"Journey to Anatevka" comes to Southington, CT

What was life like for Tevye and his family when they arrived in turn-of-the-century New York, America? Come and find out!

“Journey to Anatevka”

Picnic and Movie Matinee

Saturday, June 22nd, 2013 at

First Congregational Church , Main Street, Southington, CT.

Bring Soup, Salad, and/or Sandwiches to the  Picnic Potluck at 12:00PM followed by“Hester Street” Film at 1:30 with guided discussion by Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker.

Hester Street is a 1975 film based on Abraham Cahan's 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto and was adapted and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. The film stars Carol Kane, Steven Keats and Paul Freedman. In 2011, Hester Street was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Hester Street, New York City, c. 1900

Hester Street tells the story of Jewish immigrants who come to the Lower East side of New York City in 1896 from Europe and who live on Hester Street in Manhattan. When Yankl first comes to the U.S., he quickly assimilates into American culture and becomes Jake. He also begins to have an affair with Mamie, a dancer. His wife, Gitl, who arrives later with their son, Yossele, has difficulty assimilating. Tension arises in their marriage as Jake continually upbraids and abuses Gitl, despite her efforts to assimilate.

Norfolk at Hester Street, NYC c. 1898

The film is noteworthy for its detailed reconstruction of Jewish immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century—much of the dialogue is   delivered in Yiddish with English subtitles—and was part of the wave of films released in the late 1960s and through the 1970s which began explicitly to deal with the complexities of American Jewish identity. In addition, Carol Kane's lead character posed a still-provocative synthesis as she discovers her own self-assertion on behalf of her right to maintain a traditional identity in an aggressively modern setting.