Normally I save my writing about film for the Jewish Film blog, but I want to alert readers to a new film I saw this past week. American Jerusalem tells the story of the first 66 years of Jewish settlement in Northern California, specifically in San Francisco.
The Jewish community is unique in Jewish history, in that nowhere else in the Diaspora were Jews in the majority during the early settlement period of a city. The Jewish community developed differently as a result of this, without the need to buttress itself against anti-Semitism until a much later period. Jewish families were “society” in early San Francisco, and they did not eat or live separately from their gentile neighbors. Even today, Jews in San Francisco have a curious mix of firm Jewish identity with a low rate of synagogue and other Jewish institutional affiliation. While some outsiders look at the demographics and say, “Wow, Judaism is in trouble in San Francisco,” in fact the Jewish community there is vibrant and diverse. It was influential in shaping the past of the city and continues to be engaged with San Francisco’s future.
The filmmakers were extremely selective in their choices, which may leave some old San Franciscan families wondering, “What about my ancestors?” but I think the choices allow viewers to appreciate the forest without losing their way in the trees. Certainly American Jerusalem is a tantalizing springboard from which one can launch into deeper reading (Fred Rosenbaum’s book, Cosmopolitans, a Social and Cultural History of the Jews at the San Francisco Bay Area would be a great next step.)
If you want to see the film, you’re in luck. DVD’s are available through the film’s website, and screenings are coming up at the Tucson Jewish Film Festival, the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, the Center for Jewish History in New York City, the National Museum of Jewish History in Phildelphia, PA, and at the East Bay Jewish Film Festival.
Image: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 FoundSF.org
Hi Rabbi Adar,
This is so interesting! We were just in SF and I was looking up Homewood Terrace, the Jewish orphanage. We wanted to see if it was still there and go take a gander at it, however, it no longer exists.
Some of my husbands great (perhaps great-great?) aunts and uncles resided there. One uncle went on to preside over the Juvinal court in SF and another, his brother Aaron, went on to be the first Jew to successfully sue Henry Ford. 🙂
We’ll definitely be looking for this movie. Thanks for posting!