NORTH JERSEY Jewish Standard
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1996 VOL. LXVI, NO 50
by Alexandra J. Wall
This article first appeared in the New Jersey Jewish
Standard. Reprinted with permission.
When Yale Strom set out to make a film about Jews in the Carpathian mountain, he had no main character and no plot. He didn't know the finished product would involve a Torah traveling across the world. But that's what happened.
"As a filmmaker, you have to be flexible," said David Notowitz, the editor, cinematographer, and co-producer of Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years, which will be showing as part of the Margaret Meade Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan on Nov. 12.
Strom, the writer, director, and co-producer of Carpati, also directed The Last Klezmer, about Leopold Kozlowski in Krakow, Poland, the last man to be teaching Klezmer music and passing it on to a new generation in Eastern Europe.
Strom has spent close to 10 years on and off in Eastern Europe, and knew he would like to do a film about the Jews in the Carpathian Mountains. While before World War II there were approximately 250,000 Jews in this region, now there are no more than 1,000. So at High Holy Day time in 1994, he, Notowitz, and co-executive producer Steven Posen flew to Budapest, and took the train from there to Czop, a small town on the Ukraine-Hungary border. From there they hired a car which got them to the town of Beregovo.
According to Notowitz's account, they arrived in the middle of the night. The car dropped them off in front of the only hotel, which Notowitz described as "minus five stars." At one time it had been beautiful, he said, but now, several generations of paint were visible, as were drunken policemen asleep in the hallways.
In the morning, the trio awoke and went out in search of the shul. They didn't have to look far, as everyone they asked could point them in the right direction, even though there are at the most, 20 Jewish families in Beregovo.
When they arrived, Zev Godinger was fixing the time on the clock outside. He saw the men and immediately approached them and extended his hand. "Gut Shabbos," he said. (Notowitz was filming at this point, and this part is in the movie. When Godinger shakes the hand of Notowitz, the camera shakes visibly.)
Godinger, a survivor of Auschwitz, calls himself a "proste yid," an ordinary, or simple, Jew. Notowitz explained that often this expression is used as a slur, but Godinger takes pride in using it to characterize himself. In the Jewish community of Beregovo, he functions as "the shammas, the gabbai, and the chevra kadisha," he said - meaning as the caretaker of the synagogue ; the one who runs the service, deciding who should be called to the torah during prayer; and a burial society of one, by properly washing and preparing the body for burial and then burying the body himself.
Strom, who is fluent in Yiddish, explained that he was interested in the Jews of the area. When he mentioned the town of Vinogradov, Godinger became very excited. He was born there, he said, and had not been back in 50 years.
They traveled there together. They visited with the few Jews who remain there - about 40 in all - and found that there are still enough to make a minyan, but there is no Torah. They asked the filmmakers to help them get one.
The filmmakers returned to the United States with a challenge. They had their main character, and wanted to film Godinger returning to present a Torah to the synagogue in his birthplace. But first, they had to find a Torah.
Notowitz recalled that he sent letters to the editors of every Jewish Publication he knew, including one to his hometown Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. he sent faxes all over the world thinking that perhaps a Jewish community in Europe or Israel could help.
After getting one call from a Seattle woman who bought a used car with a Torah in the trunk - it turned out to be stolen - Notowitz received another phone call
A letter in his hometown Jewish paper had worked. "After faxing all over the world, I ended up getting a Torah from a place 45 minutes away from me by car," said Notowitz, who lives in West Los Angeles. The torah was donated by Cong. Shomrei Torah in West Hills, in the San Fernando Valley. The Synagogue board had seen the letter and decided they would loan one of its Torahs permanently - or at least until there were no longer enough people in Vinogradov for a minyan.
Six months later, the men returned with the Torah. Because of Jewish Law's mandate that the Torah must be treated like a human being, it needed it's own seat on the plane. Delta airlines agreed to donate a seat.
Notowitz said that, because of the traveling Torah, the men received many amused looks and stares. Jews asked them what they were doing with it; non-Jews asked what it was.
As for Godinger, he knew they were returning, but not exactly when. He has no telephone, and the closest one is down the street. Notowitz said that they would have to call the man with the phone to tell him to have Godinger wait by the phone when they called next time, because they couldn't always get through.
He was asleep when they returned; again they had arrived in the middle of the night.
"We woke him up and said, "Zev, what have you been up to?" and he answered, "Sleeping." Notowitz recalled. But he grabbed the Torah from them and carried it into his house.
"I couldn't believe my eyes," said Notowitz. "He was wearing these striped pajamas that looked like prison garb from Auschwitz." Notowitz pointed out that they returned during Passover of 1995, and Godinger and his relatives had been deported on the second day of Passover.
And on the second day of Passover, the group returned to Vinogradov with the Torah.
There is another subplot running through Carpati, showing the relationship of the Rom, otherwise known as Gypsies, and the Jews. Notowitz said that the word Gypsy is not only derogatory, but that it comes from the word Egypt, when actually the Rom are thought to be from Northern India.
"The Rom and the Jews share a lot of similar characteristics about them," Notowitz said. "They are both a wandering people, in many cases being forced to wander from country to country. Music is very important to them. They have large and strong family structures.Their communities are very strong, and they have strong loyalty to their communities, but they are also a very warm people." And the other similarity, of course, Notowitz added, was that they shared a similar fate at the hands of the Nazis.
Godinger had many Rom friends, and the relationship of the Jews and the Rom as told through him is a large part of the story. A particularly moving scene shows Rom musicians playing traditional Jewish music. One explains, if you want to work as a musician, you must know Jewish music.
Just as Godinger calls himself a simple Jew, "Carpati" is a simple movie. there are no elaborate plot-lines, no million dollar sets, or other big budget trappings. but for a film like this, these elements wouldn't work. The filmmakers hit a gold mine when they ran into Godinger fixing the clock that day, and although a simple tale that was ad-libbed along the way, it is beautifully told.
News of Carpati can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.notowitz.com/Carpati. The film is also available on video. To arrange a showing, such as at a Jewish organization, call New Yorker Films at (800) 227-0196.
Notowitz Productions 310-203-4721 Click us.