Jewish History in Film 'Hester Street' is a nod to Jewish immigration

The year 2020 was filled with a lot of heartbreak in the film community and it ended delivering one final blow. On Dec. 31, one of the most important independent filmmakers of the last 50 years lost her battle with dementia. Joan Micklin Silver passed away at the age of 85, leaving behind quite the legacy. With 18 films under her belt, her most notable film, "Hester Street," released in 1975 and starring Carol Kane and Steven Keats, has stood the test of time and is still considered one of the most important works centering around the Jewish immigration experience in the late 1800s/early 1900s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The film is based on the 1896 novel, "Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto" and it is set during the year of its novel's publication. The story begins by following the young immigrant Yekle (played by Steven Keats, the son of immigrants himself) as he begins his affair with a beautiful dancer, Mamie (played by Dorrie Kavanaugh). Yekle fully embraces his new life in America, shaving off his beard and divorcing himself from his old name. He calls himself Jake now. When his wife, Gitl (played by Canadian actress Carol Kane, earning an Oscar nomination for her performance) arrives in America with their son from their Russian homeland, the film redirects its focus to her struggle to retain her identity from a man pushing her to change completely.

This film thrives in its subtlety, acknowledging the big picture without losing focus of its self-contained story. In the beginning of the film, we see the 'boss' of the sewing factory Jake works at, putting down the young scholar, Mr. Bernstein (played wonderfully by Mel Howard who was initially just going to be a crew member). A big difference between this new world and their old communities is pointed out, with the boss, a former peddler, telling him that in America the peddler can be the boss, and the scholar can make just six dollars a week. Mr. Bernstein is put down throughout the film by characters like Jake who want to expel their past to such extreme measures that certain concepts take over their values. In one scene, when Gitl is complimenting Mr. Bernstein, Jake corrects her, saying that he makes eighteen dollars more than him at the company.

It is of little surprise that Silver chose her first film to center around the immigrant experience. The daughter of immigrants herself, she recalled growing up and hearing about their experiences in Omaha. "My father loved to tell stories about his experiences, about his becoming a peddler and selling in the streets." Silver wanted to evoke the feeling of looking at those old sepia photographs, deciding to shoot the film in classic black and white, and it was no discussion that the Yiddish language would play a vital role in the film.

Getting the film rights for the book was the easy part for Silver, but convincing figures in the film community to fund a story as Jewish as this one by a female director on top of it was more than a little difficult in the 1970s. She quoted an unnamed Hollywood producer as telling her, "Feature films are expensive to make and expensive to market and women directors are one more problem we don't need." Even having several short films under her belt, one already dealing with immigration, meant nothing to a male-dominated industry intimidated by change. Luckily, with the help of her husband who was in real estate, they were able to raise enough funds to produce the film themselves.

The shoot went smooth, filming the exterior shots on Morton Street instead of the titular Hester Street to keep the film on budget. The entire production wrapped after a slim 34 days, and it is quite remarkable what she was able to accomplish in such a short time frame. And if finding the money to make the film wasn't hard enough, finding a distributor was even harder. It was considered too ethnic, too Jewish, too specific to distribute. All was not lost, however, as they were able to find help with distribution through several people who had helped market some of John Cassavetes' films. As a result, they were able to send it to several festivals and even have the honor of showing it at Cannes. This helped get the buzz going and, when it opened in New York several months later, they were greeted by lines wrapped around the block.

"Hester Street," at first glance, is an incredibly simple film about a woman paving her own path. However, this film was way ahead of its time in the way it tackles themes of ethnic identity and assimilation in ways never brought to screens before it. Gitl's struggle is that of many immigrants, the pursuit of this 'American dream' with the hopes of not losing their roots. Silver's choice of refocusing the novel's attention from Jake onto Gitl makes this film so much more than it would have been.

In a scene earlier in the film, Jake sits at a table with Mamie and their friends when a new immigrant comes over and sits next to them. Jake and his friends have shaved their beards, changed their clothes and, next to this man, look like they are from completely different backgrounds. They make fun of his hat, his prayers, his mannerisms, as if this man was not them at one point. In another scene, Gitl asks her husband, "Where in America is the gentiles, huh? I go with Miss Kavowski to Rivington Street, everywhere, Jews. The gentiles keep in another place, huh?" This is an important scene because Gitl is reminding Jake that he is playing dress up in a town no different from himself. He is trying to 'fit in' amongst his own people.

Jake: "Look at me. Give a look at me. Am I a Jew or a gentile? Forget that you know me. Just by what you see. What do you say?"

Mr. Bernstein: "A Jew is a Jew."

Zachary Aborizk is an independent filmmaker and writer based out of Orlando, FL. His work has appeared in such publications as Adelaide Magazine in New York as well as the Tampa Bay Underground Film Festival.