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From:
Steve Hoffman <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Tue, 1 Nov 2011 19:57:47 -0400
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I saw it. Indeed, Sholem Aleichem is often called 
the Jewish Mark Twain or the Yiddish Mark Twain.  
As Mark Twain preserved for posterity in writing 
the world of Old Times on the Mississippi,  
pre-Civil War War Hannibal, MO, etc.,  Aleichem 
conveyed in his writings the lives and living 
environment of shtetl Jewry in Eastern Europe & 
Russia. And like Twain, Aleichem was a humorist.  
And like Twain, Aleichem wrote in a people's 
vernacular.  Frankly, I didn't find the 
documentary particularly compelling as a film per 
se -- it's like watching a somewhat dull but 
informative PBS documentary, that sort of thing.  
My elderly mother, daughter of Eastern European 
Jewish immigrants, found the film very moving, but 
she's a sucker for any of those old sepia photos 
of her ancestors'  life in the "old country." In 
any event, Sholem Aleichem is a writer worth 
knowing about (and fun to read) and worthy of the 
"Jewish MT" or "Yiddish MT" appellation.

-Steve Hoffman
Takoma Park MD


On 11/1/2011 12:41 PM, Harold Bush wrote:
> Folks;  I heard about this new film, which is in town here, about the
> "Jewish MT": a phrase with which I was not familiar.
>
> it's called "Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness" -- anyone seen it?
> We will try to see it Friday.
>
> sholemaleichemthemovie.com/
>
> trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/sholemaleichemlaughinginthedarkness/
>

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