Documentary producer David Notowitz recounts his personal and professional journey


By Michael Aushenker,
Community Editor
The Jewish Journal, April 17, 1998


If there is one word that sums up the intertwined destinies of an emmy-winning editor-cum-producer and a Ukrainian ice cream vendor, it might be Carpati.

The producer is David Notowitz, the vendor is Zev Godinger, and, while their lives are worlds apart culturally and geographically, Carpati - Notowitz’s latest documentary - has forever linked them cosmically.

Shot in 1995, Carpati is a window into the Ukrainian Jewish community, and it follows Holocaust survivor Godinger on ajourney to his birthplace. For Notowitz, nominated for three Emmy Awards and the winner of one, this tale of a Jew reconnecting with his roots resonates.

Notowitz himself grew up in the Northern California town of San Carlos.

One week after graduating from UC Santa Cruz, Notowitz moved to Los Angeles and began producing segments for the Financial News Network. Subsequent free-lance work led to work on the Emmy-winning “Once Abused, Now Accused.” And a chance meeting with director Yale Strom segued into his current work.

"I met Yale at a screening and said, ‘I want to edit your next film,’" says Notowitz. "Six months later, he called [and] asked me to edit his documentary, The Last Klezmer. Three years after the success of that film I was working with him to produce, shoot and edit Carpati. We did Carpati to capture the Jewish community in the Carpathian Mountains.... When we first came into Berogovo [and met Zev], Yale knew the story had to revolve around him."

Presently Notowitz is working on the Rhino Records Holocaust testimony Voices of the Shoah.

But it is Carpati that has made a lasting impression on Notowitz, an undertaking he considers "one of the most beautiful experiences of my life."

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