84 | MAY 28 • 2020 

Arts&Life

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Rewind: Jewish Filmmaker Confronts
His Traumatic Childhood

A new documentary uses home-video footage to help its director come 
to terms with his abuse, including at the hands of a prominent cantor.

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR
A

s a child, Sasha Joseph Neulinger was 
gifted but deeply troubled. He was 
a successful actor but nursed many 
suicidal thoughts and often swerved into errat-
ic behavior. And he was captured on film at 
every stage by his father Henry, a compulsive 
videographer and producer of PBS documen-
taries.
It wasn’
t until Sasha was a teenager that he 
finally had the courage to explain what had 
happened to him: For years, he and his sister 
Bekah were molested by two of their uncles 
and their older cousin.
Neulinger chronicles his own journey out 
of abuse in his new documentary, Rewind, 
now available for VOD rental. It is a harrow-
ing film, but a powerful one, as we watch 
this young man heal himself and his family 
through the power of his own art and investi-
gation.
Growing up in a Jewish home in 
Philadelphia, Sasha was frequently visited 
by his father’
s brothers. The oldest brother, 
Howard Nevison, was a prominent cantor for 
many years at Temple Emanu-el in New York 
City, the largest Reform congregation in the 
country. When Sasha’
s parents weren’
t around, 
he says in the film, Howard would take him 
upstairs and molest him, threatening to kill 
him if he ever told anyone. (Of the three men 
who violated Sasha, he says Howard was the 
worst.) But when Sasha finally did tell his par-
ents, his father revealed that he, too, had been 
molested by both his brothers as a child.
The abuse haunted the family, and its reveal 

destroyed Sasha’
s parents’
 marriage: His moth-
er Jacqui was furious her husband had allowed 
known abusers to have access to their children 
and divorced him soon after. Their life before 
everything came to light was documented 
through the copious home-video footage cap-
tured by Sasha’
s father, which Sasha himself 
revisits for his documentary. 
Scenes of the extended family clowning 
around at gatherings are contrasted with the 
knowledge of what was happening in private: 
The brothers put on little sketch shows for 
each other to hide the demons they unleash 
when the cameras are off. The use of home 
video footage to comment on child sex abuse 
in a Jewish family recalls the 2003 documen-
tary Capturing the Friedmans, except that in this 
case, the perpetrators’
 guilt is never called into 
question.
Sasha’
s story takes its greatest toll when the 
family tries to bring Howard Nevison to jus-
tice. After Nevison is initially accused of abuse 
in 2002, the case makes national headlines as 
the “cantor sex abuse” story. Temple Emanu-el 
quickly rallies around him, with several con-
gregants starting a legal defense fund for him. 
Nevison’
s lawyers successfully drag on the case 
for years, finally reaching a plea deal in 2006 
just before it’
s scheduled to go to trial: taking 
12 years’
 probation on misdemeanor charges 
in order to avoid prison time. The sentencing 
hearing arrives just around the High Holidays, 
and Nevison retires from Emanu-el that year, 
maintaining his innocence to the Jewish press. 
Today he lives as a free man in New York.

Besides a story of one man’
s self-actual-
ization, Rewind is also about the necessity of 
finding one’
s own spiritual catharsis. The big-
gest representative of institutional Judaism in 
Sasha’
s life was also a monster; yet once Sasha 
finds the courage to go public, he is still able 
to enjoy his own bar mitzvah celebration. (We 
see video footage of him dancing at his party, 
having found a way to move forward.) 
This is not the first time a story of abuse has 
intersected with that of Jewish religious lead-
ers, but it is nevertheless nauseating to ponder 
the dark reality of what humans in any posi-
tion of power are capable of.
And the film is also very clear about its 
belief that the true meaning of Judaism lies not 
in what religious hierarchy instructs or con-
dones, but in what it means to the individual. 
Sasha has a close bond with his great-grand-
father Joseph, who led the family out of 
Europe. When it comes time for him to testify 
against his uncle, Sasha takes the advice of his 
child psychiatrist and wears Joseph’
s kippah 
on the witness stand, using that piece of his 
great-grandfather for protection and bravery. 
His stunning, clear testimony helps shift the 
tide of public opinion and keep the case alive. 
But more importantly, it frees Sasha.
Later, after his ordeal is over, Sasha takes his 
great-grandfather’
s last name, Neulinger, as a 
way of starting his new life. It’
s a ray of hope at 
the end of a grueling ordeal: a sign that even 
after a childhood of unrelenting misery, going 
forward and finding meaning in life can still 
be possible. 

