From Swastika to Jim Crow   is a 2000documentary  that reveals the little-known story of Jewish refugee scholars who were expelled from their homeland by the Nazis and found new lives at the historically Black colleges in the American South.

Producers Stephen Fischler and Joel Sucher have made a number of award-winning documentary films based on historical, cultural and pol i t ica l topics . They've received the  Guggenheim  Fellowship  in film,  Emmy Awards, Cine Golden Eagles, and the  John Grierson Award for Social Documentaries. 

From Swastika to Jim Crow  was inspired by a New York Times  editorial. The letter writer was upset by the fact that anti-semitic sentiment was being spouted by speech givers at Howard University  and other predominantly African-American schools. The editorialist mentioned the book  and lamented the past, when Jewish p ro f e s s o r s f o u n d re f u g e a t S o u t h e r n universities. The filmmakers were intrigued, bought the book, and began immediately planning their documentary. 

Professor Ernst Borinski at Tougaloo College, circa 1960Courtesy The Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher

About the Author: Gabrielle Edgcomb (June 23, 1920 – May 22, 1997)

Edgcomb is the author of two books of poems, Moving Violation (1973), and Survival in Prehistory (undated), as well as two books of nonfiction, From Swastika to Jim Crow: Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges (1993), later made into a documentary film; and Man-Made Lakes (1973), a book on reservoirs in Africa. She also was one of the translators of Marx on Suicide (1999).

Edgcomb was born in Berlin in 1920. Her family immigrated to New York in 1936, two years before Kristallanacht (The Night of the Broken Glass). They came to America as refugees, and much of Edgcomb’s work was inspired by her reflections on her nationality and the war. She first lived in Chicago for college and graduate school, and moved to DC, in the early 1950s, and remained there for the rest of her life. She was a c t i v e i n t h e C i v i l R i g h t s movement.

Some of her jobs were as E x e c u t i v e D i r e c t o r o f t h e Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, research consultant for the Smithsonian Institution, and bibliographer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She also taught at several Washington, D.C. high schools.

Source: http://washingtonart.com/beltway/edgcomb.html

Join us for a documentary film screening and dialogue of From Swastika to Jim Crow, a fascinating and moving one-hour documentary that shares the previously untold story of the many German Jewish professors who, after being expelled from their homeland by the Nazis, found new lives and careers at all-Black colleges and universities in the South.

Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens 829 Riverside Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32204

Thursday, March 13, 20145:30pm Welcome Reception featuring a very special community concertTies that Bind: Negro Spirituals, Freedom Songs & Soulful Hasidic Melodies6:45pm Screening7:45pm Panel Discussion and Q&A with

community leaders, filmmakers, and former student of Jewish refugee scholars

The screening is free and open to the public. Registration for the event is recommended, as space is limited. Registration can be completed through EventBrite.

WJCT will rebroadcast the documentary the following Thursday, March 20th, as part of our programming series.

Featured Panelists Stephen FischlerJoel Sucher and Steven Fischler founded Pacific Street Films in 1969. In a career spanning over three decades, they've produced, directed, written and edited over 100 films. Two of their NYU student films caught the attention of film school instructor Martin Scorsese. While caught up in the fury of the anti-war movement, Scorsese encouraged them to use film as a political tool.

FROM SWASTIKA TO JIM CROW, premiered on PBS in 2001. In a review in the New York Daily News, Eric Mink wrote that the film is an “affirmation of the human spirit, of the ability of one human being to touch another irrespective of race, religion or politics...”

Dr. Donald CunnigenDr. Cunnigen was a student of Ernst Borinski. at Tugaloo College where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology-anthropology and Afro-American Studies in 1974. He received his Masters from the University of New Hampshire in 1976 and Harvard University in 1979. In 1988, he received Doctorate of Philosophy in Sociology from Harvard. His dissertation focused on the racial views of white liberals in Mississippi and North Carolina after the 1954 Brown decision. His areas of specialization are race relations, social movements and social change, and sociology of education.

On June 18, 1964, Sixteen rabbis were arrested in St. Augustine, the largest mass arrest of rabbis in the United States. The rabbis arrested came to St. Augustine in response to an appeal made by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed to a meeting of the Central Conference of American Rabbis through his friend, Rabbi Israel Dresner, then in the pulpit of Springfield, New Jersey’s Temple Sha’arey Shalom. Reverend King asked the rabbis to join him in St. Augustine in “a creative witness to our joint convictions of equality and racial justice.” 

While in jail in St. Augustine, the 16 rabbis (and Al Vorspan, a layman and staff person of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations) penned the following letter explaining why they went:

…We shall not soon forget the stirring and heartfelt excitement with which the Negro community greeted us with full-throated hymns and hallelujahs, which pulsated and resounded through the church; nor the bond of affectionate solidarity which joined us hand in hand during our marches through town; nor the exaltation which lifted our voices and hearts in unison; nor the common purpose which transcended our fears as well as all the boundaries of race, geography and circumstance. We hope we have strengthened the morale of St. Augustine Negroes as they strive to claim their dignity and humanity; we know they have strengthened ours.

Each of us has in this experience become a little more the person, a bit more the rabbi he always hoped to be (but has not yet been able to become).

We believe in man’s ability to fulfill God’s commands with God’s help. We make no messianic estimate of man’s power and certainly not of what we did here. But it has reaffirmed our faith in the significance of the deed. So we must confess in all humility that we did this as much in fulfillment of our faith and in response to inner need as in service to our Negro brothers. We came to stand with our brothers and in the process have learned more about ourselves and our God. In obeying Him, we become ourselves; in following His will we fulfill ourselves….

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Israel Dresner

EQ3 Media Creative Team

EQ3 Media designs creative campaigns for social evolution. We are a team of professional and passionate activists with decades of combined experience in executing inspiring and successful marketing and advertising campaigns.

Chevara Orrin is a community advocate extraordinaire and ‘soul connector’. Her commitment to LGBT equality stems from a long history of civil rights and social justice activism.

“My mother, Susanne Orrin is a white, Jewish civil & human rights, women’s liberation activist. My father, Rev. James Bevel was a "fiery top lieutenant of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a force behind many of the pivotal strategies of the Movement." My last name, Orrin was originally Ovrutsky, derived from a small town in Russia. My maternal great-grandparents were Shloimeh and Balah. My paternal grandfather, Dennis Bevel was born in 1880 in Washington County, Mississippi. He was a sharecropper and minister who built New Prospect Church in 1928.”

Dan Bagan is a skilled photographer, video producer and designer. He is a passionate photogriot who weaves together vibrant threads that tell the stories of our lives.

Laura Riggs is a Student. Traveler. Writer. Teacher. Specialist. and Ad Designer.

I believe in learning.  I believe in exploring.  I believe in sharing.  I believe in education.  I believe in becoming better.  These are just a few things that I believe define me.  Yet, above all, I believe nothing is definite.  Everyday we are given the opportunity to break the rules and grow.

The story of Black-Jewish relations in the United States is a long and complex one.... Jews were among those who worked to establish the NAACP in 1909. African-American newspapers were among the first in the U.S. to denounce Nazism.... FROM SWASTIKA TO JIM CROW creates hope and reminds us of a time in U.S. history when the two communities came together.

--David Horowitz, Washington Review 

This initiative was sparked by two concurrent photography exhibitions at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens. As a community, we share many threads of connection.

One Family: Photographs by Vardi Kahana(January 25 - April 7, 2014)

In the words of Vardi Kahana: This is the story of one family. It is the entire Jewish-Israeli narrative embodied in a single family. This is my family. To the big question of Jewish-Israeli identity, the photographs of my family provide a kaleidoscope of answers. From leftist kibbutzim to West Bank settlers and from Orthodox Jews in Tel Aviv to secular Jews in Copenhagen, Kahana’s presence behind the camera continually reminds us that they are all of one family. 

A Commemoration of the Civil Rights Movement: Photography from the High Museum of Art (February 28 - November 2, 2014)

The Cummer will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement with an exhibition of photographs from the period, borrowed from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The photographs in this exhibition capture the courage and perseverance of individuals who challenged the status quo, armed only with the philosophy of nonviolence and the strength of their convictions.

Sponsors of the From Swastika to Jim Crow Documentary Screening and Community Dialogue will be recognized for their generosity during the reception and screening. Sponsors will receive exposure on printed materials, social media and website recognition.

$5,000 Level Sponsors will make the following possible:

• Ties that Bind: Negro Spirituals, Freedom Songs & Soulful Hasidic Melodies - A Concert inspired by themes in the documentary and performed by members of the Jacksonville faith-based community

• Copies of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) From Swastika to Jim Crow Discussion Guide to be distributed for Community Dialogue after screening

• Community-based programs such as School Outreach and Community Panel Dialogue on Diversity with Stephen Fischler, award-winning filmmaker of From Swastika to Jim Crow and “Conversation & Cocktails” with filmmaker and former student of German-Jewish refugee scholars

• Screening rights and the Rebroadcast of From Swastika to Jim Crow on WJCT-8 (PBS)

Ongoing Collaboration "If our oppression is all connected then so must be our liberation."

--Philip Agnew

The following opportunities are available for sponsorship, as part of a 12-month commitment, to strengthen Black and Jewish relations in our community.

• “Soul Food Shabbat” exploring culinary intersections with Chef Amadeus, winner of Food Networks “Extreme Chef”

• “Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self” with author Rebecca Walker, daughter of novelist Alice Walker

• “Common Ground: African-American & Jewish-American Composers”, 1930-1955, partnership with the Ritz Chamber Players

Sponsors of the From Swastika to Jim Crow Documentary Screening and Community Dialogue will be recognized for their generosity during the reception and screening. Sponsors will receive exposure on printed materials, social media and website recognition.

$2,500 Level Sponsors will make the following possible:

• Community-based programs such as School Outreach and Community Panel Dialogue on Diversity with Stephen Fischler, award-winning filmmaker of From Swastika to Jim Crow and “Conversation & Cocktails” with filmmaker and former student of German-Jewish refugee scholars

• Screening rights and the Rebroadcast of From Swastika to Jim Crow on WJCT-8 (PBS)

$1,000 Level Sponsors will make the following possible:

• Screening rights and the Rebroadcast of From Swastika to Jim Crow on WJCT-8 (PBS) on Thursday, March 20th

If you wish to make a sponsorship gift, or pledge, please contact Chevara Orrin:

Contact Information:Cell: (678) 637-9041Email: chevaraorrin@me.comMail: EQ3 Media, LLC Attn: Chevara Orrin 301 E. Bay Street #405 Jacksonville, FL 32202