In 1950, the great actor, producer and Yiddish theater impresario Maurice Schwartz closed down his Yiddish Art Theater in New York. Demand for Yiddish theater had waned. That same year, what were believed to be the last Yiddish language feature movies to be made were released. They were Josef Berne’s “Catskill Honeymoon” and Joseph Seiden’s “Monticello, Here We Come!” While Yiddish theater would haltingly continue, Yiddish cinema seemed over.
In the late 1970s and early 80s, three film students Josh Waletzky, Sally Heckel and David Greenwald, put Yiddish language in their short films in effort to resuscitate a once vibrant film genre in Poland, the U.S.S.R. and the United States, beginning an effort that continues today with creation of numerous Yiddish shorts along with cooking, fitness and music videos, many posted on YouTube. Then just over 30 years after the presumed demise of Yiddish cinema, a feature narrative was produced by an unconventional Belgian filmmaker