Jewish

Sneak Preview of Fioretta – With a Conversation with Randy Schoenberg. Randy Schoenberg (grandson of the famous composer) and his 18-year-old son Joey journey through Europe and the centuries to reclaim 500 years of family history. Along the way, they encounter kings, mystics, and a false messiah, as well as the long-forgotten ordinary people who witnessed Europe’s distant and recent past: the expulsions, the Holocaust, Communism, and, most recently, the refugee crisis precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Randy is renowned for recovering Nazi-looted art, but his greatest achievement might just be reuniting the fractured and scattered shards of his own family.

An Evening with Randy Schoenberg featuring a sneak preview screening of Matthew Mishory’s FIORETTA. In Attendance: Matthew Mishory, Director; Randy Schoenberg, Subject.

A dark comedic drama about Ella, a 34 years old theater dresser and mistress, who experiences the sudden death of her lover. She attends his Shivah (a jewish mourning ritual) while keeping her identity under wraps and dives into a world once forbidden to her. Through intimate encounters with his brother, parents, and, most especially, his wife, she examines her place in his life and eventually demands her legitimate right to mourn.

Narrated by Mayim Bialik and directed by Maxim Pozdorovkin, THE CONSPIRACY is an animated documentary that shows how a centuries-old myth has moved from the fringe to the mainstream, becoming a pillar of modern anti- Semitism. To tell this story, the film uses the first-hand accounts of three prominent Jewish families. We follow the Dreyfuses, Warburgs, and Bronsteins as the conspiracy develops and the lives of these families are woven further into its net. Alternating between the stories of a French soldier, a German banker, and a Russian revolutionary, the film spans centuries to show the recurrence of the same conspiracy theory. This conspiracy that ravages the lives of our characters is set against the backdrop of a larger story about the Jewish people. From Simonini’s letter blaming the French Revolution on a Jewish conspiracy to the poisonous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, conmen and forgers spin an elaborate web of lies blaming Jews for the ills of the world. Disaffected citizens conjure up alternative explanations for democratic progress, and delusional nationalists pin the failures of their country on Jewish residents. Antisemites attempt to justify their hate with pseudo-scientific race theory. All the way up to the present day. The Conspiracy ends by returning to Robert Bowers in his Pittsburgh apartment. Convinced that an aid society, with ties to the Warburg family, is conspiring to replace the white race by bringing in refugees, Bowers commits mass murder at the Tree of Life Synagogue.

Randy Schoenberg (grandson of the famous composer) and his 18-year-old son Joey journey through Europe and the centuries to reclaim 500 years of family history. Along the way, they encounter kings, mystics, and a false messiah, as well as the long-forgotten ordinary people who witnessed Europe’s distant and recent past: the expulsions, the Holocaust, Communism, and, most recently, the refugee crisis precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Randy is renowned for recovering Nazi-looted art, but his greatest achievement might just be reuniting the fractured and scattered shards of his own family.