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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/22524/full/22524/filmmaker-pursues-search-for-henrietta-szold-the-untold-story/ <br /><br /> <b>Filmmaker pursues search for Henrietta Szold — the untold story</b> <br /> Friday, May 7, 2004 | by <p>ronnie caplane </p> <br /><br /><p>Independent filmmaker Abby Ginzberg of Albany knows a good story when she sees one, and she’s sitting on a great one. It’s about romance and a broken heart, and two remarkable people doing remarkable things. <br /><br /> It’s an old story but one that still echoes through the halls of Israel’s best-known medical facility — Hadassah Hospital.<br /><br /> It’s a saga that begins in New York City shortly after the turn of the century. Henrietta Szold, a brilliant but unattractive matron in her mid-40s, is assigned by the Jewish Publication Society to work as a translator for Louis Ginzberg, a recent arrival to the United States from his native Lithuania. <br /><br /> For five years, beginning in 1903, they work together. Louis Ginzberg writes “Legends of the Jews,” a four-volume treatise that establishes him as one of the world’s foremost talmudic scholars. The two spend a lot of time together, exchange letters and become close friends — a relationship well noted by New York’s tight Jewish community. <br /><br /> Although 13 years Louis Ginzberg’s senior, Szold falls in love with him.<br /><br /> In 1908, he returns from a trip to Berlin and announces that he has something very important to tell her. The news, Szold is certain, is his long-awaited confession of love and a proposal of marriage.<br /><br /> Louis Ginzberg was indeed in love, but alas, not with Szold. His heart had been claimed by a 22-year-old woman — ironically 13 years his junior — whom he had met only briefly in Berlin. They were engaged to be married.<br /><br /> Szold has a major and very public breakdown. The Jewish community is outraged. Louis Ginzberg and his bride are shunned and Szold’s mother, in an effort to console her daughter, takes her on a tour of Europe and Palestine.<br /><br /> “Henrietta was really upset, but it was the best thing that ever happened to her. Otherwise she would have spent the rest of her life making matzah ball soup,” says Abby Ginzberg, who has blood ties to both of the characters. <br /><br /> Louis Ginzberg was her grandfather. Her mother, Ruth Szold, was Henrietta’s cousin. <br /><br /> The break-up, Abby Ginzberg believes, motivated Szold to reinvent herself, saved her from anonymity and made her a major active player in the Jewish history of the 20th century.<br /><br /> When Szold, a lifelong Zionist, arrives in Palestine she sees the pathetic state of medical care, organizes American nurses to help and goes on to establish the Henrietta Szold School of Nursing, found Hadassah Hospital and become the bridge between two Jewish communities. Later she is instrumental in evacuating Jewish children from Hitler’s Europe and relocating them to pre-state Israel under the auspices of Youth Aliyah.<br /><br /> Her story is powerful and inspiring, one that Ginzberg wants to bring to the younger generation of Jewish women who know little or nothing about Szold. <br /><br /> “Movies are what they relate to,” says Ginzberg. “And since I’m related to both Louis and Henrietta, this is a story I have to tell.” <br /><br /> Although the story has long been part of Ginzberg family lore, it’s one that Abby waited to tell until the time was right. “I think I needed to become 50 in order to hear and see the resonance in this story and how it relates to my life. What was it in [Szold’s] life that enabled her to do what she did?” says the energetic, fast-talking filmmaker, who still bears traces of her native New York accent. <br /><br /> Ginzberg has been reading Szold’s diaries and letters, interviewing Szold’s 93-year-old nephew and searching for members of the Youth Aliyah movement who <br /><br /> encountered her. <br /><br /> Ginzberg envisions the film as a mixed format using a combination of photographs, dramatized inserts and a voice-over that tells the story. She is considering using herself as the first-person narrator, a challenge but one that she feels is justified because of the personal nature of the project. Of course the story can’t be told without addressing Louis Ginzberg’s role.<br /><br /> “My grandfather has been vilified by those who think he was a cad. Maybe he could have handled [the situation] better, but it’s unclear what he knew about Henrietta’s feelings for him.”<br /><br /> Although Szold’s diaries express her love for Louis Ginzberg, her external persona was typical of the era: repressed and Victorian.  <br /><br /> Ginzberg’s father, Eli, documented the relationship between his father and Szold in his memoirs, calling it an “exceptional friendship.” Ginzberg and her father had discussed the relationship and its effect on Szold but did not see eye to eye on it. <br /><br /> “My father’s position was that his father made Henrietta everything she was,” she says. Her father died in 2002, before she had the opportunity to interview him for the film. “I think that [Szold] had the background and sophistication to do what she did and the break-up may have given her the motivation to reinvent herself.”<br /><br /> Like Szold, Abby Ginzberg switched gears at midlife, turning to filmmaking after a career as a lawyer. She has produced, directed or edited more than 25 films over 20 years. Most deal with socially significant issues, and she has received many awards for her productions. This will be her first explicitly Jewish film. <br /><br /> While Ginzberg has pursued her passion, she is quick to point out that the life of an independent filmmaker is not just about creativity, but about fund-raising. Before she can begin production, she needs roughly $300,000 — the film’s estimated budget. She hopes to get support from those with a lifelong commitment to Hadassah and others concerned with preserving Szold’s legacy.<br /><br /> She is committed to bringing the story to life, to inspire and mobilize current and future generations of Jewish women. <br /><br /> “If you’re not motivated by a broken heart,” she says, “be motivated by the fact that the world needs help.” </p> <p> </p>

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