From Abie’s Irish Rose to Anna Riley’s Rabbi Jake: The Irish-jewish Couple in Feature Films
Lawrence Baron, Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History at San Diego State University speaks on how American feature films about Irish-Jewish romances have conveyed varying messages from extolling the “Melting Pot” ideal, exposing inter-ethnic tensions, epitomizing interfaith toleration, reflecting changing gender roles, and embracing multicultural diversity. The lecture will trace the evolution of how these relationships have been depicted from early films like Abie’s Irish Rose to more recent ones like Keeping the Faith and will be illustrated with clips from a number of these motion pictures.
Baron has authored and edited four books, including The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (Brandeis University Press, 2011) and Projecting the Holocaust into the Present: The Changing Focus of Contemporary Holocaust Cinema (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). He is currently working on a history of how and why the Oscars have honored films about the Holocaust.
The event, co-sponsored by NYU’s Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Glucksman Ireland House, is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 212.998.8980.