“Hester Street” Screening and Book Talk

Join the Museum of Jewish Heritage for a screening of Hester Street and a discussion with author Dr. Julia Wagner and filmmaker and Columbia professor Ira Deutchman.  

Joan Micklin Silver's groundbreaking debut feature film, Hester Street (1975), vividly portrays the immigrant experience through the eyes of Gitl (Carol Kane), a young, Orthodox Jewish woman who arrives in New York City from Eastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Reunited with her already-assimilated husband, Gitl finds they now have little in common and she is forced to adjust to a new way of life in the Lower East Side. Hester Street defied expectations on its release, and shines today as a triumph of independent, feminist filmmaking that changed the face of Jewish American cinema. 

Marking the film's 50th anniversary, Dr. Julia Wagner's landmark BFI Film Classics book about Hester Street is the first to focus exclusively on Micklin Silver's film. Wagner will introduce the film and following the screening, she will be in conversation with Ira Deutchman about Joan Micklin Silver’s legacy and the importance and impact of Hester Street.  

Run time: 90 minutes.  

Signed copies of Hester Street will be available to purchase after the screening.