03:55 minutes (3.59 MB)
Menachem Daum, director of Common Ground, documents the heroic efforts of Catholics and Jews in a small Polish town to make peace after centuries of anti-Semitism that during World War II eli...
Common Ground
The filmmakers of Common Ground are returning to Poland to film their attempt to heal Polish-Jewish relations in the town of Dzialosyzce. Common Ground is to be produced by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky as a follow-up to their award-winning film Hiding and Seeking. These filmmakers also directed and produced the art-house favorite A Life Apart: Hasidism in America.
No Jews have lived in Dzialosyzce since World War II, when only 300 of the 8,000 Jews who had lived there perished. The filmmakers have invited today's Dzialosyzce residents, especially the town's youth, to reclaim the largely neglected Jewish portion of their own local history.
The film will be framed by a concert of Jewish and Polish music held in the ruins of the town's synagogue. Jewish survivors and their descendents from throughout the world will be invited to return to the town and will join the towns' residents and students for a day of commemoration and healing, to be concluded with a concert inside the roofless ruins of Dzialoszye's once magnificent synagogue.
Hartley Update
The filmmakers have just submitted a grant request to the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities). Daum and Rudavsky are in the research and development phase and have initiated efforts to elicit the town's cooperation in two specific projects: to build markers delineating the borders of the now invisible Jewish cemetery and to have the high school students undertake historical research projects aimed at uncovering the role that Jews played in their town's past.
The budget for Common Ground is $311,409.00.
How To Donate
All donations for the production and distribution of Common Ground are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
If you would like to make a donation, please click here:
For More Information
For more information, you can contact:
Oren Rudavsky
Production Company: Oren Rudavsky Productions
2255 Broadway, #312
New York, NY 10024
orudavsky@aol.com
You can also contact Sarah Masters, Hartley Managing Director
Phone: 1-800-937-1819 or 203-226-9500
E-mail: masters@hartleyfoundation.org
Website: www.hartleyfoundation.org
Hartley Film Foundation, Inc.
Westport, CT 06880
Interview with Menachem Daum, director of Common Ground
03:55 minutes (3.59 MB)
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