Hester Street at 50: A Screening and Discussion

Click here to register for this free in-person program, co-presented by New Lehrhaus. The Library is located at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco, with free garage parking at 1227 Pierce Street between Ellis and Eddy.  

Joan Micklin Silver’s 1975 black-and-white independent film Hester Street marked a turning point in the representation of the American Jewish experience in cinema. Based on an 1896 novella by Abraham Cahan (the editor of the Yiddish daily The Forward), it tells the story of immigrant Yankel, who has lived in the Lower East Side for several years, and his wife Gitl, who arrives from Russia with their young son Yossele. Yankel (played by Stephen Keats) and Gitl (played by Carol Kane in a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination) become increasingly estranged as their views of assimilation in the new country clash.

The film will be shown in video projection, with an introduction and discussion led by Howard Freedman.

Howard Freedman has served since 2009 as director of the Jewish Community Library. He has written the Off the Shelf column on books in J. The Jewish News of Northern California since 2012.

Program made possible, in part, by Larry Burgheimer.