36 June 13 • 2019
jn

MICHAEL FOX SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

A 

Major League baseball player during the 
1920s and ’
30s, Moe Berg had a 15-year 
sports career that was unremarkable. It was 
what he did off the field that made him a true hero. 
Berg, a brilliant professional athlete who spoke 
seven languages, led a secret second life as a spy for 
the U.S. government. 
Former Detroiter Aviva Kempner, who hit a home 
run with her 1998 documentary about another 
Jewish ballplayer in The Life and Times of Hank 
Greenberg, was the natural filmmaker to take on the 
mysteries at the heart of Berg’
s minor celebrity. 
The Spy Behind Home Plate is a testament to 
Kempner’
s determination and persistence. Chock full 
of dozens of contemporary and archival interviews 
and packed with rare photos and even rarer film foot-
age, The Spy Behind Home Plate is a definitive record 
of Berg’
s achievements. Although it’
s an effective way 
to impart information, the talking heads, vintage visu-
als and period music can’
t fully evoke the shadowy 
stealth and deadly risks of Berg’
s wartime activities. 
The documentary runs June 21-28 at the Maple 
Theater in Bloomfield Township with a special pre-
view screening at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 20, at the 
theater that features an introduction by local baseball 
historian Dr. Robert “Bob” Matthews (see sidebar) 
and a Q&A session with Kempner (see sidebar). The 
preview is hosted by Detroit’
s Jewish Community 
Center and Jewish Federation. Seating is limited; 
tickets can be purchased online or at the Maple 
Theater box office. 
Kempner’
s award-winning career is defined by 
portraits of forgotten or overlooked Jewish heroes. 
Greenberg and Berg are part of a gallery that 
includes Kempner’
s 1986 debut, Partisans of Vilna, 
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (about the pioneering televi-
sion writer, actress and producer Gertrude Berg) and 
Rosenwald, which recounts Sears exec and philan-
thropist Julius Rosenwald’
s contributions to African 
American education.

BERG’
S MYSTERIOUS LIFE
Morris Berg, international man of mystery, was born 
in New York in 1902. His father had fled a Ukrainian 
shtetl for the Lower East Side, where he started a 
laundry before buying a pharmacy and drugstore in 
Newark.
The family moved to New Jersey when Moe was 
a boy, and he grew into an excellent student and a 
terrific baseball player. After a year at NYU, he trans-
ferred to Princeton, where he was a star shortstop 
(back when the Ivy League was the top, if not only, 
sports conference) and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

fi
 lm
arts&life

The Spy Behind 
Home Plate

Former Detroit fi
 lmmaker Aviva 
Kempner tells the real story of Moe 
Berg, a Major-Leaguer turned spy.

TOP: Moe Berg’
s passport. ABOVE: Moe Berg in a military jeep in 

California with his brother Sam during the war, July 1942.

COURTESY OF IRWIN BERG

PUBLIC DOMAIN

A

lthough born in Berlin, director-writ-
er-producer Aviva Kempner has strong 
ties to Detroit. 
Her parents, Harold Kempner and Helen Ciesla, 
met and fell in love in Berlin. Her mother was 
a Holocaust survivor from Poland, with blond 
hair, green eyes and false papers, who passed as a 
Polish Catholic in Germany. Her father was a U.S. 
Army officer who wrote a story about Helen and 
her brother surviving the war. 
In 1950, they moved to Detroit where an uncle 
lived. Her parents divorced when she was 13, and 
her mother married Wayne State University histo-
ry professor Milton Covensky. 
“My father gave me a strong sense 
of Jewish identity and love of baseball, especial-
ly for Hank Greenberg,” she said. “My brother 
Jonathan and I heard about him every Yom 
Kippur, so we always thought Hank was part 
of Kol Nidre services.”
Kempner grew up in Detroit, attending Cass 
Tech High School in the mid-’
60s. She received 
an undergraduate degree in psychology and a 
master’
s in urban planning from the University of 
Michigan.
“While receiving my masters, I sold movie the-
ater tickets at the Michigan Theater, so maybe 
that was my first experience in the business,” she 
jokes. “My years on the Michigan Daily devel-
oped my passion for the news and telling a good 
story.” She also earned a law degree at Antioch 
School of Law in Washington, D.C., where she 
now lives.

Aviva Kempner

Can’
t take Detroit out 
of this girl.

KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR

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