איטשע גאָלדבערג: אויב ניט נאָך העכער
Itche Goldberg: A Century of Yiddish Letters

In this film (83 minutes), 101-year-old educator, essayist, literary critic, poet, and editor Itche Goldberg discusses his life: his upbringing, schooling in Poland and Canada, his work as an educator and editor and his views as a literary critic. Itche speaks candidly with interviewer Eugene Orenstein of McGill University about the linke shuln (progressive schools), which he helped to shape, and very honestly assesses their strengths and shortcomings. Among other things, he recalls both a conflict with famed anarchist Emma Goldman and “kashering” a Yiddish reader with a photo of Lenin! What emerges is a multi-faceted picture of the world of a man who attended the funeral of the great Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz over 90 years ago and who remained creatively, intellectually and politically active in the Yiddish world until his death at 102!

Itche Goldberg (1904-2006) was born in Apt, Poland, and grew up in Warsaw. Since his arrival in Canada in 1920 as a teenager, the name Itche Goldberg has been synonymous with the linke (progressive) Yiddish movement. In 1925 Itche started Yungvelt, Canada’s first secular Jewish children’s camp. In 1932 he moved to New York City and from 1933 until the mid-1970s he was director of the Yiddish schools and cultural programs of the International Workers Order/Jewish People’s Fraternal Order (JPFO).(Beginning in 1953, following the dissolution of the IWO due to McCarthyism, the schools were run by the newly named Service Bureau for Jewish Education.) Itche edited Yidishe Kultur and the children’s magazine Yungvarg. In the 1950s he established the Zhitlowsky Foundation for Jewish Culture. He is the recipient of two major literary awards: Israel’s Itsik Manger Prize in 1985 and the Dovid Hofshteyn Prize in 1990. His latest book Eseyen — Tsvey (Essays — Two) was published in 2006.

Eugene Orenstein is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Jewish Studies at McGill University where he teaches modern Jewish history and Yiddish literature. He was a student in the Ordn-shuln (schools of the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order) where Itche Goldberg was his teacher. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

The films are directed and edited by Josh Waletzky, director and editor of Image before My Eyes and Partisans of Vilna, and the editor of Emmy Award-winning Itzhak Perlman: In the Fiddler’s House. Among other awards, Waletzky is the recipient of the Silver Ducat at the Mannheim International Film Festival for Image and First Prize at the Anthropos International Film Festival for Partisans. Other editing credits include Peabody Award-winning Revolution! (1997), the A.C.E. Eddie Award-nominated The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition (2000), the Emmy Award-winning She Says: Women In News (2001).