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Credit WAMC
Kino Classics has just released a ten- film BluRay set of Yiddish language feature films. The titles come from the heyday of Yiddish film production, the late 1930s. When I first heard of the release, I assumed it featured the restorations of The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University, but I was mistaken. These are restorations completed by Serge Bromberg at Lobster Films, along with the Museum of Modern Art, the Deutsche Kinemathek, and the Fillmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw.
It’s quite an exciting collection, including the two most significant Yiddish films, The Dybbuk and Tevya, three other outstanding titles, Motel the Operator, Eli Eli and Mir Kumen On , as well as five low-budget pictures of lower quality but rare. All have very readable English subtitles written by Allen Lewis Rickman, a Yiddishist who appeared in the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man. Also there are many extras.