David Grubin's PBS film, The Jewish Americans, is perhaps the worst piece of documentary filmmaking I've lately seen.
Why? Grubin's clear bias.…
Admittedly, I've only seen a few minutes of the film. But what I saw was appalling.
Grubin slights the actual founders of the Soviet Jewry movement, the Bergson Group, Revisionist Zionists (Jabotinky followers), and many more while at the same time making Rabbi Stephen S. Wise look heroic, the mainstream Jewish community look like it cared about Soviet Jewry in the early years of the movement (a lie if there ever was one), and make the same American Jewish community appear to be suddenly Zionist due to the Holocaust when, in truth, American Jews were very much Zionists well before WW2.
In 1936, my grandfather gave what in today's money would be perhaps $20,000 to ship arms to the Jewish underground in Palestine. The arms were gathered by American Jewish teenagers, in Minnesota, no less, who collected WW1 rifles from WW1 veterans, along with other arms, and arranged to ship them to Palestine in crates marked as Bibles, shipped by a local Catholic priest in on the deal.
Watching Grubin's documentary, you would never know there was such a thing as an active Jewish underground in Palestine at the time or that American Jews knew about it, let alone cared enough to help.
His portrayal of the start of the Soviet Jewry movement did not mention Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ), Jacob Birnbaum its founder, or Glen Richter its longtime head. Last I heard, Birnbaum, now in his 80s, lives alone, sick, poor and forgotten, in NYC. Birnbaum and SSSJ were active long before the mainstream Jewish community. They pioneered the movement. Grubin does not mention them.
The same is true for Rabbi Meir Kahane who, for better or worse, was active long before Grubin's Jewish Americans could find Moscow on a map.
Grubin portrays the Rabbis March on Washington in 1943 as if the Orthodox rabbis marching had planned the demonstration when, in truth, nothing could be further from the truth.
The march was planned by the Bergson Group led by Hillel Kook (AKA Peter bergson). The group intended to have rabbis from all Jewish streams participate. But Grubin's beloved Rabbi Stephen S. Wise made sure Reform and Conservative rabbis stayed away.
The Orthodox rabbis were 'gifted' the march by Wise, who also worked to make sure the White House did not acknowledge the march. Grubin makes no mention of Wise's role.
I could write more but I fail to see the point in belaboring this. Grubin has done a horrible job. American Jews, however, will most certainly be too ill informed to notice.