Salman Schocken was much more than the king of department stores in Germany. The bibliophile and maverick modernist bought Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, founded Schocken Books, and standardized Hebrew type.
Goethe Pop Up Seattle is pleased to support the online screening of
Schocken, on the Verge of Consensus as a partner at the 26th annual
Seattle Jewish Film Festival, which brings people together across the region to celebrate and showcase the vibrancy and diversity of Jewish life through cinema.
Join
Schocken director
Noemi Schory on
March 10 at
7:30 pm PST for a Zoom discussion with
Joe Schocken and
Barbara Lahav, who will share stories about the subject of the film and their uncle, Salman Schocken. Film ticket holders will be invited to participate.
This screening will take place online. The film will be available to viewers on the West Coast (WA, OR, CA, MT, ID) for 72 hours; registration ends 2 hours before this 72-hour-window closes.
About the Film:
Israel/Germany | 2020 | 75 minutes
Before WWII, Salman Schocken was known as the king of department stores in Germany, owning 22 locations and employing 6,000 people. But the businessman and philanthropist was also a man of letters: he owned a unique collection of 60,000 rare books in German and Hebrew, and in 1931 founded a modern publishing house committed to publishing Judaica and Jewish authors such as Franz Kafka, Martin Buber, and Elie Wiesel. A lifelong supporter of the Nobel laureate S.Y. Agnon, a central figure of modern Hebrew fiction, Schocken also bought the newspaper Haaretz newspaper and standardized Hebrew font type. Ahead of his time, Schocken was a maverick modernist in love with tradition. His secular humanist worldview embraced the belief that democracy meant cultural access and aesthetics for all.
The film transitions from black-and-white footage with narration to colorful scenes from the present day, and uses animation to fill up the empty Schocken stores and structures once filled with splendid objects and people.
(
Film description courtesy of the Seattle Jewish Film Festival)
About the filmmaker:
Noemi Schory has produced and edited more than 100 documentaries including
A Film Unfinished (SJFF 2014),
The Inner Tour,
Israel's Generals, and the historic films of the Yad Vashem museum and directed among others
The State of Israel vs. John Ivan Demjanjuk, and
Transport 222.
Registration
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