Event

Noa Aharoni, 2017 | Israel | Hebrew and Hungarian w/ Hebrew & English subtitles | 52 min
Best Mid-Length Documentary Award, Israeli Documentary Forum, 2017
Best Documentary, DocAviv Documentary Film Festival, 2017

In Shadows, for the first time on screen, children of Holocaust survivors talk openly about the mental and physical suffering they experienced. The three stories of Yigal, Eitan, and Miri show how the past can cast its shadows. Their Holocaust-surviving parents were abused by the Nazis, then became abusers themselves—their fear and grief transformed into aggression towards their children.

Film will be discussed with Yigal Schwartz

Yigal Schwartz, whose autobiographical novel Hungarian Choir is echoed in Shadows, was born in Israel in 1954 to Holocaust-survivor parents. Educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he eventually chaired its Hebrew Literature department. Later, he headed the Hebrew Literature department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), where he directs Heksherim: The Research Institute for Jewish and Israeli Literature and Culture, which he founded. He has held visiting professorships at Harvard University, University of Michigan, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics. While teaching at BGU, Schwartz has been senior literary editor for Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir, the largest publisher in Israel. An author of twelve original scholarly books, he has edited over 250 literary works and reference books in Israel and abroad.

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This event has been curated by Prof. Nili Gold (Penn Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, Jewish Studies) and has been made possible thanks to the generous support of Penn Cinema & Media Studies, Jewish Studies, and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations.