Cinema of the Pilpul: A Talmudic View of Early Holocaust Cinema

2023

27min

The most that mainstream culture knows of the Talmud is from the finale scene of Schindler's List, when Yitzchok Stern hands Oskar Schinder an engraved gold ring that reads, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." But how can Talmudic wisdom be additionally applied to the Holocaust, specifically how the tragedies of the Holocaust are depicted in cinema? Daniel Kremer, a film historian (and one-time observant/Chasidic Jew), takes a deep dive into both Jewish scholarship and what the cinema itself is capable of capturing, for once and for all time.