poignant thing that we all
live with. It's the fact that you're assimilat-
ing and trying to hold on to something,
and that confusion that somehow you feel
a bit damned either way. At least I do." I I
Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness opens Friday, Oct. 14, at
Landmark's Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak. On Sunday, Oct. 16, Eric Lumberg,
of the JCC Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival, will introduce the 7 p.m.
showing. (248) 263-2111.
analyst, and Eleanor) had instilled in me.
In 1968, after the riots, my family moved
from a predominantly Jewish community
to a suburb that was not predominantly
Jewish, and I experienced a certain
amount of country club anti-Semitism
that made the edges of that identity grow
sharper and stronger and made me more
introspective about religion.
JN: Did you learn anything about
yourself while making the film?
JD: I had struggled for a time with
my own sense of identity, and although
religion does not define my life fully, I do
have a powerful Jewish inclination. From
Sholem Aleichem, a sophisticated writer,
I learned about living with the ambiguity
and paradox [that can be associated with
identity].
JN: What are your upcoming film
projects?
JD: I have two projects. One is the his-
tory of Zionism, which has become so
controversial on the world stage; our idea
was to pull away from present-day con-
troversies and look at historical origins
and what it has meant to Jews. The other
project is about a remarkable New Jersey
doctor, James Oleske, a pioneering AIDS
pediatrician who continues to push the
boundary in medical care for children.
IN: What Jewish activities have
been important to you?
JD: My family belonged to Temple
Beth El, and I had my bar mitzvah there.
In the 1970s, when there was a push to
get Jews out of the Soviet Union, I wore
a star with the name of one of those
Jews on it. My sister Rebecca, who is
a developmental psychologist in Ohio,
was active with NFTY. (The filmmaker's
brother, Henry, is a California nephrolo-
gist.) While I go to a couple of different
synagogues in New York City, a lot of my
Jewish activities tend to be around the
films I make.
JN: Has any event brought drama
to your personal life?
JD: I just got married to a wonderful
Italian woman, Paola Franchi. She's a
businessperson. We had a simple cer-
emony here, and we went to Italy to cel-
ebrate with her family and friends. H