Product Details
- Starring: Cynthia Salzman Mondell, narrator Sam Jaffe, Allen Mondell
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- Binding: VHS Tape
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- EAN: 9781880898024
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- Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
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- ISBN: 1880898020
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Product Group: Video
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- Release Date: 1983-03-01
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- Title: West of Hester Street
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: At the end of the 19th century, New York was overrun with immigrants from all countries who were living in near-poverty conditions. The Jews clustered on the Lower East Side were no exception, with many cramped into tiny apartments, their children working long days, and the food scarce. The Jewish leaders in the community were worried, so they began the Galveston Movement, in which Jews from Russia were recruited to immigrate to the new port of Galveston, Texas, where they could then relocate to the great wide-open spaces of the West. The movement didn't last long--quotas from the government curtailed immigration--but over the course of 7 years more than 10,000 Jews were brought westward. West of Hester Street, a reenactment documentary from Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell, explores the events that led to this movement and examines the life of one man who made the journey from Russia to the Wild West. While at times the narrator documenting the movement verges on being overdramatic, the narration from Sam Jaffe, who portrays a peddler trying to earn enough to bring his family over, is both moving and informative. Using archival footage and dramatizations, this 58-minute film is engaging, and eye opening for anyone interested in learning more about the Jewish diaspora in the United States. --Jenny Brown
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