Born to Russian Jewish parents in Omaha, Nebraska, Joan Micklin Silver launched her feature film career in 1975 with
Hester Street, a film based on a short story by Abraham Cahan. She wrote the screenplay as well as directing the film that portrays the Jewish-American immigrant experience and which served as a tribute to her parents and heritage.
Initially a music teacher and freelance writer in Cleveland, Ohio, Micklin Silver was inspired to work in film when she saw Satyajit Ray’s
Pather Panchali (1955). When her family moved to New York City in 1967, she seized this opportunity and began her filmmaking career as a screenwriter for educational film companies. Commissioned by the Learning Corporation of America, Micklin Silver wrote and directed the short
Everett
The pioneering writer-director fought to bring Jewish stories to the silver screen at a time when some of her projects were considered an ethnic oddity, she has said.
Joan Micklin Silver, the pioneering independent female director behind
Hester Street and
Crossing Delancey, among many other titles, who fought to bring Jewish stories to the silver screen, has died. She was 85.
Silver died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan of vascular dementia, Silver s daughter, Claudia, told
Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska to Russian Jewish parents, Silver left home to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Not long after her graduation in 1956, Silver married the son of a Cleveland-based Zionist rabbi, Raphael D. Silver, and the couple settled in Cleveland, where Silver taught music classes and wrote plays as she worked to raise three children.
Joan Micklin Silver, boundary-breaking director of Crossing Delancey, dies at 85 Tyler Aquilina
Crossing Delancey and the boundary-breaking independent film
Hester Street, died Thursday of vascular dementia at her Manhattan home, according to her daughter. She was 85.
Silver helped break barriers for female filmmakers and for Jewish representation on screen, with
Hester Street, her 1975 debut, telling the story of a young Russian Jewish immigrant couple on New York s Lower East Side in the 1890s. Silver’s husband Raphael D. Silver, a commercial real estate developer, raised the $320,000 budget himself to help support his wife s burgeoning career in an industry rife with sexism.
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