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 continued on page 20 continued on page 20