‘A Tremendous
Presence’
Filmmaker’s tribute to teacher Rabbi Eliezer
Cohen to be shown at JCC fi lm fest.
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
D
aniel Cappell, a local filmmaker, produced a docu-
mentary about the celebrated Detroit educator
Rabbi Eliezer Cohen that will be shown at 3 p.m.
Thursday, May 18, at the Berman Center for Performing Arts
as part of the Lenore Marwil Detroit Jewish Film Festival.
The film will be introduced by Cappell and Rabbi Azaryah
Cohen, head of school at Frankel Jewish
Academy in West Bloomfield and son of the
late rabbi, who died Sept. 9, 2013.
Rabbi Eliezer Cohen taught at Akiva
Hebrew Day School (now Farber Hebrew
Day School) for nearly 40 years. Among his
youngest students was Cappell of Southfield,
who studied with the rabbi during the last
year of his life.
After graduating from high school,
Cappell began studying film at Oakland
Community College. His teacher, Jack
Cronin, assigned Cappell the project of mak-
ing a documentary film introducing a real
person to the viewing audience. Cappell,
then 17, immediately chose Rabbi Cohen as
his subject because “Rabbi Cohen was the
Rabbi Eliezer Cohen most interesting character I knew.”
“He was a tremendous presence,” Cappell
recalled. “His class was formative for me
TOP: Filmmaker Daniel Cappell’s
and making the film was a reflection on an
class assignment turned into a
documentary film about the late important part of my personal history. Rabbi
educator Rabbi Eliezer Cohen. Cohen’s memory made for a good documen-
tary topic because many people in the com-
munity had emotions ready to be poured out
and captured on film.”
The rabbi was known for his dedication to learning and
teaching, his iconoclastic teaching methods and his fierce
commitment to independent thought. He challenged stu-
dents of all ages to encounter sources directly, to think logi-
cally and to form their own opinions based on real informa-
tion. He would say the ultimate reward for thinking is not
good grades or praise from a teacher, but the pleasure of
figuring it out for yourself.
For the film, Cappell interviewed a student who had been
in Rabbi Cohen’s first class at Akiva in 1974 as well as many
students in each of the later decades, and even some who
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May 11 • 2017
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