84 | MAY 28 • 2020
Arts&Life
fi
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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.