Jewcy Interviews

For my generation of writers, Norman Mailer, who died on November 10th of renal failure, was the ultimate father figure. We measured ourselves against the sweep of his brilliance—for it must be conceded that even his lesser books had the sweep of brilliance—our whole adult lives. He was the giant who dared giant leaps and, more than occasionally, giant pratfalls. Thus my drive to his brick house on the very end of Cape Cod in Provincetown, Mass. some months ago had the excitement and dread of a pilgrimage. Beside me on the passenger seat, the author photo on his last novel, The Castle in the Forest, drilled into me with a father’s intensity—equally admonishing and exhortatory—until I finally had to cover it with my hat. But I took my hat off when I entered his house and started asking questions.

Whatever else that can be said about it, this new book is written with the vigor of someone half your age.

Good to hear. But every time I hear compliments, my feet start doing this [twitching].

Not the shy, retiring type: A first edition of Advertisements for Myself You want to run away?

I’ve never learned to take a compliment graciously.

How come?

Damned if I know. My father, an elegant man, always took compliments very well. But I, being rough hewn, loved messing his hair. Maybe I defined myself in opposition to him.

In this book, the relationship between young Adi (Adolph) and his father is very fraught—more moving than I expected it to be.

I’ve been thinking about how many of my books have that recurring theme. My relationship with my father was very interesting. Not hostile, but never near. I couldn’t reach him. He was an exceptionally complex man. He was very proud of me after “The Naked and the Dead,” which he must have read ten times.

Did he “get” it?

Oh yeah.

So you were able to communicate on that very deep level.

Yeah, he didn’t go in for long speeches, but he would look at me and say,“This is good.”

Was it from him that you got your grit?

My father was a very bold man in his quiet way. And my mother was a remarkable woman—not only strong but also loving.

You demonize Hitler here, quite literally—the demon narrator is there at the conception. Aren’t you thereby letting mankind off the hook?

It seems to me there have been two exceptional births in human history: Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler. Hitler is the devil’s answer to Jesus Christ.

Oedipal shmedipal, as long as he loves his mother: Mailer's Hilter had some Freudian issuesYou like making large statements, don’t you?

Drives wives crazy.

I can only imagine.

I make them for the sheer joy of making them.

When you read younger novelists today, are you impatient that they don’t seek to go larger?

I don’t read them. Which I think is one of the reasons they’re not particularly in love with me.

Whom do you read for pleasure?

I find I can’t read good novels anymore—not when I’m working—because they’re too disruptive. I get excited by them, and go off in all sorts of directions. How would I do if I were writing it? And I get off my own work. I’m immensely single-minded, I’d even say dull, about sticking to my own work. For the last ten years I’ve always felt I’ve got one book left, one book left, one book left.

If there’s still one left after this one, what will it be?

A sequel to this one about Hitler. In this last, after all, I only take him to age 16. I think there’s a little more to him …

Are you impatient with some of your contemporaries for not contending with the larger questions?

Look, for better or for worse, I have that kind of mind. They have [theirs]. I used to be very competitive. By now I’m sick of it, in the sense that it has no meaning. Either one of us will last, or ten of us, who knows. History can wipe all of us out.

I wasn’t expecting to hear such mellowness from you.

It’s not mellowness, it’s shared amusement. After competing with someone who used to be a rival, in the end we have a shared conversation. I respect Roth, I respect Updike, DeLillo, Vonnegut, I could name ten of them, they’re all good writers.

One book left?: The pugilist in his last daysSalinger?

Salinger I’m pissed off at, because he had such a glimpse into America when he was young, and he didn’t use it.

Any theory as to why he went silent?

No theory worth airing.

At your age [of 83], are you more prudent not to air a theory if it’s half-baked?

I’ve gone off half-cocked so many times in my youth that yes, now I’m a little older…

So you’re still actively growing?

Better growth than decrepitude.

It’s marvelous that you have this capacity…

Well listen, we’ll see. But I can guarantee you one thing: At the moment there are 20 writers, male and female, who feel that they are the best living American writer. And I of course am one of them. But that’s as far as I’ll go.

You deal in opposites a lot, don’t you? You like the way the world is balanced.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

So how do you finally measure up on the wisdom scale?

I’d probably give myself a very good mark.

Care to offer a numerical grade?

[Chuckling] No. That would not be wise.

As a man, are you ever intimidated?

Not anymore. The best thing about old age is that you’re no longer intimidated by anybody. There’s a real cool that comes in with old age.

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NEXT: Read Shvitz post From White Negro to Jewish Hipster: Jews Still Acting Black in 2007, by Eric Goldstein

ALSO IN JEWCY:

Michael Weiss wrote an obituary for Mailer, Abe Greenwald compared him to Bono, and Stefan Beck called him an example of the free pass we give literary rock stars of a certain age.

[This article originally appeared in The Washington Post.]

As an assimilated Negro, I find that black Jews just tickle my fancy. (Any Oprah/Sarah Silverman hybrids, call me!) I agree with the writer Julius Lester when he says, “What I find remarkable about Jews: They’re the only ethnic group that seems to care about blacks. At least Jews want to learn.”

I’ve certainly tried to learn a Jewish girl a thing or two on blacks, so I figured Julius Lester might have some words of wisdom for me. I first discovered Lester when I stumbled upon his must-read 1984 New York Times interview with James Baldwin (during which Baldwin exclaimed “Fuck Norman Mailer!” when Lester mentioned the author of “The White Negro”—sadly, the Times struck it from the record.) Besides being an academic and literary star—he's author of over 45 books and a decorated professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts—Lester also happens to be that most intriguing of exotic birds, a black Jew. He made a name for himself as a writer, radio commentator, and avowed atheist during the civil rights era, but converted to Judaism in 1982 after years of religious searching (Lovesong, his spiritual memoir, details this journey.)

At 68, Lester is still writing; next spring HarperCollins will publish his novel about lynching, told from the point of view of a 14-year-old white boy. I took to asking him some questions over e-mail.

THE BLACKER THE BERRY, THE JEWER THE JEW

I think the average black person is suspicious when the average Jewish guy distinguishes himself from the average white guy—at least in America. What do minorities like blacks or Hispanics have in common with American Jews, and what are their differences?

Not a huge fan of Normal Mailer: BaldwinIdentity has many faces, and one’s social identity may not correspond to one’s personal identity. There are Jews whose personal and/or religious identity is so forceful that they resent being identified as white, even though they look like “the average white guy.” Someone who identifies first as a Jew sees him or herself as living by a value structure that believes in justice and equality as opposed to a white guy whose value system is different. Perhaps blacks should not be so quick to dismiss a Jew who insists that he is not white, regardless of what he looks like.

Growing up in the forties and fifties, I always thought Jews were different from whites. Jews were people who empathized with blacks, who understood what it was like to be discriminated against. When I was doing radio on WBAI from 1968 to 1975, people would call me on the air and identify themselves as being “white and Jewish,” and that always confused me because, in my mind, Jews were different from white people.

None of this is to say that Jewish racism does not exist, because it does. And black racism exists, despite those who maintain that blacks cannot be racists because they are victims of racism.

It is increasingly difficult to generalize about blacks, Hispanics, and Jews because of increasing class differences within each group as well as generational differences. For example, blacks and Jews of my generation and older worked together in the labor movement and the civil rights movement. As fraught with tensions as black-Jewish relations became, that coalition meant something. The present generation of blacks and Jews do not see why it is expected that blacks and Jews will work together. The black-Jewish coalition means nothing to them, and I would not argue with that. The events of their lifetimes—Farrakhan, Israel, Arabs—mean very different things to each group.

Different from the rest of the country: Unique New York However, having said that, black-Jewish tensions have been more pronounced in New York than, for example, in the Midwest, where I found blacks and Jews working together on many issues with none of the suspicion and antagonism that can exist in New York. People too often think that the experiences of blacks and Jews in New York reflect the state of affairs between blacks and Jews across the country, but that is not the case. I know it’s difficult for New Yorkers to believe that their experiences do not represent the truth for everyone in America, but New York is unique.

Politically I think blacks and Jews made a huge mistake in the 1980s and 1990s by not reaching out to start working with Hispanic groups. Even twenty years ago, demographic projections suggested that Hispanics were going to become the largest minority group early in the 21^st century. That has happened earlier than anyone predicted. As Hispanics become an increasingly strong political group, the public discourse on whom and what constitutes a minority will change, and neither blacks nor Jews are prepared to deal with the shift. Blacks are in the process of losing their golden status as the largest minority group, and this loss is going to have an impact on black identity, which has been too focused for too long on being victims.

SLAVERY: OVER FOR 142 YEARS. THE HOLOCAUST: OVER FOR 62 YEARS. BEING A VICTIM: TIMELESS.

Is there a statute of limitations on historical tragedies? For how long is Auschwitz or Jim Crow Mississippi relevant to a young Jew or Negro in New York City?

Compassion fatigue: Remember the Maine? A very interesting question. I suppose one needs to ask if there is a statute of limitations on memory. There was the recent article in the Sunday Times about people who are tired of memorial services for the victims of 9/11—about “compassion fatigue”. The article referred to the numerous events that were once remembered by public ceremonies and are scarcely remembered now: the sinking of the USS Maine, the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

One of the real problems facing America today is that since the 1960s, Americans no longer share the same historical memories, or we do not share those memories in the same ways.

In the summer of 1973 I taught summer school at a small college in Macon, Georgia. In one of my classes was a very beautiful blonde girl who invited me to drive up to someplace in north Georgia with her. I declined. I knew that northern Georgia was prime KKK territory and as much as I wanted to sleep with her, driving into Klan country was a price I was not willing to pay. When she asked me why I told her about the Klan’s prominence in northern Georgia, about segregation and the backs of buses, etc. She looked at me with her wide blue eyes like I was crazy said in her honeyed southern accent “None of that ever happened down here.”

Echoes of the past: Jim Crow Mississippi can't be forgotten Even though she was blonde, she was not dumb. She had come of age after the changes wrought by the civil rights movement and had grown up at a time when blacks sat anywhere on buses, when there were no white and colored water fountains in stores, when blacks and whites went to school together. I was floored by her response. I had no idea that history could be wiped out so completely in so short a time. This was 1973. The summer nine years before, I had been in Mississippi waking up every morning half-surprised that I hadn’t been killed during the night. After that day I didn’t know how to talk to her, (which was sad because she was really a beautiful girl) because her experience negated the history I had endured.

It is not enough that we remember only what happened to us. We should make the effort to remember that which happened to others, even others before we were born. So many U.S. states and cities have Native American names. The people are gone; all that remains is a word from their language, which is really a kind of tombstone. Massachusetts is a Native American word meaning “High Mountain Place.” Connecticut means “Long River Place.” It is my obligation to remember. The act of remembering connects us to each other. The life of the young black in New York grows from the lives and deaths of blacks in Mississippi who endured and struggled so that he would not have to endure and struggle in quite the same ways. The same goes for the young Jew.

Still relevant?: Building the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin Our lives do not begin with our births. Our lives exist on a continuum. Part of that continuum is that our lives today will become someone else’s past, and how we live our lives will, to some degree, give texture and context to the lives of people not yet born.

One of the things I love about being Jewish is that remembering is an integral part of being Jewish. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we sing melodies and say prayers that date back a thousand years and more. On Tisha B’Av we still mourn the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem more than 2000 years ago. At Passover we remember the exodus from Egypt, which may or may not have happened, but something happened that was transformative.

It is my wish that the young black New Yorker will remember Auschwitz as well as Jim Crow Mississippi, and that the young Jewish New Yorker will remember Jim Crow Mississippi as well as Auschwitz. Remembering the sufferings of others makes us come closer to each other.

Seems to be being a black Jew might have some perks. For example you can’t be “out-victimized” by anyone, right? It also seems the particular black-Jew blend should have a nickname. Any suggestions?

If there are perks to being a black Jew, I missed out. And I must be dumber than I realized because it never occurred to me that no one could out-victimize me. I never thought of being black or Jewish as being a victim, which just goes to demonstrate how much out of touch I am with the times I live in.

As for nicknames, oy vey! Virginia Hamilton wrote a novel called Bluish about a kid who was black and Jewish, but “bluish” sounds more like an alien in a bad Sci-Fi movie. The police chief (or maybe he’s former police chief now) of Charleston, South Carolina is (was) a black man named Reuben Greenberg, and he is Jewish. He said he was working on a recipe for fried chicken soup. That’s as close to black-Jewish humor as I’ve seen.

THE JULIUS LESTER GUIDE TO BLOGGING WHILE BLACK, JEWISH, AND 68 YEARS OLD

You’re a blogger at 68, when many people your age are still trying to get on to the Internet. Do you think it's important to stay engaged with the youth generation? Do you think blogs are a good medium for bridging generational gaps?

The non-linear world: Can you blog and walk at the same time? There are probably more people my age online than is recognized. I think it is important to stay engaged with the youth generation to the degree that is possible. I taught at the University of Massachusetts for 32 years, retiring at the end of 2003. I retired in part because I couldn’t continue to bridge the generational difference between my students and me. Yes, I blog but Facebook, YouTube, and other such enterprises are beyond me. At age 68, I keep having to decide: Given however much time I have left, how do I want to use it? One of my children is on Facebook and I enjoy logging in and seeing what she’s up to, but I don’t have the time or energy to create a Facebook site for myself.

One difference that my daughter and I talk about is that I grew up in a “linear world,” i.e. the world of print, and also a world in which you did one thing at a time. She has grown up in a world of simultaneity, a world in which one does several things simultaneously. It took me a while to understand that I can be talking to a friend in France on Skype and at the same time being sending that friend an attachment relating to what we’re talking about. And there’re probably four other things I could be doing at the same time. I grew up taking piano lessons; my daughter grew up with Garageband. A big difference.

I want to stay engaged with younger generations but recognize that I can only do so to a limited extent. Aging has its own interesting challenges and rewards. One is relief that I won’t be young again; another is the ability to look back to when I was young and what my dreams were and being able to say that I have achieved what I set out to achieve and more, that I didn’t sell out, that I made my dreams become reality. I would not trade being 68 for anything.

Are there any classic writers that would have thrived in this new media environment?

The Perez Hilton of Dublin: Joyce (drawn in text) This is a very interesting question. The writer who first comes to mind is Malcolm Lowery. I don’t remember the name of the novel, but one of his novels has a separate text running in the margin next to the main text. I wrote a short story (“The Child,” published in Join In: Multiethnic Short Stories) and a novella (“Catskill Morning,” published in Two Love Stories) in which I attempted to tell two stories—one in the margin, the other the main text. And I think James Joyce would have excelled in this new environment. To be able to add visuals to stream of consciousness feels like a natural for him. Although he’s not a writer, certainly Picasso would have thrived on the kind of art that is possible now, which can combine text, visuals, and sound.

I went with Baldwin one day to help him buy an electric typewriter. It frightened him so, I don’t think he ever used it.

What blogs do you read? You mentioned seeing me on Gawker.

I read Gawker, Jezebel, The Assimilated Negro, and several blogs devoted to women’s fashions. I love women’s fashions and subscribe to Vogue, Paris Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, and a couple of others. Both Gawker and Jezebel are funny as hell. The contributors on both have raised cynicism to a height that has its own peculiar beauty. However, Gawker needs to lighten up on the cracks about old people.

Angel-headed hipster: Miles DavisON BEING NORMAN MAILER'S WHITE NEGRO (SORT OF):

Well, I describe myself as an old beatnik. I live less elegantly than my kids do. That's kind of my style—the sort of postwar graduate-student style. But I always liked a lot of stuff about the Beat period and the Beat people. I enjoyed the sexual freedom. I wasn't interested in being gay or bisexual, but I enjoyed the sense that you knew you could go ahead and do it. I didn't take a lot of drugs, but I was happy to smoke a joint now and then. I liked the music. You know, this sounds like a white guy talking about how he likes Miles Davis.

ON BREAKING THE COLOR LINE AT HARPER'S:

My first published story was plucked out of the slush pile at Harper's Bazaar. At that period, they didn't publish people like me. The editor, Mary Louise Aswell, asked me to change my name. I was a student at Columbia at the time, and you know what a thrill to get a story in a national magazine! She suggested that I add a u—that I call myself Herbert Gould, which didn't sound so explicitly Jewish. You know, there are Goulds who are not actually Jewish. Anyway, I agreed to do that because I was young and ambitious. But I came back to my dorm at Columbia feeling incredibly guilty and horrible. I called her the next morning and said I wanted my real name used. And she said, "We don't publish Jewish names in Harper's Bazaar." It wasn't her prejudice; it was company policy. But she was sympathetic with me and said OK. And the story was published in Harper's Bazaar under my real name, in the Christmas issue, which had 400 pages. But it was left out of the table of contents.

The obligatory visionary artist cigarette photo: GinsbergON DRINKING, FUCKING, AND DYING WITH ALLEN GINSBERG:

Once, at a restaurant in Paris, I saw Allen take out and play this funny little instrument. He sang this Buddhist country-rock song that went, "Eat when you eat, drink when you drink, fuck when you fuck, die when you die." There was something comical about his take on life. In fact, I think parts of his poetry that people take seriously are meant as comedy. Of course, he was also very much in earnest about his love life and about his various passions. When Sonny Barger, who was head of the Hell's Angels, sent a telegram to Nixon offering the services of the Angels as guerillas in Vietnam, Allen said he was gonna organize—and this is the phrase he used; I want to quote it exactly—“a disciplined corps of trained fairies to unzip the flies of the Hell’s Angels and blow them into peacefulness.” Well, it was very funny. And at the same time, there was a certain element of seriousness because he thought that if the Hell’s Angels only got good sex, they would relax—it was that kind of humor, what the carnies called “kidding on the square.”

ON TACKLING THE BEAT GENERATION'S DUMB JOCK:

I knew Kerouac through Ginsberg at Columbia when I was a student. When I first saw him, he was just a jock. He was given a football scholarship to Columbia. I don't remember how I first met him, but I know that Allen kept wanting me to be friends with him. Allen was like a mother hen; he wanted all his friends to be friends and he was trying to make us a Kerouac clique. He and I argued about only three things: We argued about his sexuality (not that I objected to his being gay, it was just that he wanted to convert me at that time); we argued about Saint Theresa, whom he followed; and we argued about Kerouac. Kerouac was a creep from the beginning, but I think his antisemitism didn't come out then because he was self-serving. He accepted all the help from Allen that he could. And he and Allen were briefly lovers. Poor guy died at, what was it, 47 or 48, and he was an old man when he died. And his becoming antisemitic developed along with his obesity and his alcoholism and his general falling apart, along with his becoming a right-winger. Remember, he supported the war in Vietnam. And he supported Nixon. I think his mind was pretty much gone.

On the road...to anti-semitism! (Sorry): KerouacON BECOMING A CHOSEN (AKA NICE JEWISH) WRITER:

The ethical standing of being Jewish appeals to me. I think Jews have something special to give. I do accept the idea, not that we're chosen by God to be wonderful, but that Jews have a mission to do certain things which are of virtue in the world and of help in the world. I think it comes down to the fact that heaven is very weak in the Jewish tradition. What happens when we die is we're buried and then when the Messiah comes we all come back to life. But we have to make it on Earth as it is; that's where our work should be done and where we're to enjoy life and where we're to make our memories and experience. It's one of the reasons so many Jews—all over the world but particularly in America—have become novelists. Because what the word novel means is new; a novel is news of the world. And we've had this traditional need to see the world as it is, and to do good for the world.

4'11" Fury: Not actually Edwards' grandmother, but how cute are those horses on her hat?THE AXIS OF CABBAGE

I’m a Korean-Irish Jew. My mom was born in North Korea and adopted at eight months by a Reform Jewish family. She was converted, went to Hebrew school, had a Bat Mitzvah and rebelled at 12 against everything, including Judaism. She didn’t raise me Jewish.

My grandmother was the one who was always pushing it. She gave me the history, taught me what Shabbat was. When I was 13, I accidentally started dating a Jewish guy. My grandmother was ready to marry us off the next day. He wanted to be a doctor. I ended up breaking up with him because, you know, I was 13, and she didn’t talk to me for two months. I call her the 4-foot-11 Yiddish Fury.

Eternal flame: Edwards as a rookie (the black hat means she's in training)

BANGKOK'S THATAWAY

I originally came to Israel on Birthright—this was in 2004. I was a poor college student looking for something to do for winter break. Late one night I went onto Google and typed “free travel.” Birthright came up, so I applied. My grandmother was delighted to pay the deposit and next thing I knew I was on a plane to Israel. I was looking at Thailand originally. I’d never heard of Birthright.

I started dating one of the soldiers while I was there. (Birthright may be responsible for helping half of the IDF get laid.) It was really nice because I extended the trip and got to stay with his family. He was killed in the Netanya mall bombing in 2005. Just a few days ago, the IDF arrested the driver who took the suicide bomber to the mall. It’s still painful to read this stuff, but it doesn’t make me love Israel any less.

I’m not at all worried about war or terrorism. I feel safer here than I do alone on the streets in New York City. Even when the rockets landed in Kiryat Shmona two months ago, you don’t realize it. People wrote me frantic emails, and I wrote back: “I just got back from the bar, what are you talking about?” Israelis don’t live in fear at all.

One of the guys: Edwards with her Stroudsburg, PA "brothers"BROS BEFORE HOSE

In the States, I was in a rut. I originally went to school to be a marine biologist, and then I went premed. I transferred schools and ran out of money. Then I found the fire department and fell in love. I was a firefighter in the States for four years, in the Poconos. There weren’t that many Jews in my area, and the one that I did find turned out to be gay and left me for my landlord, who lived upstairs.

The fire academy training lasted eight months. I still find it kind of challenging being a woman in a male-dominated field. A woman coming into a fire department is looking for a boyfriend or husband—or so goes the conventional wisdom. And I’m only 5’6”, I’m blonde, I’m not an Amazon. I had to prove myself.

I ended up graduating close to the top of my class. The guys in the States were like my family. Here, I’m working in the Kfar Saba station and I’m still feeling it out. Everybody’s really nice but I have to start all over again. Israel tends to be kind of chauvinistic sometimes. Although there are five female firefighters here, I’m the only paid one. The biggest professional difference between here and the States is the way firefighters in Israel respond when a call comes through. In the States, it’s immediate. It’s much more lax in Israel.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire: Edwards is the one on the left

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL

Every Israeli always asks, “Why did you move here?” They’re either happy, or they think you’re really confused, or they think you’re dumb.

Why did I move here? On the first day of my Birthright Trip, we went to the Wailing Wall. I didn’t know the protocol for approaching the Wall, but they told me to write a note and slip it into the cracks, so I wrote something about a close relative who had died. I went up and just started crying. It’s a very profound experience even if you’re not religious. This little old lady standing next to me grabbed my hand and whispered, “It’ll be okay.” That’s when I realized this was really going to mean something to me.

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ALSO IN JEWCY

Not everyone finds the Holy Land so hospitable: Jeff Koyen explores why Israelis are pricks. In fact, fewer and fewer young American Jews think Zionism is relevant to their lives, says David Shneer, and maybe that's not the end of the world. (Stefan Kanfer disagrees.) Religious conservative David Klinghoffer thinks God would be OK with this development. But how can everyone ignore a country where the people, as Miriam Libicki ably documents, are so incredibly hot?

When John Le Carré admitted several years ago he was a longtime agent of Britain's intelligence services, the bestselling spy-thriller writer explained his involvement in the sort of terms you’d expect from someone who had for decades brilliantly captured boys’ spirits with a romanticized vision of espionage. "I really believed at last that I had found a cause I could serve," Le Carré, then 69, said in a TV documentary, The Secret Centre. "I also longed for the dignity which great secrecy confers upon you."

If great secrecy can confer dignity, it can also reap a personal harvest of great emotional wreckage. Such is the lesson of The Champagne Spy, a new documentary about one of the Mossad’s most infamous operations.

Mossad better blues: The posterThe setting is the Middle East in the early 1960s. Egypt’s ambitious leader Gamal Abdel Nasser is luring Nazi scientists to Cairo to facilitate the tyrant’s desire to build a nuclear weapon’s program. At around the same time, a dashing millionaire playboy named Wolfgang Lotz (rumored to be an ex-SS officer) arrives in Egypt and sets up a riding school and horse farm that quickly becomes the social nexus of both Egypt’s elite and their new Nazi imports.

Lotz’s real name is Major Ze'ev Gur Arie. He's a Mossad recruit who was commander of an Israeli infantry company in the 1956 Sinai campaign. Arie’s covert identity – which gives him access to a tantalizing mix of women, wealth and intrigue – proves intoxicating, and ultimately, tragic for the Israeli wife and child he left behind.

That child, Oded Arie, finally chose to share his story (and never-before-seen family footage) with filmmaker Nadav Schirman, whose documentary is winning awards and impressing audiences on the film festival circuit.

I interviewed Nadav (a friend I met years ago during my stint at the Jerusalem Post) as he was getting ready to fly to California for the Los Angeles International Film Festival.