The Future of the Past: Shaul and Yitzchok Goskind’s Six Cities

• In Event: Jewish Belonging in the Second Polish Republic

Abstract

This paper examines the creation and content of the six short films dedicated to Jewish life in Polish cities, directed and produced by Shaul and Yitzchok Goskind. These films depicted the richness and rootedness of Polish Jewish life. Today, they are viewed with the knowledge of what was to come. Even in their own time, however, the films reflected a pragmatism about the future of Polish Jewry. They were written and narrated by a leader in the Revisionist Zionist youth movement Betar, and inspired by a visit Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Revisionist leader, made to Poland to outline his emigration plan for Polish Jewry to Mandate Palestine. The filmmakers' prewar work (and Shaul Goskind's postwar oeuvre as well) demonstrates a willingness to explore multiple avenues for Jewish life in Poland and an interest in, but not strict adherence to, various ideological programs. Careful viewers would be forgiven for any confusion about the films’ political leanings, as more than anything, the films are a nostalgic look at a wishfully imagined Polish future-present.

Author

• Sarah Ellen Zarrow, Western Washington U