Early Throwback Thursday Post-Never Again-School Ties (1992) & Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

Tomorrow, January 27th, is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

While I do not want to talk about Auschwitz directly, what I want to talk about in this post the hatred that poisons hearts and minds and leads to the creation of places such as Auschwitz.

I am going to feature two movies, where the theme is antisemitism.

In School Ties (1992), David Green (Brendan Fraser) is the new boy in school and the new star of the football team. In order to survive, he has to hide his Jewish faith from his classmates. When a jealous, bigoted classmate accuses David of cheating and his faith is revealed, he must make a hard choice.

Forty five years earlier, Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) was released in movie theaters. Philip Green (Gregory  Peck) is a reporter who takes on the assignment of investigating antisemitism.  To fully understand the subject, he goes undercover as a Jew and will soon discover the hatred that he did not expect.

Both of these movies made and continue to make audiences squirm. As far as I am concerned, that is a good thing.  Being uncomfortable leads to dialogue, dialogue leads to questions, questions lead to open conversation and open conversation leads to understanding.

Never Again.

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