Hester Street (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hester Street
Directed by	Joan Micklin Silver
Written by	based on Abraham Cahan's 1896 novella
Starring	Carol Kane Steven Keats Paul Freedman
Release date(s)	1975
IMDb profile

Hester Street is a 1975 film based on Abraham Cahan's 1896 novella Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto and was adapted and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. It stars Carol Kane, Steven Keats, and Paul Freedman.

[edit] Plot

Hester Street tells the story of Jewish immigrants who come to the Lower East side of New York City in 1896 from Europe and who live on Hester Street (Manhattan). When Yekl first comes to the U.S., he quickly assimilates into American culture and becomes Jake. His wife, Gitl, who arrives later with their son, Yossele, cannot assimilate and tension arises in the marriage. When Yossele becomes Joey and Gitl falls in love with Bernstein (who also does not assimilate) she not only leaves the marriage but outsmarts Jake as well.

The film is noteworthy for its detailed reconstruction of Jewish immigrant life in New York at the turn of the century -- much of the dialogue is delivered in Yiddish with English subtitles -- and was part of the wave of films released in the late 1960 and through the 1970s which began explicitly to deal with the complexities of American Jewish identity. In addition, Carol Kane's lead character posed a still-provocative synthesis as she discovers her own self-assertion on behalf of her right to maintain a traditional identity in an aggressively modern setting.