18 April 18 • 2019
jn
Proud To Produce
Davidoff fi
nds his niche in the fi
lm
industry.
P
roducer Kale Davidoff is ready
to launch his first feature film.
New Money will be released
by Gravitas Ventures on April 16 on
Blu-Ray and DVD as well as Video
On-Demand platforms including
Amazon, iTunes and YouTube.
The movie deals with the
transferring of wealth, the drug
crisis, the cost of higher education
and more, Davidoff says. “I think
we’
ve created a movie that explores
these issues from sides that may
surprise some people.”
The former West Bloomfield
resident talks about his love of
movies and his blossoming career.
HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO
BECOME A PRODUCER?
I’
ve wanted to make movies since
middle school. And I always knew
that meant going to New York or
LA. When applying to schools, I
only applied to Michigan State. That
kept me in Michigan, which turned
out to be a big help for my career. I
started college in 2008, right when
Michigan implemented a huge film
incentive and movies began to flock
to the state. Things were booming
then, and it provided opportunities
for newbies like me to get a start in
the industry.
Like most, I wanted to write, direct
and edit movies. But my first gig was
working as an intern in a production
office, working under the producers
and production manager.
That internship led me from
production office to production
office, where I learned (and am
still learning) the ins and outs of
producing and production. I realized
it was something I had a knack for …
and [it] became my focus.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE STARTING
OUT IN LOS ANGELES?
I’
ve been out here for two years. I
always wanted to make it work in
Michigan but after the incentives
went away and the productions left
town, there wasn’
t any work for
me there. The transition to LA was
pretty easy. Professionally, I had the
benefit of eight years of connections
in the industry working in Michigan.
My girlfriend had been here a year
before me so that also made it easier.
In general, I’
ve enjoyed LA a lot
more than I thought I would have.
There are so many people out here
from the Midwest and Michigan.
A lot of people I know from high
school, MSU and the film industry
are here with me. In December,
I hosted a Chanukah party with
Actor Louisa Krause, producers Kale Davidoff and Anja Wedell
and writer/director Jason Kohl
jews d
in
the
ALLISON JACOBS DIGITAL EDITOR
Kale Davidoff
Meet Ollie Elkus
Offering “fi
rst-class Yiddish for those taking their
fi
rst class in Yiddish!”
O
llie Elkus, 22, is new to
the Detroit area this year.
Drummer with the indie-rock-
jazz-punk trio Alluvial Fans, an herb
and spice merchant at Germack in
Eastern Market, and freelance Yiddish
translator for organizations like the
Yiddish Book Center, Ollie plans to
share his love of all things Yiddish with
the community in a series of classes this
spring at the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue.
We caught up with Ollie and asked
him a few questions about his love
for what he calls “the language of the
heart.
”
Where did you come from and how
did you end up in Detroit?
OE: I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and then my family moved to New
England when I was young. The
Jewish community where we were was
between small and non-existent, which
naturally lead to feelings of isolation.
My proverbial tvile (immersion) in
externalized Jewish life was going to
Israel for a semester in high school,
where I met my best friend Gilad
Granot, a native of Metro Detroit. After
returning to the States, we continued to
visit each other every several months,
resulting in my move to Detroit. We see
each other often, though not as often as
I’
d like, and continue to play and per-
form music together.
From where did you get your love of
Yiddish?
OE: Although my time in Israel was
formative, and it was an opportunity to
see a wholly developed Jewish existence
that I had never seen before, I couldn’
t
claim it. Becoming part of Israeli soci-
ety would require an act of assimilation,
just as functioning in gentile America,
and specifically the “goyish wilderness”
of New England, would require. So,
the question to me became, what is my
culture? And further, as American Jews,
what is our yerushe (cultural inheri-
tance)?
My study of Jewish history led me
inevitably to Yiddish, and not just the
language but everything that it implies;
the language being, at the very least, the
vehicle.
What’
s your favorite thing about
Yiddish?
OE: Since the “golden age” of secular
Yiddish culture in the 1920s, assimila-
tion has moved quickly, exponentially
even. Jews who made the decision not
to raise their children in Yiddish have
lived to see the Yiddish world unrav-
el, and some have remorse or deep
regret about that. In this way, learning
Yiddish could be a frustrating task.
There was even a sort of indignation
about it. Everything about Yiddish still
felt so familiar and natural, how could
we lose it?
Stranger still, is that I’
m frequently
cross-examined about my origins due
to my “unidentifiable” accent. Yiddish
is sometimes assumed to be my first
language and, of course, in a more
abstract sense, I do consider it to be. I
never found any sort of creative voice
in English the way I have in Yiddish. I
never felt the impulse to write poetry
until writing in Yiddish. S’
iz Neshome-
loshn! It is the soul-tongue or the lan-
guage of the heart.
It’
s heimish (homey), which in
a larger sense is its appeal to me.
Yiddish is for everyone. Yiddish writ-
ers, more often than not, had knowl-
edge of Hebrew and even published
in Hebrew, but preferred Yiddish to
reach the common Jew. It is border-
less, fundamentally a language without
a land, making it the perfect vehicle
for both anarchistic and metaphysical
expression.
JACKIE HEADAPOHL MANAGING EDITOR
Ollie Elkus
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