PBS history of Jewish Americans
IN 1654, when the Portuguese seized Recife, Brazil, from the Dutch, many Jews fled; 23 of them ended up in New Amsterdam, now New York City.
That is the starting point for David Grubin’s six-hour documentary “The Jewish Americans,” which will be broadcast over three Wednesdays on most PBS stations beginning Jan. 9. The series ends with Matisyahu, the Hasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.
In making that leap, Mr. Grubin, the film’s director and writer, said, he had attempted to explore how Jews have held fast to their identity as they have also tried to become American. “The Huguenots came here, and where are they now?” he said in an interview at his production offices in an Upper West Side brownstone. “They have been absorbed. The Jews have managed to hold on to who they are, but that created all kinds of tension.”
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That is the starting point for David Grubin’s six-hour documentary “The Jewish Americans,” which will be broadcast over three Wednesdays on most PBS stations beginning Jan. 9. The series ends with Matisyahu, the Hasidic hip-hop star, one of about six million Jews in America today.
In making that leap, Mr. Grubin, the film’s director and writer, said, he had attempted to explore how Jews have held fast to their identity as they have also tried to become American. “The Huguenots came here, and where are they now?” he said in an interview at his production offices in an Upper West Side brownstone. “They have been absorbed. The Jews have managed to hold on to who they are, but that created all kinds of tension.”